Well, it's been way too long since an update. I need to update every day - there is so much going on in the world of kids, inventive thinking, and education, it's silly to not take time each morning to update.
So what's new?
Staples Invention Quest for Kids - Holy smokes. What a crazy ride that has been. This year, they expanded the competition to include kids under the age of 19. The prize is the same as the adult prize - $25,000 and a chance to have your product sold at Staples.
BKFK is running the kid portion of the competition and it has been amazing. The launch was in September outside Grand Central. Art Fry was there to help launch it.
Who is Art Fry, you ask? Post-It Notes. He invented the Post-It Note. < geek moment > I got to meet and talk to the guy who invented Post-It Notes! It was like. Geek royalty. Amazing guy - so kind and funny. Crazy. </ geek >
Anyway, it was an amazing event and the kids who showed up were excited and bright and fun.
4 days later, we
relaunched our own web site - with a new parent section. It is coming along nicely I think. We need to do a lot more work on getting content added. We have all of these amazing people connected to us who are willing to do just about anything to help our mission. It's just (just) a matter of getting it all in order.
Lastly, it's October and we're looking at
Kids Helping Kids. It's Disability Awareness Month and our first book is being published this month. It's called A Kids Guide To Giving and it's available now. Freddi Zeiler was 14 when she started writing this book designed to look at 101 charities relevant for kids. This kid is amazing. Well, she's not a kid anymore, she's in college. But she is an amazing person.That's barely, barely the tip of the iceburg here. I got to meet John Foster of IDEO, one of the most innovative companies out there. The NEA has gleefully endorsed our toolkit. We have two new competitions launching by the end of the year. It is massively incredibly gloriously frantically busy around here. And the good news is, the kids keep getting better and better. Every time I get an opportunity to meet our inventive thinking kids, I am amazed at the intricate nature of a child's mind - and how incredibly lucky I am to play a role (however small) in their lives.
Kumbaya over.