I’m at Microsoft’s Conference Center for Launch Education & Kids. Jason Calacanis is a self-professed “serial entrepreneur” and brought together designers, developers, educators, kids, parents, and sponsors for a kinda Shark Tank experience for apps and products. This is the 2nd year of the conference, and I’m grateful they offered 50 free tickets for educators (and chose me).
The conference launched with a conversation between Jason and Mitchell Kapor (@mkapor) of Kapor Capital. Mitchell started Lotus 1-2-3 (!) and now seeks to “seed stage startups and social ventures.” Their back-and-forth about education, startups, schools, technology, and information security was entertaining and informative.
Up next was @AyahBdeir, Founder and CEO of @LittleBits. Ayah is awesome. She’s an engineer who wanted kids to grow up learning how things work in this world dominated by electronics. I’ve been to LittleBits’s office in NYC, and everyone there is inspiring and innovative. ayay shared that they are beginning to develop programmable “smartbits” inspired by Scratch, Arduino, Raspberry Pi. Check them out here: http://littlebits.cc/