I was reading a news story this morning, about the passing of a man that I had never heard of. It was intriguing, because you don’t often see national headlines about people dying, that you’ve never heard of and particularly when their job was one in your chosen field of study. Dr. Randy Pausch was a professor of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University. It turns out that Randy was a pioneer and leader in the field of virtual reality, much like my current professor. As I read the story, I contemplated on whether they had ever met in their research. Randy had several claims to fame, but one in particular that stood out, was a presentation in a series called "The Last Lecture,” entitled “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams" (note - this was after he had been diagnosed with terminal cancer).
I rarely find presentations online that I can bear for more than two minutes of continuous watching, but I enamored with this one and soon realized that I had watched the entire hour and a half of his lecture. I learned that this is a rare man, both a brilliant thinker and a phenomenal presenter. It was inspiring not only in what he had accomplished in his short life, but more importantly, that he was this accomplished in my chosen field and I had not had the opportunity to hear him speak during his lifetime.
As this is a course in the future of technology, a thought occurred to me. I would really hope that at some point in the future, there would be a place where these rare breed of people can be identified and their ideas presented. We have a mass media outlet today called the World Wide Web, with all kinds of good information readily available, but no real portal that identifies and presents these unique individuals. Perhaps that will be my next goal; to establish a place where not the brilliant ideas are available, not the great speakers, but these rare individuals who possess both characteristics.
Randy’s speech can be found at: http://www.cmu.edu/uls/journeys/randy-pausch/index.html
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