As mentioned previously, I spent this past weekend judging the Buckeye Regionals of the FIRST Robotics Program. FIRST is the acronym For Inspiration and Recognition in Science and Technology. Gloria and Tim Ferris attended one of the sessions, and Gloria has a fantastic write-up about it on her website which you can read here (scroll down to “I’m a Believer”). I’ll come back to my own thoughts on FIRST in a moment, but first two brief diversions…

Closing the Digital Divide

Yesterday I was in Columbus, ostensibly to speak with a representative from the Board of Regents about how OneCommunity and the Third Frontier Network could work together. But due to unforeseen scheduling snafus, that meeting didn’t happen—yet.

Another meeting did, however: I had lunch with John Hrusovsky of GroundWork, a not-for-profit based in Columbus trying to help small not-for-profits achieve efficiencies and lower costs in their back office, IT, and telecommunications services. John and I were both struck by the complementary ways in which OneCommunity and GroundWork were trying to achieve the same overarching goals: bridge the digital divide and help not-for-profits use broadband and ultrabroadband technologies more effectively to meet the needs of their constituents.

OneCommunity has another goal as well, which is to stimulate the development of new companies, products, and services that take advantage of ultrabroadband technologies in an effort to make Northeast Ohio—and ultimately all of Ohio—a center for the development and deployment of new, cutting edge information and communications technologies.

In an earlier post I mentioned some of the “behind the scenes” and technical issues OneCommunity is focused on in its efforts to create the necessary infrastructure to support the kinds of things GroundWork is doing. It’s ugly, boring stuff, but it is as essential to the economic development of the region as having off ramps in the right places from our highways. GroundWork understands the importance of what OneCommunity is doing, and we certainly recognize the critical work they are doing—which is why we will be looking for ways to work both ends towards the middle so that soon everyone will understand why this had to be done.

London the Center of Finance—Again?

One more minor diversion before turning back to FIRST. (I promise I’ll tie all these seemingly random threads together by the end, because they are in fact connected.)

This morning while I was working out on my rowing machine watching CNBC’s World Exchange (4-6AM—and well worth watching if you happen to be up at that hour) mention was made that London may be poised to regain its claim to be the financial center of the world, a title most people concede to New York today.

In previous eras Amsterdam was the capital, and then London of course, but clearly the market that most people follow these days is New York. It was early and I was multi-tasking, but apparently during the same time period that $3.5B in new company IPOs occurred in the US, some $15.5B occurred in the UK.

What makes this number most intriguing is it appears to have been limited in some way to non-resident companies choosing one market (New York or London) over the other for their initial launch. I could be a bit fuzzy on this point, but the implication was that no matter where a company is physically located, more new companies are choosing to have their stock listed on the FTSE than either NASDAQ or the NYSE. This implies that London may be rising again as a world financial center, possibly rivaling if not exceeding New York in importance.

Tying It All Together

OK, so how do all these things connect?

First let’s talk about FIRST. FIRST is entirely focused around teams and team building. Unlike old-fashioned science fairs, where individual students compete against other individual students, with FIRST, building a team comprised of kids with a variety of complementary talents is critical.

Everyone has something they are good at, and FIRST allows kids to discover their unique skill as part of one of these teams. Working effectively as a team is a major component of the program. With guidance from mentors and some support from adults, it is still ultimately up to the students (high school age) to put together a plan, raise the money, create a robot, and get to the competition. But that’s not all—the teams also have to give back to their community, by becoming mentors for other young kids, encouraging them to take an interest in science and technology, becoming mentors once they graduate, etc.

This year’s theme—and “game” for the FIRST competition was called “Aim High.” Teams of kids had to design and build a robot (no instructions provided) from a kit of pieces and parts each team purchased. This year, the robot had to be able to pick balls up from the floor, maneuver into position to shoot them into a basket or push them through an opening on the ground, in order to score points. Teams formed alliances with two other teams, and two alliances would compete at the same time—six robots on the field at one time, three on defense, three on offense, trying to launch balls through a hoop. Check out the details for yourself here.

Teams could add a few things from outside the kit if they wanted to try to give themselves an edge, but weight limitations and other factors tended to keep this to a minimum. Still, the kits themselves are not cheap: $5000. And if you advance to the next round, the states and the costs (new kits, travel, lodging, etc.) go up.

When I mentioned this to the staff of an elite local private school, their first response was “Is it only prep schools that attend?” (The answer most decidedly and emphatically is “No.”). I started to explain that teams do everything from recruiting sponsors to holding bake sales but it was clear my words were falling on deaf ears. The thought that this would cost money (remember, we’re talking about a school that charges more in tuition than many families in our region make in a year) was enough to turn these adult educators off.

Fortunately, most kids aren’t turned off, and see it as part of the challenge—and the fun of participating.

An entrepreneurship award is given out to the team with the most compelling and successful business plan for running their program. This year it went to a team from Girard, Ohio, near Youngstown—an economically devastated part of our community. These kids managed to raise $35,000 from their community to come to this competition and to enter other competitions as well.

Think about that for a minute—let it sink in what these kids managed to do. Talk about aiming high…

Oh, and did I mention that their robot made it into the finals?

Teams are encouraged and rewarded for helping other teams, and many teams take great pride in this part of the program, even when, as happens occasionally, they lose to the team they helped. That’s not just aiming high, that’s aiming higher…

As OneCleveland has evolved into OneCommunity there have been the seemingly inevitable battles between entrenched interests to make sure the project doesn’t succeed, instead of an openness and willingness to work together towards a solution that improves life here in Northeast Ohio for all our citizens.

When John Hrusovsky and I met, this was all we could talk about: how can we work together as a team to make good things happen? It was almost as exciting for me as the FIRST competition had been. (Come on, let’s face it, watching a group of teenagers competing with robots they built themselves is infinitely more exciting than two middle-aged guys talking over lunch about what they can do together, but you get my drift.)

Ask a room full of 4th graders how many of them are artists and every hand will go up; ask a room full of college students the same question, and you’ll be luck if any hands go up. Similar things happen with respect to science and engineering, and to manners and respect for others. By the time we become adults, we seem to have our hopes, dreams, and respect for others completely beaten out of us. FIRST aims to reverse that trend, and it is doing a wonderful job of it. Hopefully the spirit of FIRST will begin to pervade the conversations taking place between some of the larger firms and government agencies in our region and the OneCommunity team.

Oh, and that bit about London regaining its position as financial center? The point is this: it can happen. It does happen all the time—great cities and great regions slip, falter, fall out of favor, but those that aim high can regain their position as leading centers of excellence. Pessimism is a luxury only the rich can afford (e.g., the staff from that elite school). The infectious optimism of programs like FIRST should inform our every action in this region, prodding us to Aim High—fear of failure should be banished from our mental lexicon.

No one ever shot himself in the foot by aiming high, and if we as a region aim higher there’s no telling what we might accomplish. Why, we might even have the kind of success East Tech High’s first FIRST team had: comprised of five girls and six boys, they didn’t win the national championship, but every member of that team graduated from East Tech, went on to and graduated from college, most with degrees in science or engineering.

Aim high, work together as a team, view failure as instructive not punitive, and persist with gracious professionalism and there’s no telling what you—what we—can achieve.