Friday October 03, 2008

GHC08: Keynote: Mary Lou Jepsen: unofficial blog

Sleeping has been difficult here, I think it's the altitude (and staying up too late trying to get this laptop to cooperate....), but I was very glad I drug myself out of bed this morning to make the Keynote.

I wasn't the official blogger for this session, but got so much out of it I wanted to add more to Kate's entry.  Ms. Jepsen was such an inspiring speaker - describing how she started a completely different adventure (it's hard to describe One Laptop Per Child as just a career) based on her strong desire to make a difference.  She leveraged her expertise in optics to come up with an amazing new monitor for the OLPCs - one that uses low power, is normally just black & white (with a higher power consumption mode that uses a backlight and color as an option), and has the CPU behind it (so your lap doesn't get hot!).

I just love seeing when someone just follows their dream and finds success. It's inspiration for all of us!