Rockin' Robin: Robin Goldfarb Wilensky's Weblog

Sun Microsystems unveils a new Facebook application created by Zembly (Sun's social network for developers of social applications) called myPicks Beijing 2008.



This Facebook game allows people to predict winners in the 2008
Summer Games on behalf of themselves and their countries.

• When you first add the application, identify yourself with your country.
  If your predictions are accurate, you win points. All points accumulated are also credited to
  your country.
  
• You can view the leaderboards of countries & individuals. You can also see how
  your friends are doing and how your fellow countrymen are doing.
  
• Using Zembly, this Facebook app scales to a very large number of users playing simultaneously so be sure to invite all your friends!
  

Use the widget to the left to get some quick stats on the number of people playing the game for a particular country. The widget then takes you to a page that explains the game and then allows you to go to the location in Facebook where you can play the game.

Zembly is the world's first and easiest Facebook development environment. Zembly is built from the ground up on Sun's industry-leading stack of enterprise hardware and software, including Solaris, Java, Glassfish, and MySQL, and running on Network.com's next-generation cloud-computing platform.
See press release.

Go for the Gold!

Governor's School – Year 3. This third annual installment hosting the Governor's School was slightly different than in years past. Why? First of all, it was held in NYC instead of Somerset. YAY! Secondly, we added lunchtime BOF's (something previous year's students had requested – or at least suggested). And, lastly, we were also invited to be part of their mentoring program which I participated in.

The Governor's School Day was a big success, although we neglected one minor detail. They were coming into the city by bus on the day of the All-Star Game parade. However, we were able to regroup and change the schedule on the fly in order to accommodate the late arrival.

The morning general session kicked off with a video from Jonathan Schwartz and then the keynote speaker spoke about college and what these students ought to be thinking about. We then had 9 breakout sessions that rotated in groups of 3 per zone. My breakout was slightly different this year. In past years, I had spoken about the “Participation Age” but this year I changed the content to reflect the current times and presented on “Web 2.0 at Sun” which was well received. At lunch time, the students were able to select which BOF they wanted to attend. I held a BOF on “Technology in School & Online Safety” which a few students showed up for and we had a very nice chat on these subjects over Pizza. I also assisted with a second BOF on Wonderland and 3D Virtual Worlds. This one had a phenomonal turnout. Next year we will need to do this in a bigger room.

The day concluded with a general session on Sun's campus ambassador and intern programs in a panel format followed by some Q&A and feedback from the students. So far, we already have a record 96% response rate from the survey Sun sent out to the students. Way to go!

With regard to the mentoring program, I worked with a group of students working on Technology Outreach. They were going to be introducing technology and engineering concepts to a group of middle school students and a group of seniors. I worked with them on the middle school content. The group met me in the city for an in-person meeting and I was very impressed with the work they had done up until that point. They seemed very prepared and excited about the upcoming events. They also created an extensive and well thought out document on how to build a technology outreach curriculum. They were thrown a few curve balls along the way but they learned from each experience. The participants at the first event turned out to be much younger than middle-school but also a smaller crowd so the curriculum was amended on the fly. Some of the activities that were going to be utilized included making roller coasters out of pipe cleaners and marbles and experimenting with putting candy in a soda bottle. They also created a presentation to explain the engineering disciplines and give insight into various fields that use engineering and technology. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend the event, but I'm anxiously waiting to hear how the most recent one went.

Overall, it was yet another fulfilling experience. Feel free to check out my “Web 2.0 at Sun” presentation:

• Web 2.0 Slides 1-22
  
• Web 2.0 Slides 23-48
  
• Web 2.0 Slides 49-61
  

I attended an interesting event yesterday. It's called the Gauntlet and it's kind of like American Idol meets Venture Capitalists. Sun Microsystems sponsors the Gauntlet, run by The Hatchery, a customer of Sun's. This event brings together pre-selected entrepreneurs with a wide range of investors and they have 7 minutes to pitch their business plan. The panel then asks questions of each presenter, followed by 2 audience questions and then the panel has 1 minute each to critique. Each Gauntlet has a different theme and this month's theme was the Social Web.

The three presenters were:

• Magnify is a consolidator, if you will, of videos on the net. You can add user-generated video to your website or blog or start one from scratch. It is community based so you start getting more and more visibility to your site. Representing Magnify was Alan Medvin, Director of Corporate Development.
  
• Sparta Social Networks is like Ning on Steroids. It lets you develop your own white-label social network and runs entirely on Java and PHP. They are also a MySQL customer! Representing Sparta was Jerry R. Sheer, CEO and Neil Schaffer.
  
• Wizi is like Dash for cellphones. Wizi is a free location sharing application and traffic network. Your phone does not require GPS capabilities although if you have it, you can participate in sharing live traffic data. As your network grows, it will get smarter. Representing Wizi was Paulo Dimas, CEO from Portugal.
  

I also met a few people during the networking prior to the start of the Gauntlet. One of which was Mor Sela the founder of ProCompare, a collaboration site for IT professionals and business decision makers to meet. He is also the Meetup Organizer for NY IT Professionals and is very much interested in having Sun present at the next meeting. He did not know that Sun has solution offerings for small and medium businesses and is excited to learn more.

Which brings me to the conclusion. Why does Sun sponsor this event? Well, a big part of Sun's strategy today is to reach these small and mid-size business, up & coming startups and Web 2.0 focused companies. It's one of the reasons that we acquired MySQL and it is definitely the reason we created Startup Essentials, a program designed to lower the entry barriers for startups. Other ways that Sun is thinking about small and medium business include:

• Our Eco-friendly products and solutions lower your power, space and cooling requirements and costs.
  
• Our Virtualization solutions help you do more with less.
  
• Our Web Infrastucture offerings help you build a better web faster and cheaper with lots of Open Source tools like Java and Glassfish, LAMP and AMP support, and optimized hardware designed for the web.
  
• Our Product line focused on small and medium businessesoffers choice of operating systems including Solaris, Linux and Windows! Yes, I said Windows. And VMware. Sun also has a full line of x64 hardware servers and blades.
  
• Our Web 2.0 Solutions add value with things like the Sun Web Analytics solution and more...
  
• Our Desktop Virtualization solutions saves you money on expensive desktop fat clients, offers you anytime anywhere access and offers alternative productivity software.
  

So, that's why Sun is a sponsor of the Gauntlet and why the Gauntlet is such a cool event. I'm definitely looking forward to the next one!

Talk about showing up at places and nobody knowing why you are there. PodCamp NYC is one of those events. Sure, there were a few who understood that we provide the backend infrastructure for those cool new Web 2.0 companies but why do we care about podcasting, among other Social Media technologies?

Tom Taylor and I manned the table representing Sun and explaining things like Startup Essentials, the Sun Web Analytics Solution and other upcoming technologies. We showed presentations of where and how Sun plays in this space and even had Second Life at Employee Island running for a bit (before the unconference wifi died).

We quickly realized that it would be beneficial for us to have more representation at these conferences including session attendees. So, I switched focus and sat in on several session where I made lots of new contacts.

The opening session was brief. They just wanted us to dive right into the unconference and make sure we understand the ground rules. This is our conference. There are no attendees, just participants. And, we are all bound under the Creative Commons sharing license.

Then it was down to business. The first session I attended was called Teachers Teaching Teachers and it discussed a weekly podcast used to show teachers how to use technology in the classrooms. What I found most interesting about this, as it relates to Sun, is the host used for these podcasts. It's called EdTechTalk and I believe that it would be an ideal forum for Sun to host a show called "Startup Essentials for Students". Additionally, I met some folks who work at Carrot Creative who are very interested in partnering with Sun on some startup initiatives. Overall, it was quite a productive session to attend.

The session on using technology for differentiated instruction was interesting because it talked about ways that technology can reached underserved populations, again feeding Sun's notion that helps bridge the digital divide. The Second Life: Shifted Learners session was quite amazing. A middle school teacher is using Teen Second Life in extraordinary ways to teach students about immigration, bring literature to life and learn about body image, among other things.

The afternoon sessions I attended were equally engaging. There was a session on Social Media and issues around safety and privacy. The big message here was transparency and to remember that you are the same person online vs. offline. The session on Education 2.0 spoke of ways to use 2.0 technologies in the classroom and in every day life. One women spoke about how she creates a wiki page for her holiday gift list and how she recruited (dragged?) her family into using it. The last session was about how organic adoption of social media is the best method for corporations. Social media works best when it is not a campaign! I believe Sun gets this message but it was nice to hear.

Overall, I think that our attendance at this event was both important for our presence alone and with our Platinum sponsorship even better and also important as a way to keep a pulse on what is going on in the industry.

---

Just wanted to add a few notes here about "Bring your child to work day". Overall, I think the day went well. We showed a Mitel demo to the children which they enjoyed. But, I think the highlights for them were the sessions on "Eco" and on gaming. In the afternoon we hosted several high school students from MOUSE.org, an organization that creates technology opportunities for underserved students. I presented Sun's vision to them and how we are utilizing Web 2.0 technologies to be more productive at work. Then two of the students presented to us. One about an inventory solution he worked on and the other about a wiki site he build for "One Laptop Per Child". It was great to hear these students presenting on something they were passionate about and then ensuing conversation that took place was insightful. One question that was posed to the students was what they would like to see out of Sun. The answers, like a "Web 2.0 Operating System", were quite interesting.

Ok, that's all for now....
Hope you enjoyed this review.

Our second successful year went off without a hitch. Ok, so the Pizza got a little lost but everything else worked out great. We had Hal Stern and Jim Parkinson as keynote speakers and the students were all ears listening to them. They also had lots of questions which is great. We had some new breakouts and some old ones. We'll see how the feedback comes back but I know that several of the students told me it was better than their Merck visit and others said they also liked it better than MTA.

Some interesting tidbits that emerged from my impromptu surveys with each session.

1. Almost all of them have a FaceBook account and/or a MySpace account. FaceBook is overwhelmingly more popular than MySpace.
   
2. Less than 5 of the 90 students have used Hi5 or SecondLife.
   
3. Less than 5 of the 90 have their own Blog.
   
4. About 10% or so have used Wiki's.
   
5. The consensus on whether there is still a stereotype about girls being in technology was very mixed. Some girls said they are definitely in the minority and some said they don't feel any predjudices. It's good to know that shifts are happening in this area.
   

Also, the students in my session came up with some interesting ideas on how to use the tools of the participation age to solve issues that exist in their lives. This ranged from suggestions like having a Wiki or Blog for Governor's Schools students to share expectations and feedback on the program to next years students, or ways to address more global issues like global warming, accomodations for working mothers, and online learning.

I was very happy to have PARTICIPATED once again in this worthwhile program. As promised, here is the presentation and assignment for the "Big Lesson You Learned in Kindergarten" session.

Presentation - Part 1
Presentation - Part 2
Presentation - Part 2

Take care,
-Robin

I'm back with more ways Sun is making a difference. I just heard about this great success story & had to share it.

UAB - Enabling Physicians to Provide Faster, Better Care - Read about it

About the customer
The University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Health System manages the healthcare needs of Alabama’s diverse population, including inpatient and outpatient services, rural clinics, a research facility ranked 16th in National Institutes of Health (NIH) Funds, and a health plan with more than 65,000 members and 5,000 physicians. UAB is one of the largest transplant centers in the world and is ranked as number two in overall kidney transplants in the United States.
Their business issues were:

• Need to deliver patient information at point of care
  
• Must provide secure information access while maintaining privacy
  
• How to aggregate information from disparate systems
  

About the DIFFERENCE
Using Sun products and services, UAB was able to achieve these business results.

• Provide faster access to patient records at point of care
  
• Increase information sharing for improved health care
  
• Lower maintenance and support costs
  
• Provide a faster return-on-investment (ROI)
  
• Preserve investments in legacy systems
  

I think the biggest way that Sun helped make a difference at UAB is best explained with this quote from Dr. Michael Waldrum, COO of UAB Health System.

"In order to make good health care decisions and take care of patients better, you have to have the right information at the point of care in order to provide the highest quality of care you can... With Java and Sun’s Java CAPS integration engine, we can deploy the Web and utilize Web tools that allow us to give information to our providers quicker and at a lower cost. We can also build incrementally without having to rebuild the underlying infrastructure and change legacy systems. Using Sun tools we’ve been able to take information in disparate systems and aggregate it at the enterprise level, so it rolls up to the patient level and its available across the enterprise for that patient. And with Sun Ray clients, we can decrease the amount of time it takes to get the information, and provide it with less maintenance cost. Having the information available improves health care because clinicians can make more informed decisions. Additionally if that information can come to them easier then it improves their efficiency, so they can do more and be more productive."

Wow, that's a mouthful but no one else can say it better. Basically patients are treated better, faster & more economically!

About the solution
UAB deployed Sun Ray ultra-thin clients, Sun Fire servers, Solaris 10 , and Sun Java technologies to aggregate patient information and deliver it across all points of care.

• UAB deployed over 600 Sun Ray clients for patient information access and plans to add more than 3,000 over two years.
  
• To enable integration of legacy systems, UAB uses Java CAPS and Sun SeeBeyond eGate Integrator.
  
• UAB uses Sun Java System Identity Manager to integrate with the Sun Java System Portal Serverand the Sun Ray clients.
  

Just another great Sun story brought to you by Rockin' Robin!

Stay tuned. The Governor's School is visiting Sun again this July. The agenda will be just as jammed pack and just as fun as last year. Keep watching Rockin' Robin for updates!!

This one is not so much of a case study as it is about some cool things Sun is doing to promote the future of IT but I think you'll like it nevertheless...

Sun Microsystems Champions Student Developers in Higher Education - Read about it

About the customer

• Who's the customer? Well, in this case, it's the student!
  

About the DIFFERENCE

For Sun, the DIFFERENCE has always been the SAME - reach out to students and they will reach out to Sun. Plain & Simple. And it's the same message today. So, what's new?

• WHO: Today's Students
  
• WHAT: Sun has expanded its Campus Ambassador Program to 170 universities in 30 countries.
  
• WHY: "The next great technology innovation can come from anywhere," said Kim Jones, VP of Global Education, Government and Health Sciences for Sun Microsystems. "It's as likely to be invented by a student in China or India as one in London or Silicon Valley. Sun's goal is to empower academic developers through sharing, collaboration and open innovation—the key elements of what we at Sun refer to as the Participation Age. The Campus Ambassador Program lets students help each other gain hands-on experience with leading-edge, open source technologies. Not only will these students be prepared to compete in the global economy—they'll go on to create amazing new innovations, and we will all benefit."
  
• WHERE: Anywhere!
  
• WHEN: Now!
  

About the solution

HOW:

• By offering training and certification programs for the freely available open source Solaris 10 OS, Sun will empower academic developers to create powerful new applications. As part of this program, non-profit institutions (not individuals) become authorized, enabling those institutions to deliver training on Sun technologies to their faculty, staff and students.
  
• Sun offers academic developers free access to selected online courses through the Sun Learning Center.
  
• The freely available edition of NetBeans (produced by Sun in collaboration with the NetBeans community & the University of Kent UK) offers a seamless migration path for students transitioning from educational tools such as BlueJ to a full-featured, professional IDE.
  

This initiative is the latest in Sun's drive to provide academic developers with the educational tools and resources they need to cultivate important IT skills, participate in today's global economy, and contribute to the innovation of new technologies.

This one is from a few months ago but I just discovered it in EducationCommons.org (Yet another really cool thing Sun is doing to promote participation from the next generation!)

New Zealand Digitizes & Preserves National Heritage - Read about it

About the customer

• The National Library of New Zealand is collaborating with Sun to create next-generation digital libraries. They will develop the technical architecture to support the library's National Digital Heritage Archive (NDHA) Program, a national initiative to access, manage and preserve New Zealand's digital heritage.
  

About the DIFFERENCE

• Reduce the cost of managing data and, in the future, will revolutionize the way students and citizens can access information.
  
• Strengthen national identity.
  
• Promote the development of an inclusive and increasingly creative economy.
  
• Foster the development of digital preservation practices that will form an essential foundation to the take-up of e-government and the trust of the e-citizen.
  
• Provide a framework to encourage and assist New Zealanders to improve their technical and information literacy skills.
  
• Create fairer educational opportunities.
  

About the solution

• Utilizing Sun's newly acquired StorageTek systems & local Sun services, the National Library and Sun will develop an advanced information lifecycle management system, which will serve as an international model for the implementation of digital repositories and preservation management. This system will ensure the long-term storage and preservation of New Zealand's digital material and provide authenticity and integrity of data.
  
• Additionally, the National Library has been named a Sun Center of Excellence!!
  
• "The key objective is to make New Zealand's digital heritage available in perpetuity. We do not want to fail the future by leaving a gap in New Zealand's history because we were too slow or unwilling to confront the challenge of digital preservation now," said Penny Carnaby, National Librarian and Chief Executive of the National Library of New Zealand.
  

The solution will be international in scope, able to be replicated in other organizations that wish to preserve and mine information, and provide scalability over time.

Ok, this is the first in a series of blog entries I'm doing to show how Sun is making a difference in the world. I will highlight some very cool and impactful solutions that Sun has brought to bear.

1. Karmanos Cancer Institute and Rush University Medical Center - Read about it

About the customer

• About Karmanos Cancer Institute: The Karmanos Cancer Institute is committed to a future free of cancer. The Meyer L. Prentis Comprehensive Cancer Center of Metropolitan Detroit, operated by the Institute, is one of 39 National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer centers in the United States. Caring for more than 6,000 new patients annually on a budget of $200 million, conducting more than 400 cancer-specific scientific investigation programs and clinical trials, the Institute is among the nation's best cancer centers. The Institute strives to prevent, detect and eradicate cancer through 1,200 staff including 300 faculty members supported by hundreds of volunteers and thousands of financial donors. More information can be found at http://www.karmanos.org
  
• About Rush University Medical Center: Rush University Medical Center is an academic medical center that encompasses the more than 600 staffed-bed hospital (including Rush Children's Hospital), the Johnston R. Bowman Health Center and Rush University. Rush is noted for bringing together clinical care and research to address major health problems, including arthritis and orthopedic disorders, cancer, heart disease, mental illness, neurological disorders and diseases associated with aging. More information can be found on the Web at http://www.rush.edu

About the DIFFERENCE

• Secure health information exchange, cost-efficient data management, regulatory compliance and caregiver mobility are just some of the benefits of these solutions. These solutions also reduce costs and medical errors while improving efficiency and patient-centric care.
  
• "The Sun storage and retrieval system we are deploying at Karmanos is already improving our ability to make timely and accurate care-giving decisions by putting patient information at clinicians' fingertips in seconds," said Richard Doak, IT Technical Architect Manager, Karmanos Cancer Institute. "Beyond the healthcare benefits, the Sun system is cost-effective, dependable and flexible. Its tried and true design has been time-tested for 20 years, and its open architecture easily integrates with best-of-breed software and low-cost hardware, allowing us to expand its use over time throughout KCI."
  
• Rush University Medical Center's deployment of a complete Sun infrastructure for its new Electronic Medical Record (EMR) system. "When medical information is better managed through its lifecycle, medical errors are reduced..." said Joerg Schwarz, director of Healthcare & Life Sciences, Sun Microsystems.
  

About the solution

• The Karmanos Cancer Institute (KCI) in Detroit recently adopted a Sun StorageTek solution for its file-based clinical applications archive, which stores crucial patient data from a variety of hospital departments such as radiology and cardiology. The complete Sun archival system, which includes Sun StorageTek(TM) SAM-FS data-management software, a midrange SATA disk array and a tape library running on the Solaris OS, helps provide KCI physicians with easy and immediate access to patient records and medical imaging whenever it is needed.
  
• The new Electronic Medical Record (EMR) system at Rush was comprised of UltraSPARC®-based Sun Fire servers, Sun StorageTek solutions and the Solaris 10 OS, powers mission-critical patient information and financial applications at the renowned teaching hospital, to further improve their efficiency of delivering patient care and streamline operations.
  
• Sun technologies such as StorageTek(TM) 5800, SunRay(TM) and Sun(TM) Secure Global Desktop Software thin-client and mobility technologies, Sun Java technologies including Java(TM) Composite Application Platform Suite and Sun Java(TM) Identity Management Suite, as well as Sun Systems offerings are part of the comprehensive healthcare offerings at these and many other customers.
  

2. State of Washington Medicaid System - Read about it

About the customer

• The State of Washington's Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) assists more than 1.5 million children, families, vulnerable adults and seniors with protection, comfort, food assistance, financial aid, medical care and other services. As a single agency, DSHS is able to provide services from Medicaid and several other programs to meet client needs.
  

About the DIFFERENCE

• Faster access to claims information, more efficient claims processing and improved customer service
  
• Medicaid costs may continue to rise, but the state of Washington has put a system in place to keep the associated IT costs in check.
  

About the solution

• The Sun Java Composite Application Platform Suite (Java CAPS) will be responsible for addressing this connectivity challenge through the provision of integration and composite application development software. The architecture will support an Oracle 10G database and multiple Web-based applications running on Sun Fire servers and the Solaris 10 Operating System. A Sun StorageTek 6290 system and L700 tape library will provide a storage-area network (SAN) for efficient backup and management of claims data. The system's core Web server platform runs on a Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) foundation, and will allow users to access critical application components through a Web browser interface.
  

Keep up the good work, Sun!

The United Nations Global Youth Leadership Summit (GYLS) seeks to strengthen the worldwide movement to engage young people in decisions about the future of their communities, regions, and our emerging global society.

Young leaders, one young man and one young woman from the 192 United Nations member states, met in New York on 29 - 31 October 2006, to share ideas and actions plans on ways to reduce poverty and accelerate the achievement of the other Millennium Development Goals and build peace, with sport and culture as vehicles for reaching out to youth worldwide.

And THE Technology Sponsor for the event was....
Yes, you guessed it!
SUN MICROSYSTEMS

What does this mean?

Well, first of all, it means that Sun's name was all over the place at the UN!!! But, it also meant that Sun's presence in the Global Village was exceptional. The global village was an area that the students could go to browse the web, check email, etc... - all on SunRay's, of course! Sun also set up and hosted the website for the Youth Summit which included

• Summit Diaries - Opinions from the Delegates
  
• Digital Stories - Short video clips to express personal perspectives on issues and to inspire people into action
  
• Youth journalists report from the Summit - Professional and student journalists from around the nation provides daily coverage of the Summit
  
• Interviews from the Summit - Audio interviews of several of the delegates
  

and much more...

But, Sun in typical fashion, was not content to do this one-time event and walk away. So, they also created the UN Youth Mentorship Program and recruited delegates to sign up. This program brings the delegates together with volunteer mentors from Sun with the aim of sharing private-sector disciplines around building community, fueling momentum, measuring impact and achieving repeatable results.

Talk about Participation! What better way to reach the world than through its youth!!!

Overall, it was a very enlightening day for all involved. The students were genuinely excited to be there and feedback, both formal & informal, was very positive. We could have used more time to converse outside of the sessions but time was limited. From my sessions, I will say that I was very impressed with the students. They gave real thought to the presentations and asked probing and detailed questions and they had some innovative ideas to offer.


The puzzle I had put together was a big success. In each session, the students solved the puzzle amazingly quickly and in several different ways. Most of the students solved it by converting it to Hex and then mapping it to the ASCII table. One student solved it by noticing that 2 of the letters were the same and plugging in different vowels until he came up with the word. The one funny thing is that while they all came up with the word "Divide", none of them actually said "Digital Divide" which is what I was going for. They think so analytically that the whole digital part which we were talking about in the session didn't register. But, I will say that these students are really bright and it's not a cliche to say that they are the ones who will shape the next generation of technology!


To sum up, the day was an overwhelming success and I would love to participate in this again next year and other similar volunteer opportunities.

I'm still typing up my notes, comments & thoughts from the day but in the meantime, here is my presentation. I had to break it up into 5 parts to upload it. These are in StarOffice 8 format. If you haven't installed StarOffice yet and want the (over 11 Mb) format from that other company, just send me an email and I'll get it to you. Email: robin.goldfarb@sun.com

GovernorsSchool_BigLessonLearned_FINAL.odp
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

For your reference, I've also uploaded the Resources Guide pages of the Handout.

Enjoy!

Hi all,
In case you wanted a copy of the puzzle, I'm uploading the slide in StarOffice format. You can access it here: Puzzle

I tried to upload the presentation today but it's too large! I will break it into segments and upload them shortly. Hope you are having a good last week!

-Robin

We will be hosting 100 students from the Governor's School for Engineering & Technology. The Governor's School is a summer enrichment program that nurtures the talents of one hundred of New Jersey's top students who are entering their senior year in high school. The students are generally in the top 2% of their high school classes. The program is focused on the fields of engineering, information technology and technology. Through courses, projects, labs, trips and other activities, students achieve a higher level of understanding of the engineering process. Some of the technology projects they will be working on this summer includes things like researching challenges associated with building New Orleans, researching development of alternative energy sources and exploring opportunities for building communities in space.

There will be 9 breakout sessions covering 9 topics. Here are the team leads & the topics they are covering:
1. Matt Flippen: Alternative Careers
2. Robin Goldfarb: You & The Participation Age - The Big Lesson You Learned in Kindergarden
3. Glenn Burnette: Information Security for the Participation Age
4. Bob Salazar: Overview of Sun Java Technology
5. Jeff Reilly: Sun Ray
6. Lynn Smith: Customer
7. Need to identify lead/team: Solaris & Galaxy
8. Christine Breeze: "A Day in the Life of a Field Service Engineer"
9. Ashish Mehta: Open Source, Open Minds