Every year we go on a couple big field trips, this year it was our California field school, in grade 9 it was our Florida trip, and more. On the side though, we do a lot of smaller day trips around Vancouver. Earlier in the year we went to the Museum of Vancouver, and now we have gone to the BC Tech Summit youth day. A lot happens during this day at the convention center. Companies bring some of their coolest products, schools exhibit technology programs, there are multiple speakers, and of course lots of cool displays.

We had four main tasks to do when we were at the conference. The first was to interview a mentor. When we were on the main floor, this one:

There was a bunch of ‘mentors’ at tables, they all worked for different companies that were using technology in new and interesting ways. Where I was, I was sitting with Simon, Kyle, and Spencer, we interviewed a lady who worked at LifeLabs. A testing facility that uses technology to test patients for any disease, this infor can be used by any company to cure the patient, or rehabilitate. I asked if that’s field was connected directly with my field of interest: rehabilitation and personal training.

The next assignment was to talk to a university presenting there about programs they offer that we were interested in. Personal training doesn’t use a huge of amount of innovative technology, so I expanded. What if I was trading or rehabilitating someone with a prosthetic body part? So I tried to find a program that involved prosthetics. I found Kwantlen Polytechnic University, a place where students learn about advanced robotics and technology, it was described to me as ‘A program where you learn to repair and build what no one else can.’ Woah. Not prosthetics. But still, I would be very opening to learning in a place like this.

The third assignment was my favorite. Before we went to the conference we all chose two speakers to research, once we had learned a bit about them, we were ready to listen to them speak. My first speaker was Brent Bushnell.

I was interest in Brent because I learned something really cool about his company, Two Bit Circus, I learned that they made the music video for the music group Ok, Go. He was such an amazing person, and he was totally this video all into a person, loud, fun, and enthusiastic. I would strongly recommend watching this video.

Also, check out the website for Two Bit Circus,  happens be a  huge project coming up soon that you should read about.

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My second speaker was Ryan Holmes, I won’t lie that name isn’t anything special but his net wortk and reason for it are.

He is worth around ONE BILLION DOLLARS all due to his company, HootSuite. This company wasn’t his first though, he told his whole come up. He had one quote  that really impacted me. He said: ‘You need to know enough to be dangerous.’ To me that means that you can only do damage to the world by using knowledge well.

Last assignment. We made a vlog. I worked with Sam, Simon, and Spencer to make a video. This was supposed to be a video that showed what we did during our day at the convention centre, where we went, what we did, and should also show what we saw. This video was not exactly a formal assignment, it was more of a free run fun time. This is what we made.

This was a very long day. We arrived at school at 7am, and didn’t get home until around 5. It was also a lot in one day, we went across town, listened to a whole bunch of inspirational speakers, interviewed people, leaned, did activities, and more. In the end, this was one of the many experiences that makes PLP unique. It was just tiring, so I’m a bit whiny.