Disney+ Doc Shows Kids Can Build the Future

of thousands all around the world. First has given me the opportunity to become better and better and too never stop training. It is way more than a club teaching the skills of life. It's technology, respect and more. It is more than robots, and that is the name of the new documentary, More than Robots on the first Robotics Competitions. It was the brainchild of trepreneur, an innovator, holder of so many patents. Dean came in. We always remind everybody

he invented the segue. He's been on a mission for years to spark stem interest in achievement among our young and is so great to have back with us. Dean came and found her first and he joins us en route to south By Southwest. Right now, he's in Memphis, Tennessee. Deans, so good to have you here with Tim and myself. This documentary tell us about this process and why you wanted to put down and show what you have been doing really for years and really sparking interest when it

comes to stem among kids. Well, first of all, thank you, thank you, Thank you. You are you are articulated, and you have had so much great data about person what you just did, and you are one of the crowning examples of why first works so well. I've got thirty seven hundred corporate sponsors committed to helping FIRST become a reality in every school in the in the country. I have two hundred thousand volunteer technology people now as mentors

working with these teams. We have, you know, tens of thousands of teams, and it's almost exclusively a volunteer organization. It's driven mostly by passion by smart parents, smart teachers, smart industry leaders, smart government leaders that recognize, unless you give kids a shot at understanding what really will be their future if they embrace technology and and and developed that muscle hanging between their ears um, this world is

going to be a great place. But if anything, I think first is now becoming more accepted because thirty years ago I told everybody, you can all try to solve the problem we don't have claiming that our educational systems are lacking, and instead, why don't you go after the real problem in a free society where you get the

best of what you celebrate. Thirty years ago and even still to this day, all the heroes, particularly to young women, particularly to minority kids, all their role models and heroes come from the NBA, the NFL, Hollywood Motown. They don't see young adults successfully pushing ahead in careers in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, inventing. And it's not that those things really are not every bit as fun as accessible as as bouncing a ball.

It's just we have a culture that that made sports superstars crowd out everything else. But the sports works. All I did was very simple, you steal a good idea that works. I said, let's turn science, technology, and engineering into a sport, and then we'll attract all the kids that already loved sports. They love the competition, they love the excitement, but let's let them develop that muscle hanging between their ears. It will be the only sport where

every kid on every team can turn pro. There are millions and millions of jobs out there in the technical fields. Dean, take us back to your childhood, though, and talk to us about how you were inspired at an early age and how you see that not happening today. I mean, what, what did you have access to in your childhood that you want to recreate for children today. Well, luckily, and very luckily, I as a kid, my parents didn't mind that I did a lot of tinkering. I took all

the basement, I started building things. I bought you know, bolt meters and the scyloscopes and played are you taking a part of cliances on your parents? Yeah, I did all of that stuff. Yes, it's sort of uh frustrated them at times. But but I got as a teenager, I started making money doing technology for people, and I realized that most kids don't see the power of that. And I also realized my mom is a teacher, and

I realized just the way schoolwork goes. You know, you're intimidated in the classroom learning equations, and if you don't get them right, you get a red mark. Whereas that same teacher becomes the coach after school and if you didn't hit that ball or you didn't get that basket, this this teacher that's required to be judgmental in the classroom becomes this coach that's so nurturing that helps you after school. And I said, no, wonder kids love sports, no,

whether they're intimidated by science and physics and math. Come on, let's those teachers the opportunity to coach a team that's using all the things that we claim a valuable about other sports, that's using teamwork and exciting stuff to give kids the skill sets they need to build a future. Dean, we just have about a minute and a half year.

We wanted to talk about your home in Bedford, New Hampshire, and I was looking going back to an old story and someone described it as nothing less than a mini Smithsonian or the northeast version of the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn. Um, could you share with us a little bit about your thinking for your home in New Hampshire. It's where you do your work, a lot of work. Well, it's got a machine shop in an electronic shop and a great library and a hangar for you know, everybody

needs a helicopter in their house. But it's it's, it's it's it's just a place that it's more of a place for convening. Actually, Bill Gates was visiting at one time, said Dean, I think your house represents the physical manifestation of what's in your side, your head, and it's a cross between a museum of science and technology and really want to st but the factory, and I considered all

about a compliment. But but the important thing for your listeners is, while I'm so so excited that First is now in tens of thousands of schools and affecting over a million kids, it's sad that all kids everywhere aren't aware of it. And so if Bloomberg and you know, if we can if the Disney plus streaming of this program can reach millions and millions of kids and parents of teachers, we really can't trend. We will transform the future of what kids in this country aspire to do,

what they what they become as adults. And and I think they named this thing so perfectly more than robots. Please let people know it's not about being geekie and building robots. It was I've been saying for thirty years. It's not about robots. It's never been about robots. We don't use kids to build ropes robots. Kids hang out for a second. We're gonna do a little bit more news and we're gonna come back and continue with us. We are our guests right now. Dean came in, founder

of First. He's going to come back to us in just a moment on Bloomberg. We do want to get

back to Dean Cayman, who is with us. Founder First, as we mentioned, stands for inspiration and Recognition of science and technology, creator of the first robotics competitions, and we've been talking about the documentary More Than Robots, which will premiere at south By Southwest this coming week and one week from today will stream exclusively on Disney Plus H. Dean is still with us on the phone from Memphis, Tennessee, and we should point out the movie tracks uh four

groups of students UM who are competing in the robotics competition. Yeah, Dean, it's great to have you back with us. UM. I want to talk a little bit about where we are as a society and trying to really understand how he can get more kids into STEM and what we need to do as as a country in order to do that. And I want you to draw parallels between again, how you were able to get inspired and and lead the life that you have, and how you can in turn

see that happening with kids today. I just have to say, I'm the world has changed so much and and I wonder if we have the educational infrastructure in place today four kids to thrive like they did, you know, in the nineteen sixties. So I believe we have the the educational infrastructure. Everybody I know has a teacher that they think changed their life. We've got the best systems in the world. We spend more per capital and education than anybody in the world. That's the whole point of first

was It's not an education crisis, the culture crisis. It's not what we don't have enough of, it's what we have too much. In a rich culture. Culture, in a rich society, we've been able to turn leisure time into

a phenomenon. We've turned sports into something bigger than life itself, and it's crowded out to kids the idea that they can excel at something else, they can become superstars in some other way, and the entire premise of first look at our name for inspiration and recognition of science and technology. Kids will always do better. It's something if they're inspired to work hard at it. That's why the US is still leads the world in sports and an entertainment in

Hollywood in the NBA. So we just said, let's take that model and create a sport that will be available to all kids, again, particularly women and minorities in the United States that are so subtly but effectively convinced by the time they're even in middle school that science, technology, and engineering. It's difficult, that's frustrating, it's boring. It's only for the gifted view because ironically, it's where all the big jobs are going to be, so these kids have

to get into it early. You took me exactly where I want to go. Uh. Tim and I were part of a Bloomberg Live event. It was all about work shifting and just how things are changing post pandemic. But every executive, whether it was at that event or every executive who comes on air, I mean, everybody's a technology company. Doesn't matter what industry you are, you need I t

workers tech workers. Um, that's just the world that we are in and I do wonder, you know, everybody says that there's just not enough out there, how us the message gotten out there? You've got You have been doing this for a while, and I still see a lot of money spent on big, you know, sports programs, whether it's in colleges or even you know, at lower level. Are you seeing an impacted change since you started doing this.

We are certainly seeing a change, But you're right, there's still overwhelmingly more money and excitement thrown by the media, particularly at at at at making sports bigger than life, and they somehow have still failed to include us as the ultimate sports that humans ought to participated. But as an example, you say, isn't working. When you look at the four teams that participate in this great documentary, you'll see that one of them, uh two of them once

from Mexico, once through Japan. Two are from the U S. They're both in California, And it turns out that each of them has a mentor once a teacher, and her husband's the mentor for the competitive team. He works at ray Theon and he's hired more than twin five of

the kids. This essentially an inner city school system that without first wouldn't have produced any kids that could go work at raytheon and when you look at the thirty seven cop responses, we have in a couple of hundred universities that are at all our big events scouting, just like the football team does. The reason these thirty seven hundred sponsors are there is, as you pointed out, every major company in the country and in the world is

desperately looking for more technically competent people. And the best way to create them and to build a better pipeline is to start earlier and have these tech giants and even the tech startups be there giving these kids encouragement and inspiration and making this the sport of choice for kids because it is the only sport where every kid can turn pro. Yeah. I guess that your border directors has always blown me away. Um Ursula burns right from

the Xerox, now it to Neo. You've got Rockwell, the former chairman CEO of Rockwell Collins Rockwell Automation to Sigma David Seagull. These are but that are certainly familiar. Um. You know, pick any of those big companies in the STEM world and they are there. Hey, one thing I wanted to ask you if you will indulge us a little bit. Is I know I've talked with you before about North Dumpling Island that's in Long Island Sound. I've

passed it when I'm out in the water. What's interesting is you are, I believe right um operating independently of the regional electrical grid there right solar wind UH. It's a home that you've got there. And I do think about the week, the last couple of weeks with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and we've seen the volatility and the energy markets, and you see the EU moving aggressively

to wean itself off Russian oil. Everybody talking a lot more about alternative energy, solar, alternative energy power or companies you know, rallying as a result. What what's what's the big thing that we need to be having here? We are, we are at the perfect storm and this could be the catalyst that makes it all happen. But power semiconductors are now available to make highly efficient UH grid quality AC out of just about any any any energy wind.

UH batteries can be now efficiently used to both store and then we deliver, whether it's DC or to the grid. But but you know, for many, many reasons, it's it's good for the environment, it's good for the economy, it's good for our national security, it's it's good for business.

And finally, solar power, wind power, all of them collectively are starting to become realistically capable of taking on more and more of our energy loads and as well as building more efficient lighting systems like L E D s and come up with better ways to make our computational stuff more efficient. I mean, at this point, believe it or not, we more of the power coming through our grid is powering computation and data center has been lighting

and it's getting more so. So I think if you look at it holistically, for all sorts of reasons, we are reaching a tipping point where where energy UH is going to be transformed and how it's made, how it's stored, and how it's transformed. And by the way, doing all of that's going to create enormous exciting jobs for kids that can embrace technology. Are you optimistic that this happens within a few years. I mean, I just don't see the political will and just Correicktly just got about thirty

seconds you can talk about political will. But when you see the price of fuel go through the roof, when you see the availability of you'll go through the roof. That's what that Trump's political will any time, and it will make it happen. You know. Necessity is the mother of invention, and we got a lot of necessity on energy. All right. Dean came in, Thank you so much. Dan came and found her first on his way to south By Southwest. Why is he going there because that's where

more than robots. The documentary about kids involved in that first robotics competition will premiere this coming week and then one week from today will stream exclusively on Disney Plus. I'm gonna be checking that one out. It's it's gotta say. We had some great video running on YouTube for those who are watching. Um, it's just amazing what these kids do. What they build all themselves and then compete