On the surface, Scott Douglas Redmond’s accomplishments seem like a tornado of diverse projects, from high-tech inventions and patents with sci-fi overtones to social and cultural commitments that empower people and touch the heart. Rarely does a person display the creative diversity displayed in Mr. Redmond. He’s not just an ordinary guy; You are fortunate to have a brain that is normally in overdrive, capturing and rearranging bits of data to invent, reinvent, design new applications, and create innovative products.
Redmond has numerical dyslexia (dyscalculia) and is considered 2nd gifted. (Others in the “2e club” include Richard Branson; Charles Schwab; John Chambers, the founder of Cisco, and Robin Williams). He experienced learning challenges while growing up tagged alternately gifted soon disabled and identified as a smart boy or a stupid child. The International Dyslexia Association (Fact Sheet # 5 – 02/98) states: “Calling this a learning disability tends to infer that the person cannot learn. However, with proper instruction, dyslexics learn. The key is to use the term ‘learning difference’ and not ‘disability’. “
Once Scott figured out how to learn despite their learning gap, his creative talents exploded. However, his thoughts sometimes appear in rapid succession like lightning flashes across the sky. However, their seemingly unrelated projects share a common theme: they are innovative and “make a difference.” They address societal needs with product solutions that are at least a paradigm shift more advanced than the current solution. For example, Scott led a technology startup to create a software “app” that enables communication without cellular infrastructure, established a website to support an anti-bullying campaign, and encouraged parents and educators to use social media to improve. literacy.
Software application
Redmond is the founder and president of Peep Wireless Technology, which is responsible for producing a software application (App) for the iPhone that enables peer-to-peer mesh networking, communication without cellular infrastructure. The application allows the user to send Morse code, voice and image signals to communicate with other users who have installed the same application.
The onlineIPods news network,Ipodnn.com, reported in June 2011 that Peep Wireless technology was embedded in a new pro-democracy app, Democri-C, for iOS devices. The New York Times (Article from June 12, 2011 by James Glanz and John Markoff) published an extensive story titled, The United States subscribes to the diversion of the Internet around the censors, on how the US government was supporting “mesh net technology, which can transform devices such as mobile phones or personal computers to create an invisible wireless network without a centralized hub. “
The software application is known to have played a role in the democratic uprisings in the Middle East and could provide critical communication after natural disasters and emergencies that destroy infrastructure. The Peep Wireless team that designed the Democri-C app under the direction of Scott Redmond deserves credit for making a difference by providing alternative ways to promote freedom of expression and reach people in the aftermath of natural disasters.
Website to combat bullying in schools
In support of his support of Anderson Cooper’s 360 Series (on CNN in October 2011) to combat bullying, Scott Redmond developed several websites to provide places where bullied students can speak, report bullying, bullying aggression, get support and find helpful resources. Their website, titled “Expose the Bully,” allows students to share their experiences, expose bullies, and seek help. Bullies maintain their control through intimidation and isolation. If the harassed student can speak up and expose the harasser, the harasser will lose paralyzing control. Anderson Cooper’s series on anti-bullying drew attention to the emotional damage that bullying causes, damage that resulted in several teenage suicides.
While Redmond’s philanthropic websites aren’t extraordinary, they do join an expanding list of sites that offer hope and an outstretched hand to desperately needy students. Making a difference, however small, still has merits.
Social media to improve literacy
In another social outreach, Scott Redmond participated in an educator and parent forum at the annual meeting of the International Dyslexia Association (IDA). In PR Newswire on November 22, 2011, IDA reported that “… world-renowned political leaders and experts in the fields of education, advocacy and business held an innovative forum to discuss the literacy crisis in the United States. United”. As part of that forum, Scott led an engaging discussion on the use of social media in grassroots campaigns.
Scott explained how social media websites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Plus, and Foursquare can magnify one or a few voices and how software tools, such as TweetDeck, a desktop application, can allow users to organize, submit, and receive messages in high definition. volumes. Additionally, social media provides platforms for people scattered across large geographies to reach like-minded people to share knowledge, experiences, and resources.
Scott’s presentation was part of a series of speakers who helped IDA improve literacy by promoting the passage of the Literacy Education for All Results for the Nation (LEARN) Act and working to pass state literacy laws to provide support, instruction, intervention and professional development for teachers. to increase your ability to teach students with learning disabilities. Scott challenged attendees to take “tangible steps to use social media to build parent-child partnerships to carry the message of law reform to every state in the United States.”
Scott Redmond is a dyslexic who used his “learning difference” (also known as disability) to overcome the technological impediments to cellular communication that occur during disasters and political blackouts; eliminate bullying by creating a website that offers emotional support and trust-building resources; and mobilize a grassroots effort to use social media to improve national and state literacy laws so that all students can learn. Blessed with a unique view of the world, Scott strives to make a difference using the talents that made him different.
