About J-Curve Mission Vision and Values
A new twist on the time tested educational setting...
Mission
At J-Curve The Technology Academy we create an effective, fun and safe learning
environment designed to prepare today’s students for the ever-changing technology
world of tomorrow. We instill and foster creativity, critical thinking as well as
ethics while learning computer Pro- Applications through the use of hands on, small
group instruction, workshops, lab time, private lessons and professional instructors.
Vision
J-Curve Technology Academy ultimately desires to educate students who wish to further
their knowledge in technology at an exceptional and award winning level. Students
will have the option to go on to be professionally certified in the pro applications
of their choice. Their skills and knowledge of pro application tools will open doors
for themselves to scholarships at the university level as well as opportunities
in the professional realm. J –Curve students will leave equipped with creativity,
talent and ethics enabling them to be positive productive citizens affecting and
influencing the world on a large scale. J-Curve will also seek to expand and have
other locations.
What is a J-Curve?
As one looks at a graph whose plot points are at roughly the same level across time
and then suddenly surge up; the graph line connected looks like a J. Technology
has shown this pattern.
The history of technology is one of disruption and exponential growth, epitomized
in Moore’s law, and generalized to many basic technological capabilities that are
compounding independently from the economy. www.jurvetson.blogspot.com/2004/09/accelerating-change-and-societal-shock.html
Below is an exert.
For example, for the past 40 years in the semiconductor industry, Moore’s Law has
not wavered in the face of dramatic economic cycles. Ray Kurzweil’s abstraction of Moore’s Law (from transistor-centricity
to computational capability and storage capacity) shows an uninterrupted exponential
curve for over 100 years, again without perturbation during the Great Depression
or the World Wars. Similar exponentials can be seen in Internet connectivity, medical
imaging resolution, genes mapped and solved 3D protein structures. In each case,
the level of analysis is not products or companies, but basic technological capabilities.
In his forthcoming book, Kurzweil summarizes the exponentiation of our technological
capabilities, and our evolution, with the near-term shorthand: the next 20 years
of technological progress will be equivalent to the entire 20th century.
For most of us, who do not recall what life was like one hundred years ago, the
metaphor is a bit abstract. So I did a little research. In 1900, in the U.S., there
were only 144 miles of paved road, and most Americans (94%+) were born at home,
without a telephone, and never graduated high school. Most (86%+) did not have a
bathtub at home or reliable access to electricity. Consider how much technology-driven
change has compounded over the past century, and consider that an equivalent amount
of progress will occur in one human generation, by 2020. It boggles the mind, until
one dwells on genetics, nanotechnology, and their intersection.
Exponential progress perpetually pierces the linear presumptions of our intuition.
“Future Shock” is no longer on an inter-generational time-scale. How will society
absorb an accelerating pace of externalized change? What does it mean for our education
systems, career paths, and forecast horizons?