YEA Corps recently hosted a speaker, Brandon Pitcher, as a part of our zero-waste system with MNIC. Here is some information about Brandon. We were fortunate to have him speak to us.
Mr. Pitcher is a certified Zero Emissions Research & Initiatives (ZERI), Systems Designer with over 8 years of diverse global experience in sustainability outreach & education, zero emissions & waste consulting, and sustainable redevelopment. Recognizing the importance of education, he is an adamant and passionate advocate for exposing all to the opportunities ahead within sustainability.
Brandon has studied extensively the best practices around the globe for over a decade. He has visited and supported dozens of global projects in over 30 countries while learning from hundreds of scientists, entrepreneurs, activists, policymakers, educators, and community leaders in the industry gaining a vast working knowledge of dozens of projects and the underlying principles of their operations.
He has been the subject of numerous radio shows, TV spots, and newspaper and magazine articles in central Indiana and internationally. From a fluent understanding of numerous sustainability practices and theories and to becoming a certified ZERI practitioner in the United States, Brandon is always on the edge and is working adamantly towards changing the paradigm for development and education in the 21st century.
Star Tribune Feb 21, 2009 Article: Approaching SINGULARITY by Karen Youso
States: Kids may know their way around the Internet, but experts warn that they aren’t prepared for the future. We send kids to school, they move grade by grade, using the 18th-century model, and during that time, the whole world has changed so much. “How relevant is that education?” asked John Moravec, director of the University of Minnesota’s College of Education and Human Development’s Leapfrog Institutes. “We’re training them for jobs that existed 20 years ago, not for those that’ll exist when they finish school.”
“Who even knows what those jobs will be? The top 10 in-demand jobs for 2010 did not exist in 2004″, according to former U.S. Secretary of Education Richard Riley.
Google, entrepreneurs and scientists aren’t waiting around. This month they launched a graduate program, Singularity University at NASA’s Ames Research Park in Silicon Valley, where the brightest will collaborate and innovate in accelerating science and technology to solve what they called “humanity’s grandest challenges.”
Nobody can say for sure what happens after we reach the singularity. Ray Kurzweil, inventor and author of books on accelerating change, and others suspect that technology will meld with biology. They see enhanced humans with better bodies better brains and, with luck, better imaginations to see what can be possible.
ADDITIONAL ONLINE RESOURCES:
BBC video on the singularity:
http://www.thoughtware.tv/videos/show/93
Educating children for tomorrow:
