Cipher Kindle: A Lead Up to Campfire 2016
ACCESS mentee group Cipher has hosted Campfire for two years in a row; we bring together about 100 people to listen to a few experts speak on topics concerning community, education and technology.
Co-Founder Jevin wanted to write a little on what he took away from his experience. Here’s part one, concerning Kindle ’16, a lead up event to Campfire we organized in early summer 2016.
Kindle ’16, a lead up to Campfire
On July 14th, we hosted a precursor to Campfire, Kindle, at Lab B.
Lab B is a coworking space where we have our meetings, run workshops and host events, like Kindle.
Kindle ’16 featured three speakers, Ahmed, Arsh and Robbie, who dropped serious knowledge.
Ahmed, Visual Designer
Ahmed talked about figuring out what you wanted to do after high school.
Here’s what I pulled from his talk:
There’s lots of people giving you advice on where you should be heading and what you should be doing — for most high schoolers, it is usually in regards to post secondary pursuits.
Your decision will determine the next several years of your life, and if you don’t give it serious thought you’ll waste a lot of time backtracking.
Do your own research, try every new thing you possibly can (e.g. coding at a Cipher workshop) and form your own strong opinions — establish self-awareness.
Most don’t give this a lot of thought because it is scary to think about the future, but no one can do this for you.
Sam Altman says you can figure out what you should be working on by looking for the intersection of:
- What you’re good at
- What you have an interest in
- Where you can make an impact
Ahmed on post-secondary 🔑
Arsh, Sales @ Shopify
Arsh spoke on the past and future of commerce. He’s also my older brother.
Here’s what I pulled from his talk:
Commerce has been around since the beginning of man. It is also one of the four basic needs of humans, the other three being water, food and shelter.
The evolution goes a little something like this:
- Traded skills and objects (food, weapons, tools)
- Earned and traded currency in return for skills or objects
- Earned and traded currency via E-Commerce (over the Internet)
There have been three major changes over the course of thousands of years. Arsh predicts that over the next few years there is going to be a whole lot of change, thanks to Kurzweil’s Law of Accelerating Returns.
E-Commerce was the step that has opened up opportunities. Companies like Shopify are making it incredibly easy for anyone, regardless of their race, age and geography, to open a store and sell.
The future of commerce will on platforms like mobile, virtual reality and things that haven’t even been invented yet.
There will definitely be more than one advancement in the next 4–5 years. If you’re looking for an industry to invest time and effort into, the future of commerce looks bright.
Arsh on commerce 💸
Robbie, Sales @ Shopify
Robbie spoke on augmented and virtual reality (AR and VR), which are both crazy and coming fast.
Here’s what I pulled from his talk:
Pokémon Go (PoGo) had just launched when Kindle ’16 was held, which features AR.
Augmented reality is defined as: technology that superimposes a computer-generated image on a user’s view of the real world, thus providing a composite view.
Here’s what that looks like in PoGo:
http://zugara.com/pokemon-go-is-driving-augmented-reality-and-geolocation-adoption
For him, this confirmed what he already knew: it works well and will have applications in a wide range of fields, from gaming to architecture.
What was more interesting was that AR + VR are the next level of digital interaction for humans. e.g. Facebook was one iteration on the way people connect online.
AR + VR be greater than any interaction we have been able to have digitally thus far — it’ll be familiar to humans, because you would interact the same way you interact in real life.
Trying out the HTC Vive at Shopify Plus Offices
Check out the futuristic-looking VR headset, the HTC Vive
Robbie on AR + VR 👀
Kindle ’16 was organized by the team in two weeks. We’re glad we did, because we learned a ton from the awesome speakers. If you found any of what I wrote about interesting, you should reach Kindle and Campfire ’17 next summer.
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