One of the relaxation areas for the students is in the Google Creativity and Innovation Center. You've got to love any lounge that has white leather furniture, lava lamps and Lego!!!
So the plan for today (Monday) was to rent some vans and head into San Francisco for the day. The weather though, was supposed to be cold and rainy, so we decided to switch gears to practice project presentations again today, then have some free time in the afternoon .. and try the San Francisco trip tomorrow.
We head off to a breakfast spot that Stef had discovered on an early morning walk … Peggy Sue’s Diner. They were a little overwhelmed by the crowd that came in … and, unlike yesterday, didn’t handle it well! They didn’t start cooking until they had rung in the order for all 26 of us … and then it was chaos! You order your breakfast, then they call you back up to the window. Because the whole order was on one bill, it only had one number. The lady at the counter gave us all wrong information about what omelette was what … it took almost 25 minutes to sort it all out! But we got there eventually …
Back to the hotel to check for an additional check for safety violations … we had only one, which was corrected fairly quickly.
We do the “divide and conquer” routine again … splitting the chaperones into pairs, and having the students present to a different group than they had presented to yesterday. The students are gaining confidence, and the presentations are becoming far more polished!
By 12:30 or so, the presentations were done and we decided to split up and do a bunch of different things. There was a large group that wanted to go shopping, some who wanted to go to a movie, some who wanted to work on their projects and some who weren’t sure WHAT they wanted to do! So the group going shopping decided to test out the San Jose transit system, I hung out at the hotel lobby .. sort of the “calm in the middle of the storm” as the students checked in and out from their various afternoon adventures.
It was 5:30 by the time we had collected everyone together again, and time to head over for dinner and the Opening Ceremonies at San Jose State University.
Dinner tonight was an outdoor buffet at the University. Roast Beef, BBQ chicken, a variety of salads and fresh fruit and, the favourite of all, an ice cream bar freezer! After dinner it was time to head to the Opening Ceremonies. A pre-show featured various forms of Indian Dance, as well as a Samba Reggae Drum Line. Very cool!
Eventually, the lights went down, the music started, and the show was on!
This is the 61st Annual Fair .. and the largest ever! There are 1611 students from 59 countries. Countries new this year were Palestine and Morocco. Both were greeted with loud cheers and applause. One of the most amazing things about this Fair is that students are both full of civic pride, yet almost oblivious to the politics of their own countries. One of the most moving things for me every year is the realization that there is indeed an opportunity for world peace … these students truly see the best in each other, and their friendship translates political boundaries in a really profound way.
Highlights of the Opening Ceremonies included a presentation by Larry Page, co-founder of Google, who encouraged the students to “Have a healthy disregard for the impossible”. In other words .. don’t let anyone else tell you what you can or cannot accomplish.
Elizabeth Marincola, President of Society for Science and the Public, suggested to the students that they “make a point of talking to at least one person from another country, discover together what you have in common, and then make a pact of how you can work together to change the world for the better”.
This was followed by a panel of five “Intel Rock Stars” … high profile employees of Intel who have made a difference. One of those was Ajay Bhatt, a co-inventor of the USB key, who also holds 8 other patents. The panel took questions from the students .. submitted by Twitter during the actual panel session time. He talked about what it takes to be really innovative.
One of the other panel members suggested to the students that to be “innovative” is to be really, really brave. That in order to innovate, you need to challenge the status quo and often need to challenge people in authority. That when you have an idea that no-one else can get their head around to support in the early stages, that that’s when you likely have a truly remarkable innovation.
Other cool random facts from the opening tonight … (a) the Eiffel Tower has 2,500,000 rivets in it (b) the weight of a carat (200 milligrams) is based on the weight of a carob seed (c) Not that they have had any requests from out of space .. but Google has a Klingon interface .. just in case! (d) there were 4 Nobel Laureates at tonight’s ceremony
The absolute highlight of the Opening is always the “Shout Out”. Representatives from each country record a 20 – 30 second video message, and create a poster about their country. The two boys from Alberta, Brian and Gary, had recorded the video, and the poster was run up on stage tonight by Wardah from BASEF and Jonathan from YSC. It’s truly incredible to see 120 kids from 59 countries up on stage together working towards a common goal.
Ceremony over, we head back to the hotel, arriving back about 9:45. Curfew is 10:30 once again, and so everyone hangs out together in various locations until it’s time for bed. Which it now is for me too!
Up early tomorrow morning to go rent vans, then head with the kids to San Francisco.
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