What’s compelling about her for me is the aspect of social exchange and communication between her creations and humans.

Today communication is changing. We can have a blog conversation like this, or over facebook, or twitter that we couldn’t have had before now. I appreciate you are asking follow up questions on your blog to further engage me, and other readers who comment to have a deeper conversation.

So often I hear from adults that their kids can no longer have a face to face conversation. I hear frustration in their voice when they discuss how their kids sit at the computer and chat all night. I understand that fear. In some ways, it’s the fear that nonverbal social communication will cease. That humans will lose the ability to “be around” each other socially.

Perhaps instead we should be greatful that our kids are reaching out at all. They are reaching out and building communities across boundries, both real and imagined. They are letting us know what they are interested about, what they fear, what they want to be further engaged in…

COSI is a great place for exploring where fear and progress intersect. It’s also a great place to meet “real scientists”. Maybe Dr. Breazeal might visit us a COSI for an evening? Or maybe she might visit us for an hour electronically? I don’t know. I’ll leave the programming design to the experts.

I would love to hear who else people find inspiring… is there a “dream team” of scientists that inspire people of the next generation?

How did you get to be aware of her and her work? Is there something that a place like COSI could do to enhance the ability for the types of connections that brought you into awareness and respect for Dr. Breazeal’s work?

…but I find Cynthia Breazeal inspiring!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynthia_Breazeal