growing up technologically inclined

i grew up with people staring at me. no, it wasn’t some giant protrusion on my face that caused them to stare. most days, many of my friends and teachers were amazed that a young kid, a black kid at that, was ‘technologically inclined’. i honestly never thought much about it. i liked things that worked ‘automagically’ and spent time trying to figure out how they work.

now, i realize that my curiosity has paid dividends to all aspects of my life, including my career.

you probably already know that i am a giant advocate of black people NOT being allergic to technology. i’ve posted howto guides, i’ve encouraged others to learn programming, and i’ve shown you neat websites that can help.

i was pleased to read that indiana university has partnered with 9 historically black colleges to emulate the importance of this idea. called STEM — for science, technology, engineering, and math — the program hopes to increase “the number of underrepresented minority graduate students, scholars and professionals in the STEM disciplines” through an eight-week summer course open to juniors with all expenses paid and a $4000 stipend.

wait. did you catch that? free money and free knowledge!

i am a personal testament to these type of programs having completed the nasa sharp plus program at cornell in 1999. not only did my experience allow me to work with a black graduate student making cool gadgets, it also fostered relationships that i still value to this day with the other participants. again, my technological appetite was fed by a program that stimulated my curiosity.

while the children of now will be the teenagers of our children to come, the reality is that they are growing up having never known what a world without internet is, better yet a dial-up connection! they will need programs like STEM to stimulate their curiosity so that our community becomes viable in this brave new world.

i encourage us all to read and to keep reading not only about the technologies that make us look ‘important’ (read crackberry), but also the spine of how these devices work. learn a new acroynm (like HDCP). learn another language.

you don’t want your explanation of ‘how does this work, mommy’ to be ‘well, it works automagically’.

be technologically inclined.