Close your eyes and think about today. Think about the United States of America. Think about the state of education. Think about the state of job creation. Think about the state of mind we are in. Think about what our country might look like in 20 years. Now think about and wonder why and who and when and what it's going to take for Detroit not to turn into a slum. What is it going to take for my niece and her friends to have the best education? And your nephew to graduate and not just get a job, but have a career?
I'm writing this on my laptop and you're probably reading it on your phone or tablet, and none of the stuff we are actually buying "regardless" of a recession is made in America. Technology is recession proof and most kids are not dreaming of being programmers, scientists or engineers. The ones that are, do not get the spotlight or attention. Instead, they are looked at as geeks or uncool, when in actuality technology is the only thing that is cool today. iPhones, Android devices, Facebook, Twitter (all tech), all exciting. This is why I put my own money, passion and time to take Dean Kamen's FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) and turn it into a back-to-school TV special.
Dean Kamen invited me to visit his office at DEKA Research and to also attend a FIRST gathering of high school kids who get together to build robots. Who knew there was an international competition of teenage robot builders? After meeting Dean and these kids, I saw the promise that these bright young minds. I am convinced that the 13 year-olds building robots and competing at FIRST will be the business and tech leaders of tomorrow. I am convinced these kids will invent new medical devices, communications and consumer electronics gear, rockets, renewable energy sources and high mileage cars -- the things that can help America better compete in a global economy.
You've probably noticed that it is "back-to-school" season and families are gearing up to send their kids back in to classrooms. The backpacks, lunch kits, clothes and school supplies are essential. But the most important back-to-school item on every family's checklist does not come in a package or have a price tag.
This is the gift of curiosity for students to learn and explore. Encouragement and positive reinforcement from parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents, neighbors and friends is what it takes to spark this curiosity.
I created the i.am.scholarship that includes high school academic mentoring with the i.am.scholarship College Track program. I'm also a co-founder and supporter of the Peapod Foundation with The Black Eyed Peas. These academic and creative scholarship support programs are young and growing, but are not yet able to reach every student that needs encouragement and support. That's why I teamed up with Dean Kamen to produce my back-to-school TV special, "i.am FIRST: Science is Rock and Roll" that will air on Sunday August 14th on ABC 7pm|6pm central time.
This TV special is part of my paying it forward plan, and a way to thank the people who helped spark my curiosity to do well in school, including my Mom and my uncles. I want to share my excitement about technology and science with as many students as possible and to show that it can be creative and cool.
For every person who took my first phone call or answered my email and good things happened, this is another reason to do a good deed for someone else. All those school basketball courts could be shared to host local FIRST club activities.
The theory is simple -- if entertainers perform in programs like the Teen Choice Awards, then why can't we do it for our kids who get good grades? You would be amazed to see how many people thought kids and robotics weren't important. It's amazing how many non-believers there are in the world, and I realized why America is in a weird state -- a divided state. A state of dysfunction. A state of what the fuck. It's like people don't want to take real risks. So I took a risk. I stand to lose a lot of my own dollars to make this show. I didn't do it to make money. I did it to make change. I called ABC myself and bought air time. Sometimes you have to take risks and just do it, so I did it and I am proud of this show and everyone who helped me.
Debt ceilings, unemployment rates -- this stuff I don't understand and I probably never will understand it. Just like how I don't understand why we can't create new jobs in America. Why can't the youth get better education? Why is it that every school, public and private, in good neighborhoods and bad has a busy basketball court while the majority of its students are underperforming in math and science skills? It makes me really sad and angry to know that the U.S. ranks 25th out of 34 places in high school math skills.
I feel obligated as an American citizen to do this work. I'm the guy that made the "Yes We Can" video, so this is my part of the "we" in the "Yes We Can," concept. I'm doing my part and so are these kids and parents that are a part Dean Kamen's FIRST. These kids are amazing. They are dedicated to math, science, engineering, technology. These kids are our Michael Jordans and Kobe Bryants and our team is losing right now. If we don't acknowledge them and support them, they might not want to play for our American team when they graduate from college. They probably won't create jobs in America with the technology they invent.
If we support the troops, we have to support our scientists, engineers, programmers, code writers and geniuses. I believe solving our debt ceiling is job creation, but what do I know? I'm just a rapper.
Please watch my "i.am FIRST: Science is Rock and Roll" back-to-school special on August 14th and support people doing their part to get America back on its feet.
Follow Will.i.am on Twitter: www.twitter.com/iamwill
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There is a need for an agenda, a national agenda, an agenda incited, funded and constructed in behalf of technological development of Black students. We have to be responsible for that however, not the government. Private funding would be honorable to receive, we need to do it ourselves otherwise. I will never forget what John Kennedy had to say about going to the moon. He said we "we're going, NOT because its easy ..we're going because it is hard." That one line has rang in my mind all these years. I followed the man to the moon project from start to finish, enthused with every launch, saddened by the Black astronaut, crashed in a F-104 Starfighter. I remember Gus Grissom and two others dying in an Apollo moon capsule test fire.
What Blacks need to go radical, build a science institute. Unless we go radical the African American experience will be no more than consumerism where technology goes. We need to build a science institute, in the middle of the desert, put young people through a regimen, so we can also represent. .
1. Freezing hiring in the US while hiring tens of thousands of highly skilled engineers and programmers in India and China. IBM now has more employees in India (about 100,000) than in the US. IBM can hire 10 highly skilled engineers in India or China for the price of 1 US engineer.
2. Buying software companies, and transferring the technical jobs to India and China, while retaining the marketing types, of necessity, in the US.
3. IBM takes on IT service work from other US companies, and provides the services using the lowest-cost employees with appropriate skills.
Look, there is one thing tech workers know in their bones. You can only solve a problem if you discover its root cause. The root cause of the degradation US workers is that the US (and global) economic system is *designed* to exploit workers.
As Warren Buffet has said, "There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning."
From an article from Oct. 2008, during the latest recession:
"This has been a brutal month or so for tech layoffs. According to our Layoff Tracker, there have been 19,683 job eliminations at tech companies announced since mid-September, and we’re not even counting the 24,600 people at Hewlett-Packard who are being eliminated as a result of its merger with EDS."
http://techcrunch.com/2008/10/24/19683-tech-layoffs-and-counting/
The high-tech is a notoriously cyclical, boom-and-bust field. It is also heavily dependent on the military industrial complex. War makes for "good times" for engineers. Peacetime, like right after the Vietnam war ground to a halt, results in mass layoffs of engineers.
That said, your statement that technology isn't recession-proof is false by its very roots. Job numbers aren't good indicators for a recession-proof industry. Take manufacturing for example. There are less and less jobs available in manufacturing, yet the manufacturing sector has been growing over the long term. Companies have been switching over to mechanized work, all of which is a result of technology. A large reason for so many layoffs is when large tech companies, such as Cisco Systems, become so big, they lose focus on what their primary product/service will be, resulting in inefficiency and a terrible business model. While high-tech is a notoriously cyclical boom-and-bust field, in the end, it will always grow.
Although I was not talking about the interaction of war and innovation, that is a very important topic. Take your examples of non-military based innovation:
a. The development of digital computers got a very strong boost from WWII, where some of the first computers were used to replace buildings full of "human computers" in ordinance-related calculations and other work. Look at the "first operational" dates in this table of early digital computers:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_computing_hardware#Early_computer_characteristics
It is no coincidence that the massive expense of developing all these machines came during the war years.
b. Hubble Telescope is a by-product of the competition between the USA and the USSR to exploit the military "high ground" of space. If not for the Cold War, the huge deployment of engineering talent in the aerospace industry would have been much less intense. NASA itself can be viewed as the "civilian cover story" for the huge government expenditures in military aerospace started in the Cold War that continue today. Think about this: how many Hubbles are there vs. how many satellites with their telescopes pointed down at earth?
GOVERNMENT SUBSIDIZED technology is recession proof.
Anything else is left to all the whims of consumer demand / ability to afford.
that is great what you are doing, but don't patronize the people who have real jobs versus those who make horrible music that sells a lot.....
Seems like Will.I.Am should walk the walk, and not just talk the talk. Education is free (at the library) on the internet. Everyone with a computer and an internet connection has been admitted to MIT, Stanford, Yale, and Harvard. Just check itunes, youtube, and the university web sites for free class lectures. If youre not up to speed check the Khan academy.
That is where we should be stearing our kids. With the worlds resources becoming ever scarcer the Military Industrial has become a "Go" industry, "thar's gold in dem dar ills".
Will I Whatever is a misguided ridiculously wealthy geek.
Get a soccer ball, kick it at him.
will i am is a geek, he should at least study wave physics. the music software he's using is based off of siesmology tech developed for oil exploration.
I am one of the kids who builds the robots that will.i.am is talking about. I am 16 and get made fun of for it. I am honored that he believes in me, and the thousands of kids just like me who would rather read books and write code than go to parties. Why is it bad to show America that 16 year old kids are as smart as NASA engineers?
If you think the arms industry is "where the real money is at" how do you suggest we get there? Perhaps by getting a college degree in engineering? So we can design new weapons? Oh wait, isnt that technology? Wouldnt it be easier for a high school student with background in design and CAD to design weapons when they get into college, than a student who has no previous knowledge in design at all? Why should we just wait to teach kids design when I know how to model an entire robot in CAD?
In my parent's generation, school was important, but education was MORE important. Lots of people took advantage of free opportunities like libraries and museums, and they managed to do more with what they had than we could possibly consider today. The issue isn't the programs and the commercials, though I agree that those may help; the issue is that we have little or no leaders out there who teach people that worth comes from within, and that success MUST be self motivated. You can go to Harvard, and still be a shlub. Or you can go to the library every day, go to school, read at home, do extra work, and make something of yourself. It is not upon the government to create programs for you, it is upon yourself to pull yourself up.