Ted Tuesday: My simple invention, designed to keep my grandfather safe

What level of college do you need to be to be an inventor and win scholarships, awards and seed money? How about Kindergarten!

Good Morning Folks,

Every day our success at FSO comes from identifying problems customers are facing and bringing together a productive mix of People + Solutions + Technology to solve them. Today's guest works much the same way.

Kenneth Shinozuka designs smart products ... He's been doing so since he was in kindergarten.

When he was six years old, a family friend of Kenneth Shinozuka fell down in the bathroom. The friend was ok -- but the incident inspired him to design a motion detection system that could be embedded in bathroom tiles. He never actually made one in real life (remember, he was only six) ... but he was hooked on both the promise of invention and the potential of technology.

Since then, Shinozuka has designed smart devices for his grandfather, who has Alzheimer's disease. One invention that caught the eye of both the media and awards programs such as the Google Science Fair: a pair of smart socks, designed to send an alert to a caregiver if a patient gets out of bed. In 2014, he won the $50,000 Scientific American Science in Action Award, while he was also a 2014 Davidson Fellow.

Today's talk is about the device he created for his grandfather. Sixty percent of people with dementia wander off, an issue that can prove hugely stressful for both patients and caregivers. In this charming talk, hear how teen inventor Kenneth Shinozuka came up with a novel solution to help his night-wandering grandfather and the aunt who looks after him ... and how he hopes to help others with Alzheimer's. Have a look...


TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes (or less). Look for talks on Technology, Entertainment and Design -- plus science, business, global issues, the arts and much more.

Boy, after watching that I'm embarrassed at what I thought was a productive day for me. How it should make you feel is that anything is possible here in the greatest country on Earth and my goal is to provide all of our employees an opportunity to realize their own true human potential right here at FSO.

Thanks to you for listening.

Have a GREAT Day,



Mitchell D. Weiner
Chief Happiness Officer  

Ideas are not set in stone. When exposed to thoughtful people, they morph and adapt into their most potent form. TED Tuesdays on MitchWeiner.com highlights some of today's most intriguing ideas. Look for more talks on Technology, Entertainment and Design -- plus science, business, global issues, the arts and much more— HERE.  

About FSO Onsite Outsourcing
Recognized on the Inc. 5000 list of the nation's fastest growing companies for the third consecutive year, and lead by industry pioneer, Mitch Weiner, FSO's growth and success can be attributed to making a positive and powerful impact on their clients' bottom lines, as well as their employees' careers and lives.

Ted Tuesday: This Adorable Kid Just Might Be The Next Steve Jobs

"Thomas Suarez is a 12 year old who taught himself to build iphone apps.The New York Times cited Suarez's TED talk as a reason for parents to rethink their hard and fast stance on "screen time" limitations, asking "Isn't three or four hours a week spent on using an app to create a stop motion movie a much different prospect than two hours of decorating a virtual room?"

Good Morning Folks,

With this compelling Ted Talk with over 6 million views between YouTube and Ted, 3 published apps in the app stores and in addition to completing the sixth grade, launching CarrotCorp, his first company, all under his belt, meet wunderkind Thomas Suarez of South Bay in the USA, who was just twelve when he delivered this inspirational talk at the TEDxManhattanBeach conference in October 2011.

Most 12-year-olds love playing videogames — Thomas Suarez taught himself how to create them. After developing iPhone apps like "Bustin Jeiber," a whack-a-mole game, he is now using his skills to help other kids become developers.

Thomas rightly highlights how difficult it was for kids his age to get help if they want to develop software and build apps.

“For soccer, you could go to a soccer team. For violin, you could get lessons for a violin,” he explained. “But what if you want to make an app?”

Thomas hits on the topics of tech integration in education, app access for all children, and how teachers could best use the classroom’s greatest resource — the students themselves.

Thomas Suarez’s interest in technology and programming led him to learn Python, Java, and C programming languages in his preteens.

After convincing his parents to pay the $99 fee to register with the Apple App Store, he published his first app, “Earth Fortune,” a fortune teller that colours the earth according to what your fortune is.

His second and most popular creation is “Bustin Jieber,” a whac-a-mole game app that replaces the mole with a photo of Justin Bieber’s head. The smartphone game allows people to pretend to whack the pop star to make him scream and it all happens to the Benny Hill theme song. The 99 cent app is Thomas’s “favorite and most successful app”, he said.

Thomas believes it’s a mistake that his school in Manhattan Beach and other California public schools do not offer more technology courses.

“A lot of kids these days like to play games, but now they want to make them… And it’s difficult because not many kids know where to go to find out how to make a program…and not many parents have written apps.”

To fill the gap, he started an app club with some like-minded friends so they can help each other create games and build new apps. Thomas highlights the club is also a resource for teachers and any other educators who want to experiment with tech education in the classroom.

While in sixth grade Thomas set-up his own company, “CarrotCorp.” Since then he has been coding news apps for smartphones or Google Glass. He has also worked on a patent-pending 3D printer which, he says, will work 10 times faster than the MakerBot model he uses at home. Following his TED Talk it’s not surprising Thomas is now a popular speaker at technology conferences.

His inspiration for all this? Steve Jobs. Have a look:


Boy, after watching that I'm embarrassed at what i thought was a productive day for me. How it should make you feel is that anything is possible here in the greatest country on Earth and my goal is to provide all of our employees an opportunity to realize their own true human potential right here at FSO,

Thanks to the Huffington Post, The CollegeByKids Blog and the InternetJar Blog for leading me to Thomas and to you for listening.

Have a GREAT Day,



Mitchell D. Weiner
Chief Happiness Officer  

Ideas are not set in stone. When exposed to thoughtful people, they morph and adapt into their most potent form. TED Tuesdays on MitchWeiner.com highlights some of today's most intriguing ideas. Look for more talks on Technology, Entertainment and Design -- plus science, business, global issues, the arts and much more— HERE.  

About FSO Onsite Outsourcing
Recognized on the Inc. 5000 list of the nation's fastest growing companies for the third consecutive year, and lead by industry pioneer, Mitch Weiner, FSO's growth and success can be attributed to making a positive and powerful impact on their clients' bottom lines, as well as their employees' careers and lives.