Back to school

As I walked from Caltrain to the Innovation Center, I looked up at the sky and the clouds reflecting the morning sunlight in front of a blue sky.

I was invited over the Washington Elementary school to shadow Principal Maria Evans. She is such a delight and I lost count at how many kids approached her with smiles and walked away with a hug. Our future generation is already amazing.

We went to the Power Rangers meeting in the library where the children took turns and shared what they have done to help their community. Simple things like helping “my mom wash the car” that made a huge impact with those little minds. As an adult, we are so busy and constantly multi-task, that we forget the simple things that our children can remind us about.

Leaving no time wasted, we were off to meet the Mandarin club meeting. The children repeated after Principal Evans a pledge that they would learn and share with others what they learned. The husband and wife that led the lunch-time club frequently visit China and bring those experiences back to share with the children.

On the move again, we stopped by the computer lab where a solo student sat reading an ebook during lunch. He is above his grade level and took a moment to use Read With Me.

Before I could blink, Principal Evans led me to the classroom of a fourth grade teacher who took time to provide feedback on the pain points she experiences.

The time I spent at Washington Elementary was beyond amazing, very humbling, and gave me an appreciation for the hands on attitude that Principal Evans is fostering. It is a very different experience than the one I had.

Back at the Manos Accelerator, David Shreni from WalmartLabs shared with us his knowledge of finding the right target audience. He mentioned moms make important decisions and can spread the word about a solution to her network instantly. Making solutions easy to use for the audience is really important.

Ending the day, I headed over to the Fairmont hotel for the Rackspace conference where they were talking about OpenStack on the cloud. They showed off both public and private cloud solutions and ended with a Happy Hour networking event.