Going to Texas!

In high school had the incredible opportunity to serve as the National High School President of SkillsUSA, a national career and technical organization that caters to students going into fields where you need a particular skill set to do (think anything from architecture to commercial baking). As a senior I got to travel across the country to talk with business and industry, government officials, and countless students about the value of technical education and my experience as a member of the organization.

Well SkillsUSA is again sending me across the country with an amazing opportunity. I was recently invited to be the keynote speaker at the Texas State SkillsUSA conference Opening Ceremony. This event is the beginning of 3 days of intense competition for students, but also a welcome to the event and a fun ceremony to motivate the students for the days ahead. So here I am, a senior in college, invited to give my first very large-scale (about 3,000 attendees) keynote address!

I am first of all incredibly, incredibly excited and honored. I love speaking and I think I have a pretty good story to share.

With the story of my car wreck, I am going to talk about innovation (my specialty as per the research I am currently doing at UCSD) and how it effects our daily lives with the intention of inspiring them to think innovatively. I’m going to bring up some of the fun inventions of my generation (internet, Facebook, coffee sleeves, the first down yellow line when you watch football) and then bring the speech around to medical innovations and the story of how my life was saved after my car wreck because of the incredible innovations in the field of medicne. I’ll then wrap it up with a talk encouraging students to be innovative-it doesn’t have to be some new groundbreaking idea to be innovative. Maybe it’s a cross of two separate fields (think bio-engineering, the first department of which was begun at UCSD) or a little thing that makes someone life easier.

And now for my request from you. What are some fun or effective innovations that have effected your life? Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!!

I fly off at the end of March but will be preparing vigorously over the next few weeks (I really want to be great!) so please let me know your thoughts!