When a school burns to the ground it tends to stir our own childhood memories of where we went to school, what we learned and the teachers who taught us, and of schoolmates we shared with in the classroom and on the playground. When the cause of the school fire is arson, it also tends to galvanize the community, rallying in concert to ensure that the impacted students and teachers can quickly return to the joys of learning, and forget the scars left by the fire.

Intel has a long history of supporting the advancement of education — from kindergarten to graduate studies — but recently we had a chance to lend a hand, literally from the ground up, for the community of Merritt Trace Elementary School in San Jose, California. Trace is one of the largest elementary schools in the San Jose Unified School District, with almost 800 students; more than 64% of the students are Latino and 60% of Trace’s students are in the free or reduced lunch program.

Just two years after a portion of the school was rebuilt another section burned down in an arson caused fire on July 5, 2010. With just six weeks before the start of the current school year, school district officials scrambled to clean up the debris, put up portable classrooms and help teachers get situated in their new surroundings. The community pitched in — including Intel with a donation of $5,000 — to help the district raise $100,000, the cost of the deductible for the school’s insurance.

Then Intel employees stepped in to help. A group of about 40 Intel Involved volunteers spent a morning helping the Trace Elementary teachers, including those not impacted by the fire, set up their classrooms. The highlight was when employees surprised the Trace teachers - 24 in all - with a $1,000 gift card to replace teaching materials lost in the fire. You might have thought the teachers had just won the lottery - each of them was so thankful. Many of the teachers had tears in their eyes, and so did many of the Intel employees. There were plenty of hugs to go around as you can see in this video.

As moving as the volunteer effort was to the Trace teachers, it was equally meaningful to the Intel volunteers. Some Intel employees shared that this was ‘their best day at Intel’ or that ‘they were so appreciative to work for a company that enables them to give back to the community.’ “The amazement, tears and gratitude made me feel very proud that I work for a company that would do that,” said Intel volunteer Katie Haas.

Now the school year at Trace is underway, but the school’s library still needs to be rebuilt; another team of Intel volunteers is waiting in the wings to help with that project when school leaders are ready to proceed. These simple acts are part of a widespread and sustained effort to help the Trace Elementary community.

There’s still another way to make a difference. Trace is in a competition with other schools across the U.S. to receive half a million dollars. Click here to learn how your simple act can make a big difference for Trace.

The Teen Summit provides an opportunity for Clubhouse coordinators and members to come together for an exciting, fun-filled week of developing new skills, exploring ideas, problem solving and building confidence through technology. This year’s theme is Mobilize, Act, Inspire. Youth are asked to collaborate on projects to address socially conscious challenges such as reducing urban violence and improving the environment. The youth will utilize technology in a variety of workshops throughout the week and showcase their finished projects on Sunday, Aug 1, in a project fair open to the public.

This year marks Intel’s 10 year anniversary of support for the Intel Computer Clubhouse Network (ICCN). ICCN consists of 100 Clubhouses, in over 20 countries, serving over 25,000 youth annually. I was excited to hear that 350 attendees representing ~84 of the 100 Clubhouses are in attendance this week for the Teen Summit, making this the biggest Teen Summit ever!

Gail Breslow, ICCN Director, gave a brief welcome and interactive roll-call to the crowd yesterday evening. Members stood up and cheered when their country was called. She also thanked Intel for its generous support and announced the celebration of Intel’s 10 Year anniversary of support for the network during the Teen Summit. Monique Hayward spoke on behalf of Intel, sharing a brief history of Intel becoming the title sponsor of the Intel Computer Clubhouse Network and expanding the network to 100 Clubhouses. She also congratulated the Clubhouse coordinators and staff on the amazing work that they do daily, which changes lives and greatly impacts the community. Lastly, she gave a call to action to the youth attending the conference to embrace the theme and do GREAT things this week.

After everyone was fired up for the week, the crowd proceeded down the hall to the Project Extravaganza. In preparation for the Teen Summit, each Computer Clubhouse was asked to bring projects from their local Clubhouse to share with fellow Clubhouse members. The Northeastern hall was filled with music, digital art, videos, short films, 3D modeling, Scratch projects, and, of course, lots of energy and excitement.

A great start to a wonderful week…Stay tuned… See Project Extravaganza photos below.

For the past seven years, Intel Israel has been an avid adopter of the Intel® Learn Program. The program targets youth 8-18 years old. It not only teaches them about the use of technology, but also empowers them to contribute to their communities. And I’m very proud to note that we recently celebrated our most recent milestone: 300,000 “Intel learners” in Israel. Given that in the whole country there are only about 1.2 million students in the program catchment age range, this is indeed a very significant achievement.

At a recent event to celebrate this milestone, some of the young learners told great stories about their Intel Learn projects. One of my favorite stories came from Kiryat Malachi, a small town in the south of Israel, and demonstrates what this program means on the ground.

Learning to save water

A fifth grade class in Kiryat Malachi chose water conservation - a very hot topic here - as the subject of their Intel Learn project. Wanting to make a difference, the students decided to educate people about how to cut water consumption. Using new technology skills acquired through the program, they researched the issue, and developed a comprehensive advertising campaign. They created and hung up posters and distributed flyers around their school and neighborhood. They then met with the mayor and two town council members to discuss their water conservation ideas. As a result, the council published a water conservation page on the town’s website, which included quotes from the children’s fliers. More importantly, devices to reduce water flow were installed on faucets in all of the town’s schools - bringing their water consumption down by around 50 percent!

So, in Israel, 300,000 students have participated in Intel Learn to date. The program is now being implemented in thirteen countries, and has reached more than 1.2 million young learners around the world. With programs such as these running all over, can you imagine the positive effects this program is having worldwide?

It’s about technology education and leadership development.

Shelly Esque, Intel Corporation’s VP and General Manager of Corporate Affairs Group, attended the event in Israel to celebrate the 300,000 learners mark. With many of the students present, Shelly congratulated everyone involved. “Training 300,000 learners is a huge achievement. You deserve to be proud of this accomplishment and serve as a model of emulation for other places which run the program.”

Intel Learn was introduced to Israeli schools in 2004. The program teaches technological skills through practical and experiential learning and the stimulation of breakthrough thinking. The program has three thematic courses, Technology and Community, Technology at Work, and the new Technology and Entrepreneurship. Localized for the specific needs of Israel, each of these courses is taught by the Appleseeds Academy (formerly the Apple Association). The newest curriculum consists of 36 training hours that introduces basic concepts of entrepreneurship, marketing, branding and advertising strategies, understanding business, and the design and presentation of business plans.

The program proves to be highly successful with all ethnic groups in Israel - Jews, Muslims, Bedouins, and Christians. In recent years, the program has focused on the participation of Israeli Arabs and involved National Service volunteers in 40 townships across Israel, including Tel Sheba, Nazareth, Ar’ara, Ramla and Abu Snan.

It’s about technology education and partnership to create change. And it’s working!

Select summit events, noted below, will be open to the public, so if you live in the Boston area please stop by to see firsthand these teens’ work. Today’s youths are our leaders of tomorrow, so let’s show them our support!

We hope to post updates and photos from the Teen Summit, so stay tuned to Inspire. To learn more about Intel Computer Clubhouse and the 2010 Teen Summit, visit http://www.computerclubhouse.org/.

Teen Summit Final Project Showcase: This culminating public event showcases the teens’ art, animation, video, photographs, and other digital creations that address community challenges.

·         When: Sunday, August 1, 11:00am-1:00pm

·         Where: Northeastern University, Curry Student Center

360 Huntington Ave., Boston, Massachusetts

Courses are free at www.intel.com/teachers.

Intel® Teach Elements is a series of compelling, online professional development courses that explore 21st century learning concepts. Current courses inspire educators with action planning exercises to apply the concepts of Assessment in 21st Century Classrooms and Project-Based Approaches.

Register to Attend.

Many people may not know this but Landon Donovan is also a proponent of reading and education. After all, he comes from a family of teachers – his grandmother, mother and sister are teachers.

When Inspire first launched, we asked Landon to tell us what the inspirations in his life were. He has an amazing career in professional soccer and is an inspiration to many young aspiring players. Check out the video below to find out what inspired Landon as he was growing up.

We’d also like to hear your stories of inspiration. Go to our Share section to submit a story or video.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Intel is hosting a webinar as part of its Intel Teach Elements series of professional development courses. Join Judi Yost for an overview of the Intel Teach Elements Courses next week, June 17 at 1:00 pm PT.

Intel® Teach Elements is a series of compelling, online professional development courses that explore 21st century learning concepts. Current courses inspire educators with action planning exercises to apply the concepts of Assessment in 21st Century Classrooms and Project-Based Approaches. Courses are free at www.intel.com/teachers.

Register to Attend.

Here’s what they said!:

“Wow. Winning this award was quite shocking. I didn’t believe we would even have a chance at winning first place, primarily because of the fact that Matt and I go to a private school consisting of about 300 high school students that we could ask to vote. It’s completely amazing how much support we received, and astonishing to see that many people saw our project to be a new and innovative idea that is both cool and inspiring.

Though the People’s Choice Award only awards prizes to the top three projects, every project that was on the poll is a project that strongly fits the criteria of Inspired By Education’s People’s Choice Award: a creative and innovative project and solution that has the potential to positively change the world. For that, everyone should be congratulated once again.” Akash Krishnan

Don’t stay up too many endless nights, Akash! We couldn’t agree more that the world would be at a loss if there were no bright, young scientists out there.

“Thank you to everyone who voted for us. We are honored to be the People’s Choice Award winners and will use our laptops to run as servers, allowing for faster results in our future work. In addition, I would like to encourage all students to work on science research projects as they have helped me gain knowledge and life experience.” Matthew Fernandez

Our sentiments exactly- we, too, want to encourage all students to work on science research projects!

What do you plan on doing with your prize?
“I am planning to donate the cash value of the prize I have earned, about $300, to my non-profit organization Spell Success. I founded this study group almost two years ago to inspire young students to learn vocabulary, public speaking, and spelling skills. This summer, I am organizing the first annual Spell Success summer camp and spelling bee, and I will be using the People’s Choice Award to give scholarships and prizes to the winners of the bee.

It is an honor for me to receive this award, and I know I could not have achieved it without my teachers, students in Spell Success and their parents, and friends. Some of my friends and teachers even told me they were typing until their hands were sore! I was extremely touched to know so many people support me. I hope my participation in these awards will inspire others to learn science and to participate in competitions like Intel ISEF. ISEF was a life-changing experience for me.” Amy Chyao

Best of luck with your non-profit, Amy! It is great that you’re reusing your prize money for such a noble cause.

“I am so honored to win 3rd place in the People’s Choice Awards. Thanks so much to everybody who voted for me! In this year’s phase of my project, Polyethylene Oxide significantly improved the reclamation of damaged land by reducing water erosion by 94%! I am confident that this can be applied to our environment to protect and preserve land. I am really excited to receive an iPod Touch. The iPod I have now is extremely dysfunctional because my younger sister accidently dropped it in the toilet. It still plays music, but the lack of a screen and the damaged wiring hasn’t been fun to deal with. Let’s just say that I am ecstatic to receive a new iPod Touch. Thanks for your votes!” Majdolene Khweis

Majdolene, the potential implications of your project are astounding and can go a long way to helping society. Hope you enjoy your newly functional iPod Touch!

Another huge CONGRATULATIONS and a very big THANKS to the 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winners for sharing their thoughts with us on Inspired By Education!!

With over 60,000 votes, first place goes to Akash Krishnan and Matthew Fernandez of Oregon Episcopal High School! For their project, “The Classification and Recognition of Emotions in Prerecorded Speech”, they developed a program that with 77% accuracy can determine and classify emotions from an input signal. The real-world implications of emotion recognition are great: it has applications in security, gaming, user-computer interactions, lie-detection, and enhancing synthesized speech. Krishnan and Fernandez plan to pursue this project in the next 2 years and acquire a patent.

Second place was taken home by Texan Amy Chyao. Her project, “Lights, Quantum Dots, Action!” developed a photosensitizer for photodynamic therapy (PDT), an emerging cancer treatment which uses light energy to activate a drug that kills cancer cells. The results show that her work has significant potential for future application in cancer treatment. Chyao hopes to pursue a Ph.D. and M.D. and become a college chemistry professor and biomedical researcher.

Last but certainly not least, taking home third place, was Majdolene Khweis of Taos, New Mexico, with her project, “Don’t Let It Slide IV: Fire Factor!” After seeing landslides in California and New Mexico due to forest fires and failed re-seeding efforts, she became interested in preserving the environment. Her project sought to use a biodegradeable polymer to assist with the regeneration of soil and plants, and to prevent erosion of slopes to protect and regenerate the environment as well as human life and property.

Krishnan and Fernandez have won themselves a brand new laptop, while Chyao will have a netbook and Khweis takes home an iTouch- not too shabby!

CONGRATULATIONS to all the competitors and winners, and a huge thank you to YOU-the voter!

Justin Rattner, Intel’s Chief Technology Officer developed the first computer to sustain one trillion operations per second in 1996. Watch the video below to find out what inspired Justin to build the world’s fastest computer.