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Big Beacon

When in high school, I remember deciding one of my life goals was to become a U.S. Ambassador. I’d never met one, but I liked the idea of representing something I was proud of in a foreign environment. Here I am, 30, and certainly not on a path to becoming an Ambassador to my country, but I have found myself to be an Ambassador to other things I am proud of amongst foreigners to those missions.

Big Beacon is a movement to transform engineering education. Late summer of 2012, through the magic of social media and the world wide web, I became connected with David Goldberg, the founder and leader of this movement. Read more about that fortuitous connection here. Here we are 9 months down the road, and I am pleased to feel like a true Ambassador to this movement and mission to challenge the status quo and transform engineering education.

Currently, I am the Leader responsible for developing and growing the Ambassador network, a consortium of people who are committed to challenging the status quo and transforming engineering education. I have a small, international team that I am managing as we create a prototype to launch this network. This is a volunteer project and effort.

Here are three other ways I am participating in this movement:

Weekly Twitter Chats:

We’ve been doing weekly twitter chats for a few months now, and I’ve lead/hosted five. Have a look at the introductions and summaries here:[list2] <li>1) Engineering Culture </li><li>2) Math-Science Death March</li><li>3) Listening to Stakeholders</li><li>4) Unleashing Student Potential </li><li>5) Gender Parity in Engineering</li>[/list2]

Guest Blogging:

I haven’t been keeping up with blogging on my own website, much less guest blogs (I do have a dissertation to write!), but I did write one: Change the Equation – Engineering Awareness in K-12

Visualization Challenge:

The challenge is for anyone and everyone, though we will be targeting students, to design any form of visualization based on the Big Beacon Manifesto. The goal is to increase awareness and personal connection with the manifesto, to yield MORE ambassadors. Follow along #BeBigBeacon on Twitter to see what people submit! Read about the challenge here.

Be an Ambassador

The point of being an Ambassador is to commit to something you believe in and be an active representative. In my opinion, I believe an ambassador by nature becomes a leader.

I look forward to future engagement and activity as an Ambassador to the Big Beacon movement. Are you a Big Beacon Ambassador?

[Much of this text is copied from a blog post on May 17, 2013

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