Live life agelessly, purposefully, mindfully, happily…
In a world where technology has become an integral part of one’s life, the academe is also searching and sharing ways to enhance learning. I spent a late afternoon in Xavier School to be part of the get-together of tech integrators from different schools who came together to share how different apps they use are integrated with the subject matter they teach.
Continue reading “Educators are now integrating tech in the curriculum”
(UPDATE: The winners are in BOLD. The remaining 7 teams will undergo a second screening to see how IdeaSpace can continue to support them.)
IdeaSpace Foundation, Inc. (IdeaSpace), the Philippine’s largest privately funded non-profit incubator and accelerator, headed by Marthyn Cua, is about to announce tonight the 10 (out of 17 competing teams) winners in its technology startup competition program. The winners will each receive at least PhP 1 million worth of seed funding investment, training and services.
More than 600 entries were submitted for this competition, involving 3 rounds of judging and a two-month intensive incubation program where the 17 finalists received an initial grant worth PhP 100,000 including PhP 50,000 outright cash grant to work on their product. During this period, they were also mentored and trained to build their entrepreneurial skills; they also got assistance for business incorporation and intellectual property filing support.
Continue reading “IdeaSpace announces ten tech startup winners for funding (UPDATED)”
I never imagined it would come to this but it brings me such delight to find out that the university where I earned my MBA degree, University of Pennsylvania, is one of several leading Ivy League schools in the U.S. that signed up with Coursera, a new venture that offers online classes for free. Yes…FREE!
So far, here is the list of top universities signed up with Coursera. Imagine, you can take a course from, let’s say, Stanford University, then take another course with John Hopkins or University of Michigan.
And here are the general course topics. Under each of these general categories are specific classes you can choose to take.
In their About Us page, the Coursera team describes themselves this way:
We are a social entrepreneurship company that partners with the top universities in the world to offer courses online for anyone to take, for free. We envision a future where the top universities are educating not only thousands of students, but millions. Our technology enables the best professors to teach tens or hundreds of thousands of students.
Through this, we hope to give everyone access to the world-class education that has so far been available only to a select few. We want to empower people with education that will improve their lives, the lives of their families, and the communities they live in.
The methodology being employed by Coursera is adapted to today’s busy lifestyle. Unlike a classroom approach where you need to be physically away from your work and devote time to class work, the Coursera approach, which by the way, is developed and taught by world-class professors, allows you to learn at your own pace, taking into consideration that you can only study in bits of time. The lessons are designed in such a way that you can read and reread till you master the course material. Interactive exercises will test your knowledge as well as reinforce concepts. And, you can monitor your own progress so you know exactly when you are considered to have mastered the subject.
Continue reading “Take online free classes with Ivy League universities!”
Upon waking this morning, I opened up my iPad. The familiar ding sounded and a push notification from MacWorld popped up on my homepage with the nightmarish news that Steve Jobs had died.
The brilliant, creative genius of Apple products that kept blowing us all away was gone. He was only 56.
Many will remember him for the genius that he was. Colleagues who worked with him probably remember him either at his best or at his worst. Most of us know him by the everyday devices we bring around with us that have become part of our identities.
But what struck me today, listening to the CNN coverage on Steve Jobs, was how he pursued his own version of a meaningful life with such a driven, focused passion.
Steve’s life has been very colorful. But his close encounter with pancreatic cancer in 2004 made him realize how life was too short. This mindset shift was clearly reflected in part of his speech at the 2005 Stanford commencement speech:
Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new…
Such profound words from a man who had a love-hate relationship with so many people who knew him! This must have been why he seemed so driven despite his illness. He wanted to go with a bang. And he has. He has left us with a legacy and many life lessons.
To me, what left a huge impression was Steve’s thoughts on death as a life-changing agent. It truly is. When we realize life is short, then we stop being a sham, a fake if you can call it that. We stop living someone else’s life. We begin focusing on who we really are, what we want to really do, where our passions lie, what counts in life, WHO count in our life. We realize that walls that we erect to ‘protect’ ourselves from hurt are actually walls that shut out people who love us. We begin to see people and things around us that, in many busy seasons of life, usually go by unnoticed. We learn detachment and see material things from a functional point of view rather than from an obsessed, never-ending acquisition binge.
To get a better sense of Steve’s mindset, watch this video of that 2005 Stanford commencement speech:
Thank you, Steve Jobs, for how you changed our lives in a dramatic way. How the world will communicate and connect will never be the same again. You will be truly missed.
The very first time I laid my eyes on an Apple product was in the 80s. Back then I was a graduate student in the U.S. working on my Masters degree. One of the Filipinos in my batch purchased an Apple IIe. He had it in his dorm room and I remember several of us going to his room to ogle and salivate. At that time, very few people could afford an Apple computer so it was quite the novelty amidst the Ataris and Radio Shacks others had.
My next encounter with an Apple was at work. Most of the computers in the office were Windows-based ones but when it came to desktop publishing, nothing could beat what the Macintosh could do. Fortunately, I was one of those who had projects that required me to work on the Macintosh using Adobe PageMaker. It was thrilling then to see how the icon-based user interface differed from the command prompts we had to type in on Windows PCs. It was really so much easier (and fun) to use.
However, there was a long hiatus as I went the way of Windows PCs and laptops when I moved to a bank which was predominantly on Windows. Both at home and at work, I became so rooted in Windows that when my girl received the first Macbook in the family as a graduation gift, I always wondered why she raved about its performance. The second Apple convert was my oldest son who began using an iMac at home. Then on one business trip, my husband came home with our first iPod – his gift for the kids. That was followed by another iPod, won by my son unexpectedly in a consumer product raffle.
Then, it was time for me to get a laptop when I needed to be mobile. It was a personal struggle – to go with a Windows laptop or move to the Macbook. One agonizing year – yes, believe it or not, it took me that long to weigh how I’d use it, how I’d adapt to new features and commands, and whether it was worth the price. I made the move in late 2008 and got myself the unibody Macbook. At almost the same time, I got an iPod Touch. One was for heavy, serious work. The other was for portability and communication when I needed to be mobile. It was a decision I have never regretted.
The genius of Steve Jobs has shown in each and every Apple device that has been made. I’ve read a book about him and it told of how he could be very hard on his colleagues, very demanding, unsympathetic and a lot more descriptions that are not really flattering. But in the end, his devices really spoke to the hearts of everyone, young and old. He knew what we wanted before we even knew what we wanted.
Someone once told me that when you’ve tried an Apple device, it would be hard to go back to Windows. I was a bit skeptical about that statement but right now if you ask me if I’d give up my Macbook and iPad and revert back to Windows and a non-iOS device, my answer would be a big NO.
The last bastion standing now is my cellphone. Because I love qwerty keyboards, I have not switched as yet to an iPhone. I am still on a Nokia E71, loving its tactile feel and being able to type texts rapidly without the typos I get on a touchscreen device. But there are many things I cannot do seamlessly with it. I cannot livestream properly. I cannot take a picture (because its camera is really lousy) and upload photos on the fly to my social media networks. But friends with iPhones can.
Maybe this is the time to go full circle and complete my lineup of Apple devices by getting the iPhone 4S. That is a decision I am still weighing at the moment.
Our home is filled with Apple devices, just like many homes are. Without a doubt, Steve Jobs and his Apple devices have changed the way I communicate, work, play and get my news. I really hope that the spirit of Steve will live on for a long time. The world has so much to be grateful for to this one man who went against convention and what people may call common sense (at that time) to make portable devices with powerful communication features and massive consumer appeal.
I’ve had my iPad for close to a year now and had downloaded the Find My iPhone app. But that’s as far as it went. Call it procrastination or simply neglect, but I never really spent time looking into, and activating, the app (shame on me!).I also had a password set up on the ipad but lazy me would keep forgetting to activate it whenever I’d step
At least until now.
A good friend recently lost his iPhone on the way home. He was not fazed. Being a geek, he used his Find My iPhone app to lock his phone remotely. Since the phone was not on wifi or 3G connection, he could not locate it right away but the ability to do it is there. I had already heard of people in other countries who have used this very same app to locate their phones which they accidentally lost or were deliberately taken from them (some such stories can be read HERE and HERE). But it was not until it hit close to home that I realized that I could easily lose my own iPad along with all my important data in it.
Losing a gadget does not just mean losing a gadget. Because of its storage capacity and portability, your entire communications and working life is often inside the gadget or phone. It has your appointments and contacts. Often, because of the convenience of being able to check email, you are permanently logged on to many of your email accounts. The same is true with social networking sites. Can you imagine what a disaster it would be to lose your gadget with you logged in to all your email and social network accounts?
On an iPad, this is what you need to do to secure your device (it may be a bit different on the iPhone or iPod Touch but hopefully, you can google the steps specific to your device):