The Explore More Scholarship is available to graduating high school seniors and currently enrolled undergraduate and graduate students. You must be a U.S citizen or permanent resident and submit a blog entry of between 500 and 700 words on how you have used technology to explore your world in order to be considered for this award.
A fascinating collision is coming.
This is a period of time where change and advancements come faster and faster,
and our ability to alter our own environment for good or bad purposes, either
through in action and negligence or through unified pursuit of a goal is easier
than ever.
But with the capacity for great
change comes great responsibility. I think that as technology expands our
ability to explore our world, new threats to our freedom and to our moral
development are created at the same time.
Indeed, I believe firmly that the greatest challenges to humanity this
century will not be technological solutions, or problems with exploration, but
rather differences in our moral ability to ensure that all of the world's
stakeholders are given an equal share in communication and in the authorship of
the new world we are creating.
Understanding that I'm not limited
to what people have done before has been a crucial part of my development as a
student. Exploring my world has been one
of the most thrilling opportunities I've had yet, and things are only getting
more interesting. On the internet, I
read every day about massive developments in a variety of technological fields,
including computer science, engineering, and 'smart architecture'-- these make
the 21st century one of the most exciting times to be alive. We live in an age of nearly limitless
potential and possibility, and global communications networks help me explore
that. For example, a British university
team has developed spray-on solar panels[1],
which could revolutionize the rural electricity grids in the developing
world. Advancements in nano structures
and drug delivery systems have the capability to change healthcare as we know
it. Advancements in intelligent
computing have afforded to engineers new opportunities to create interactions
between consumers and the buildings they inhabit.
Technology has given me the focus,
passion, and the framework to better explore my world because I know how much
of an impact new technologies can have on my field. Over the last few years, I've become more and
more interested in using technology to solve ecological problems, and to create
innovative systems and solutions that no one has ever seen before. Specifically, my work on the "Green Roof
Project" allowed me to interact directly with project managers and
coordinators as we helped to install a natural photosynthetic layer of carbon
reducing plants on the roof of the Bank of America tower.
Technology has empowered the
powerless, and given a voice to the voiceless, and brought people together who
would have never communicated in the past.
But it must be a servant, never a master: already I see signs of people
becoming addicted to various forms of technology such as social media or smart
phones, and I think that nothing is a true substitute for actual human
interaction. The buildings and systems I
intend to create will work with public spaces in an effort to integrate smart
technological solutions to bring people together closer than ever, so that
natural communication is the direct result of the structures I create rather
than a byproduct of them.
