Thursday, November 29, 2012

Fundraising, Radio National interview, two articles and specialist paid holiday sessions

It's been a while between posts...and lots has been going on at The Lab.

Here's a short summary.

Fundraising

Firstly, thank you to everyone who helped out with the Lab's Cup Day fundraising BBQ at two locations in Glenroy, our related chokky drive and the related organising of Lab USB sticks for sale. In particularly, we're so grateful for the tireless efforts of Karen and Anne-Maree in organising our fundraising efforts, for Carlo, Beverley and Werribee Rotary for the use of their BBQ trailer, and for everyone else for helping out. We made some good dosh and this is just the beginning of the fundraising activities planned by our parents.



More thank-yous and activities

A further lot of big thanks go to:
  • Paul, Carlo and Bailey for speaking about The Lab to the Young and Well CRC's board meeting in October
  • Dr Anne Harris from Monash University for organising for Dale and I to speak to her postgraduate education students in October
  • the recent Games for Change conference for having us speak about The Lab
  • the OzCHI conference for having Alberto and I presenting yesterday
  • Alberto for doing so much of the research' heavy lifting' in regard to journal and conference papers
  • Merinda Staubli for producing such a brilliant video about The Lab for her Swinburne film course
  • Paul for his visionary work in research and helping us work out where want to go
  • Our Sydney friends Bernice, Julia, Mark and James for their and Just Better Care's passion in starting and running the Sydney Lab, and the continuing dialogue that we're learning so much from
  • all the parents and well-wishers in their support of the Lab

Latest media for The Lab

A couple of weeks ago I did a radio interview on The Lab with Marc Fennel from ABC Radio National. The interview is now available as a podcast and will be broadcast this Sunday and the following Thursday:

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/downloadthisshow/dts46/4399680


A couple of relevant articles

Thorkil Sonne and Specialisterne (the company that trains and places young people with ASD in IT jobs) are moving to the US:

 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/02/magazine/the-autism-advantage.html

And, fyi, here's the famous article in Wired from a few years that asks: "Autism - and its milder cousin Asperger's syndrome - is surging among the children of Silicon Valley. Are math-and-tech genes to blame?"

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/9.12/aspergers_pr.html

  
Paid game tech holiday program

Lastly, Dale and the mentors will be running a series of paid multiple-day holiday workshops in programming and design over the summer holidays. These activities are separate to The Lab (this stream of activity is called the Devlab). They will take place early to mid January at The Lab and will cover:
  • Introduction to Gamemaker
  • 3d Design
  •  C# Programming & Unity3d Game Design
More details are here:

http://www.devlab.com.au/

These sessions are open to anyone and demand has been strong. Please tell anyone you know who might be interested!

Best,

Stefan and Dale