First Post!

So for those of you out there who have no clue what I'm doing this summer, other than spending 10 weeks on some random island in the south pacific, here is some background on the program and how I ended up getting ready to spend my summer in Palau.

For those of you who do not know, last summer I spent my summer in Seattle, participating in an internship program at Amazon.com. The most important lesson I think I learned from this experience is that Computer Science is the right tract for me. I knew this because every morning I did not dread the upcoming day. Instead I was excited for the challenges that each day of work would throw at me. However, I left that summer with an empty feeling in my stomach. What good can I do optimizing business strategies for Amazon.com? Am I only helping some kid from Long Island get his Wii sooner by purchasing it off of Amazon.com? Or am I only increasing the paycheck of the big wig Vice presidents at Amazon? Long story short, I felt like my participation in technology this past summer was very selfish and beneficial toward the global society.

For those out there who disagree, to each his own? Some can live there whole life doing the sort of work I did at Amazon, but I want to see a more beneficial way of using my skill as a Computer Scientist.

In Carnegie Mellon there is a new program called TechBridgeWorld. And within tech bridge world there is a summer program called: Technology Consulting in the Global Community. Please explore the following links for more information:

http://www.techbridgeworld.org/
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/tcingc/overview.html

I saw the poster for this program I knew that it was exactally what I was looking for. A way for me to apply my Computer Science skills in way to benefit a society somewhere in the world. I applyed and luckily got in!

I was selected to be sent to work with the Ministry of Education in Palau. I still do not know the details of the the scope of my project. I will be working with Yixin Liu, a fellow student at Carnegie Mellon. More details to be shared about this project when I know more about it.

I am still currently in Long Island New York, getting ready for my adventure across the pacific to Palau.

I can not wait to find out what challenages await me there, places to be seen and other things that I just can not expect waiting here in New York.

Please feel free to leave comments! When I am in Palau I do not know how easy it will be to communicate so it will be nice to hear back!

-Tom