Volunteering & Mentorship

2022, Mar 01    

The image above is of a FIRST Robotics Competition event at Kettering University in March 2020. There is robotics field with metal trusses and play elements, yellow balls in place on the field, wheeled robots on the field, and people standing around waiting for the match to start. There are also bleachers in the background filled with teams of high schoolers cheering on their robots.

SIGGRAPH Sandbox Symposium Events Chair, 2006-2009

What was essentially a cold call related to our videogaming events got me involved with SIGGRAPH and ACM as SIGGRAPH was just starting to get into games and real-time rendering. I organized gaming events for the Sandbox Symposium as a part of SIGGRAPH in 2006 in Boston, 2007 in San Diego, 2008 in L.A., and 2009 in New Orleans.

Jhai Foundation, Board Member 2009-2014. Board Chair 2011-2014

The Jhai Foundation worked to bring telemedicine to the developing world. I became Board Chair after the Founder, and worked to spin down operations after the Founder’s retirement.

Library Renewal, Board Member 2011-2013.

Library Renewal was founded to work to address problems with Library Digital Licensing and build a more sustainable model for libraries. The Founder discontinued the organization in 2014.

Skyline Robotics, FRC 3322, Media Mentor, 2017-2022

FIRST Robotics is an annual competition league for High School Students to build robots to compete in alliances of 3 robots. I became a mentor when my kids joined the team in 2017, and was a JV mentor that year; I’ve been the Media Mentor for the team since 2018. Here are some videos the team produced under my mentorship while applying for the FRC Chairman’s Award: