Astronauts, Robots, and Zebras

🚀🤖🦓 Astronauts, Robots, and Zebras.

Those were the hooks for my commencement speech for The Siena School last month. And the theme was to "Look for the Opportunities." Look for opportunities to pursue your interests, look for opportunities to serve your community, and look for opportunities to make the world a better place.

My stories to the graduates can be summarized as follow:
1️⃣ Astronauts: As a techno-optimist, I believe in technology's power to make us stronger, healthier, and happier. My journey, from dreaming of being an astronaut to building and launching a virtual reality system to the International Space Station, exemplifies how looking for pursuing your interests can lead to incredible opportunities even if they are different than you initially expected.

2️⃣ Robots: My work with CosmoBot and Cosmo's Learning System showcased how robots can be more than machines. CosmoBot became a companion and a catalyst for learning for children with disabilities. This story was all about looking for opportunities to serve my community, meeting customer needs, and make a tangible difference in the lives of these children.

3️⃣ Zebras: Inspired by my colleagues addressing global issues, I joined the board of Engineering World Health. Here, we look for opportunities to make the world a better place by working with students, both locally and globally, to fix and maintain medical equipment in low-resource countries, ensuring essential healthcare tools are functional and impactful.

These are stories of Opportunities. These are stories fueled by ideas, creativity, confidence, persistence, empathy and vision. All skills that I’ve learned over the years that have helped me forge my own path to invent an optimistic future.

Congratulations Graduates!