Wearable Technology Travel School Event Review

Wearing a Computer at MIT, a Two Decade Dream Realized

Nick and Tim at MIT

When I was young (somewhere in the early/mid ’90s), I saw some program (I don’t know which) on PBS and they were talking about some guy (I can’t find the program and don’t remember the name, but I presume it was either Thad Starner or Steve Mann) at MIT who is wearing a computer with a Head Mounted Display and a single hand keyboard, and a computer kept in some sort of backpack. At that point, I knew 2 things.

  1. Wearable Computing is a future I want to be a part of.

  2. MIT was where I wanted to go to college.

Now sadly I never got to attend MIT, in fact, other than a little time at Tarrant County College (formerly Tarrant County Junior College) in which I didn’t even earn an associate’s degree, I didn’t get to go to college at all. But I wanted to go to MIT.

Free Law Coalition Sign at the 2014 CALI Conference

This past week I’ve been attending the 24th Annual CALI Conference for Law School Computing at Harvard Law School. As usual, the conference was a blast and I have enjoyed checking out Harvard.

But what was especially exciting for me was getting a chance to visit MIT. That PBS special 20 years ago is a big part of what set me on my path toward becoming a programmer. As well as making me as fascinated as I was with technology and the future.

Nick and Tim at MIT

As I stood in front of the main building of MIT, wearing Google Glass and posing for pictures with Tim and Mayra, it struck me that I was there. I was wearing a computer at MIT. True, I was never a student of the esteemed university, and also true that I wasn’t on a team making that wearable computer, but as a glass explorer, I have been working with the team that did over the past year, providing feedback, testing it, going to events, developing apps.

And as a software engineer at Justia, I work with technology every day, and I get to work on projects that make a real difference in the world, making legal information more accessible to everyone. I may not be MIT educated, but my real dream of working with the future of technology is real, and I’m living it #ThroughGlass


A couple of quick closing thoughts… First, If the man in the video I watched 2 decades ago was indeed Thad Starner, then it is extra cool because he is a Technical Lead/Manager on Google’s Project Glass which means in the above picture I am literally wearing the culmination of his work from the project I was watching the video about in the first place.

MIT was made for TIM

And finally. If you walk around a frosted glass with MIT on it and look at it from behind. It says “Tim.” My boss approves.