Rob Wilson thoughts about technology, education and life

Will.I.Am–Friend of Geeks

“I’ve got a feeling…” that theRobMan has more in common with will.i.am than I realized. Music has always been a big part of my life. I never go too far without a great set of headphones. I’ve played guitar for a thousand people before. I’ve written a few songs—one of them was recorded by a local musician and I’ve seen him perform it a couple times live. But what I’m equally excited about is innovation and technology. That’s one of the reasons I’ve always been a fan of Brad Paisley. The guy plays guitar with the best of them, writes some of the best stories ever in a song, pays respect to those that paved the way for him, and quite frankly is a creative genius when it comes to incorporating technology into a performance. He has set the bar incredibly high in my mind. Enter will.i.am. – rapper extraordinaire of Black Eyed Peas fame.

I recently visited East LA, where William Adams was raised. I saw enough of it to know that it is much different than the West Virginia where Brad Paisley was born and the Nashville (and apparently Malibu) he now calls home. Both of these guys are self made professionals. There is no doubt they had to work hard to achieve their levels of success. I have not met either of them, but they both seem to remember their roots and strike me as being grounded despite being super famous. Whether you are a fan or not, you have to appreciate that will.i.am is using his fame to make a difference with our youth. The impact could potentially go much further than a few changed lives.

Like many teenage boys, I dreamed of growing up and becoming a rock star. I learned to play guitar much earlier than I learned to program computers. When I really started working with computers in college and in my early career, it bothered me that more young people were not growing up with an interest in technology careers. Granted, there was a time when most of our tech jobs were sent overseas and our universities could not recruit people for a program that made no promise of employment. But now the jobs are back, and we have a shortage of tech talent. It seems that we have more young people content to partake of the games and social platforms developed by others rather than seeking to develop one themselves. This is one of the reasons I got involved with Vincennes University over seven years ago. Not only did I want to give back to my alma mater, but I wanted to increase the awareness of the exciting careers offered in tech – and more importantly, help young people find jobs. At a micro level, I have had some success with this. Aside from celebrating in the achievements of my precious wife and daughters, I find very little more gratifying than emails from former students – thanking me for my small role in their careers. It blows the paycheck out of the water.

So as a quintessential nerd and hopeless rock star wannabe, it got a rise out of me recently when I read some of will.i.am’s comments on the Mashable! blogs I follow. The first article I read talked about Will performing the first ever concert on Mars via the Curiosity rover. It was cool, but the follow up article was what really got me excited. Will.i.am was working with inner city kids to increase an interest in STEM – much like I have been able to do from Vincennes to Indianapolis through my roles at Vincennes University. I remember thinking as I read it: “Wouldn’t it be great if celebrities would continue to promote STEM and education – maybe even develop a reality show to encourage aspiring technologists like they do musicians.” So when I read TechCrunch’s article on the topic today about how Simon Cowell and will.i.am are creating an “XFactor” for tech, it was enough to prod me to pull the cover off the old blogmobile and fire up the engine! Like him or not, Simon Cowell knows talent. Personally, I like the way he carries himself and is transparent with people. I think he knows what the public will appreciate and what they will not. And it goes without saying that he knows how to create an award winning reality tv show. It is like he read my mind – only he will obviously make it better than I could have imagined. I would love to be a part of something like that, and on a micro level I will be. I’m looking forward to watching this unfold. I am convinced that games and social media platforms are going to be instrumental in helping us solve some of the toughest challenges our society is facing. I’ll explain that comment in more detail as I talk about some of my pet projects in future posts.

Cheers!

Update: As I was typing my blog post, Mashable! was posting their spin on the most recent developments. It's a good read.