For those of you attending EMC World, it's time to vote for "most innovative product". Out of all the announcements this week, which do you consider to be the most innovative?
Is it the cool new Root Cause Analysis software?
The cloud elasticity capabilities of VPLEX Geo?
The VNX connector to the Google Search Appliance?
The biggest file system in the world?
Hadoop Big Data analytics?
All of these new features (and many that I haven't mentioned) represent innovation and delivery by some of the most talented nerds in the industry. But....
They were all upstaged by some high school kids from California.
Because nothing is cooler than building a robot.
And the winner is.......
Out of all the products announced during EMC World this week, the "most innovative in show" belongs to three student teams from California:
- Team 687D from California Academy of Math & Science in Carson, CA
- Team 687F, also from California Academy
- Team 1138, from Chaminade College Preparatory, West Hills, CA
All teams, as part of the VEX Robotics program, received a grant to fly to Vegas as part of EMC's Community Involvement program. EMC sponsored teams from all over the country, including Nevada, Washington, and Maryland. The California sweep was the result of some clever alliances formed during a multi-stage competitition against opposing robots. Judges award points during the competition as well.
The VEX Robotics program is innovative in its own right. The program increases student excellence in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), and also teaches leadership, teamwork, and collaboration among groups.
As you can imagine, the students had a blast. They travelled to Vegas, smashed robots into each other, and three skilled teams received their awards from EMC this morning.
To top it all off, every student was able to experience the thrill of a lifetime: a photo op with Bubba!
Steve
Twitter: @SteveTodd
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