The Conrad Foundation fosters future generations of explorers and scientists
Hear more from Nancy Conrad and other innovative analysts, thought leaders, and educators at the 2018 Future of Education Technology Conference (FETC), January 23-26 in Orlando, Florida. Learn more here.
As the founder and leader of the Conrad Foundation, Nancy Conrad sees her mission as inspiring young minds to design their futures in the fields of aerospace, energy, cybertech, and health. She dreams of a global community of students across all cultures, national lines, barriers, and obstacles that will embrace her “No Box Thinking” philosophy that’s dedicated to inspirational and competency-based learning.
The Conrad Foundation’s Conrad Design Method was created to help students across the globe to learn how to think and solve the problems they face in their worlds by providing them with an organic STEM framework with communication and collaboration tools to inspire innovation and entrepreneurship. It allows students and teachers to co-create and co-mentor with each other. As Nancy says, “When you open up an opportunity for young minds to solve challenges, you’ve opened up a whole new way to learn and to inspire.”
The ultimate goal of the Conrad Foundation is to utilize the available tech that is such an intricate part of a student’s life today to grow a framework that can be used in classrooms around the world.
Nancy believes that by including the voice of young people in this dialog and debate, we can speed up the building of the framework, providing faster solutions to the challenges of the world. A quicker, more efficient collaborative process that not only thinks outside the box but approaches innovation without a proverbial box anywhere close to the conversation. Nancy wants to tie in the creativity and “unbounded nature” of young people to open up a whole new way of thinking that inspires solutions to the challenges of everyday life.
About Nancy Conrad:
Nancy Conrad created the Conrad Foundation in 2008 to energize and engage students in science and technology through unique entrepreneurial opportunities. The organization’s flagship program, the Conrad Spirit of Innovation Challenge, is a global competition challenging students to combine education, innovation and entrepreneurship to create products that address real-world challenges and global sustainability.
By enabling young minds to connect education, innovation and entrepreneurship, the Foundation helps provide a bold platform for enriching the innovative workforce of the future. As a leader in transformative education, she has testified before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space and Technology detailing how the Conrad Foundation exemplifies the use of partnership and mentorship to improve STEM education.
She has been named one of the top 100 leaders in STEM Education. Ms. Conrad serves on the Board of Directors of the Presidential Scholars.
Follow Nancy Conrad on Twitter.
This article was originally published in the Huffington Post .
Nancy Conrad will be presenting at the 2018 FETC conference
AuthorDr. Berger is one of many industry education correspondents for the Mind Rocket Media Group, An educator and former school administrator. He often hosts education panel discussions and develops strategic content. As an academic Dr. Berger is a guest lecturer at Vanderbilt University’s Owen Graduate School of Management. A former assistant principal, he has been an adjunct undergraduate professor and developer of online college courses. He is a passionate Detroit sports fan who has also adopted Nashville sports teams as his own.
Contact the Mind Rocket Media Group if you are interested in an industry interview and a placement on EdCircuit.
Further Reading
- Getting Smart – How To Grow Unicorns
- Techpoint – Secondary school student? Register for the Conrad Spirit of Innovation Challenge
- Air & Space Magazine – Made by Nerds, for Nerds
In today’s high-stakes environment of teacher evaluation, there is an increasing demand for higher quality professional development. Administrators and school leaders are challenged with providing teachers individualized, ongoing support, while not being stretched too thin – both from a capacity and budgetary standpoint. 
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Like any initiative, video coaching involves planning logistics, developing a smart strategy, establishing a supportive culture, and implementing it well day in and day out. When this is done with fidelity, video coaching can transform the professional learning process for administrators, coaches, and teachers alike. 
Gezim Gashi is a storyteller that enjoys teaching kids how also to be storytellers. As a songwriter early in life, Gezim found a natural progression into his role as public relations and marketing guru for the Academy of Music and Business (AMB) in Tingsryd, Sweden. 
Gezim tells the story of one of his students named Belle, a 15-year-old girl who was troubled by the street violence in Stockholm. She poured her heart and emotions into a song she wrote, and approached Gezim. He was impressed and started collaborating with her to record and promote her creation. After producing a video of her singing her song, he posted it on Facebook and it got over 100,000 views within an hour; a week later she was doing the morning talk shows in Sweden, and was approached by record companies offering her a recording contract. It was a demonstration of the power of public relations and marketing.
Students from Christian Oaks flew to Sweden to perform with their AMB counterparts at the American Embassy in Stockholm, and the resulting conference was a massive success. The AMB students returned the favor and flew to Los Angeles to perform with the Oaks Christian orchestra, for what was declared a life-changing magical event. The students in Sweden and Los Angeles learned so much by connecting through Soundtrap that the experience went far beyond just making music. It allowed the power of storytelling to make a huge impact on lives spread across the globe.
Gezim Gashi is a 27-year-old marketer and entrepreneur who is Head of PR and Marketing at 
Steven W. Anderson is an accomplished education consultant who travels from coast to coast talking about the use of Social Media in the classroom to teachers and administrators in schools and districts all across the country.
To Steven, quality professional development is a critical tool in helping schools keep up with the constantly shifting education technology and the variety of electronic devices that parade through classrooms on a daily basis. “One of the issues that I have a lot with professional development in some conferences, they’re trying to cram the technology into the learning process versus ‘Let’s talk about how collaborative classrooms through the use of technology work and what they look like.’ Technology comes and goes. What we need to be focused on are pedagogy and processes and how students are creating new knowledge and new opportunities through that technology. And technology enables us to do things we weren’t able to do before.”
“We get too hyper-focused on one particular application and then tomorrow it’s gone, and we haven’t understood the processes that made that application so great,” he says. “We’re at a loss. I want to see schools, districts and educators focusing more on their pedagogy and having good solid sound pedagogy around the use of technology.”
Steven W. Anderson is a Dad, Learning Evangelist, Speaker and Author. After a successful career in public education as a Teacher, Instructional Technologist, and Director of Instructional Technology, Steven works with educators across the globe as a consultant. Highly sought after for his skills in helping educators and school leaders better understand technology and social media through his humorous approach to learning, Steven can work with you to improve learning for all students. 