Virtual
Mentoring Communities

B"H

Hi, Folks.

I.
With great
jubilation, like the Phoenix, I'm back, renewed and raring to embark on our next
Great Adventure together.

II.
At some
point in time since you and I first met, each one of you has indicated your
commitment to (or interest in) the co-creation and actualization of global

IN-SYNC
Virtual
Mentoring Communities (VMC; vide infra item
III.C.1)
that are based on the
adage that "it takes a whole village to raise a child" [cf. "Entrepreneurial
Education" (http://www.wcu3einstitute.org/Educator500/tabid/86/Default.aspx)].

III.
As most of
you know, I recently retired in order to devote all my energies full-time to the
worldwide actualization of our IN-SYNC
initiatives (vide infra items
III.C.1-III.C.3):

A.
PREMISE:

In 2001, 110 Nobel
Laureates (including 3 of you) signed a magnanimous statement (prepared prior to
9/11) that calls for a more equitable world ("...social justice that alone gives
hope of peace.") and warns that the most profound danger to World Peace will
stem from the legitimate demands of the world's poor and disenfranchised
[http://www.utoronto.ca/jpolanyi/nobelstatement/statement.html].  Intrinsically
central to the Nobel Laureates' thesis is the synergistically-catalyzed
development of (and investment in) our One World's Human Capital [especially our
One World's Children and our Children's Children (our most precious natural
resource); cf. Gary Becker's Human Capital ideation in http://nobelprize.org/economics/laureates/1992/press.html (also precis in
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_capital)].  Such global
Human Capital Development can probably best be accomplished by exploiting the
power (and outstandingly low cost-to-benefit ratio) of the Internet to
interconnect all the Actual and Virtual Mentors with all
the Children
of our One World (ages 3 to 103) via Internet-accessible Virtual Mentoring
Communities (VMC).  Thus our One World's Children might get to know,
respect, help (and hopefully someday love) one another as fellow members of the
One Human Family that we all are, as evinced by Human Genome researchers
[http://www.geocities.com/rm63f/HumanFamilyTree10Adams18Eves.htm].

B.
PREREQUISITES:

1.  Worldwide cadre of Actual and Virtual Mentors for
each protégé;

2.  Ubiquitous
Broadband e-Access (wireless and/or wired)
for all members of our VMC;
and

3.  Appropriate implement for Internet access (e.g., laptop,
PDA, smartphone, etc.) to be provided to each member of our VMC
(viz., all
Virtual Mentors and protégés).

C.
ACTUALIZATION:

Actualization
of each of the 3 PREREQUISITES will necessitate, respectively,
something akin to each of the following:

1.  Virtual Mentoring Communities (VMC)§ that incorporate (a) Virtual
Face-to-Face (VF2F) communications/collaborations and Peer Mentoring
plus (b)
Internet-accessible, haptic-interface-enabled Virtual Reality (VR) simulators
and e-Learning laboratories for science, technology, and the arts.  VMC can
also be
incorporated into
Cyberlearning, Telehealth, and Virtual
Telehealtheducation programs which can conceivably provide smaller, more
personalized learning and health-related environments† that promote greater
individual well-being and success.  These will necessitate public/private
alliances/partnerships (perhaps via
contract/grant mechanisms akin to Share-in Savings concepts) to ensure that
information technology becomes ubiquitous throughout our underserved communities
worldwide.

§ One possible VMC model
is posted at http://www.geocities.com/rm63f/VMC.doc (this document serves as
a starting point for conversations among our collaborators)

† Perhaps something akin to VITAL Centers (http://www.geocities.com/rm63f/VITAL.doc)

2.  IN-SYNC
initiatives [INnovations for Strategic Year-round Nationwide Connectivity] -- such as AmericansIN-SYNC (http://www.geocities.com/rm63f/AmericansIN-SYNC.doc) -- which provide Ubiquitous
Broadband e-Access and are
essential (perhaps even crucial) prerequisites for the co-creation of VMC
vis-à-vis the successful actualization of seamlessly-integrated, holistic
strategic action plans to promote creativity (the
process leading to ideas)
and innovation (the
process of turning ideas into results) commensurate with the requisite, but
measured
risk-taking.

3.  Something akin to the
"GrACE"
Hybrid Business
Model
[http://www.geocities.com/rm63f/NCM.doc].  For example,
the MIT Media Lab's
business model that has been adopted by Dr. Nicholas Negroponte's One Laptop per
Child (OLPC) program (http://laptop.org/ ; http://laptop.org/faq.en_US.html; http://laptop.org/people.en_US.html) is a nation-specific
variant of "GrACE"
that will
eventually provide one Internet-accessible laptop to each and every child
worldwide.  Moreover,
by leveraging a variety of public/private alliances/partnerships across all K-20
communities, major corporations (e.g., Intel) have started to make major
investments ($billions$) in global Human Capital Development [viz., via
"Entrepreneurial Education" (e.g., http://www.intel.com/education/worldahead/aed.htm)] that will dovetail with Nicholas
Negroponte's OLPC strategies for Human Capital Development.

IV.
Consequently, I'm also currently
seeking a new post-retirement
career "home" that can provide
the requisite infrastructure and is consonant with my post-retirement career
goals apposite to VMC (and VITAL Centers) plus education- and
health-related issues such as those discussed in my Personal
Statement [http://www.geocities.com/rm63f/MySelf2006.doc (my raison d'être)].  I retired from our US
Federal Government on January 3, 2006 after 30 years of service [16 years as a
research scientist at NIST (http://www.nist.gov/ ) and, most recently, 14
years at NIH as a Health Scientist Administrator (HSA; http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/about/jobs/hsaguide.htm) in the Office of
Scientific Review (OSR) at NIGMS (http://www.nigms.nih.gov/), where I administered
the reviews of grant applications for health-related biomedical education,
research, and research training, primarily those submitted to NIGMS's MORE
Division (http://www.nigms.nih.gov/Minority), which probed a variety
of regions of K-20 space].  FYI -- my brief 2006 Who's Who in the World bio is posted at
http://www.marquiswhoswho.net/RM63F/ while my CV is posted at
http://www.geocities.com/rm63f/CV.doc and my Generic
Skills are
posted at http://www.geocities.com/rm63f/GENERIC_SKILLS.doc.

Thanks for your time and
consideration, and feedback.

Richard

Richard I.
Martínez, Ph.D.

CEO/President,
OmniSciHCD®
Consultants,
LLC (http://omniscihcd.org/)

Senior Fellow
[http://www.excelgov.org/index.php?keyword=a432fa28da53ef], Council for Excellence in Government
[http://www.excelgov.org/]

"I
dream what could be, and ask -- WHY
NOT?"

Phone:   301-580-1850
(24x7)

Email:    [email-masked]

http://WWW.MARQUISWHOSWHO.NET/RM63F

http://users.rcn.com/rm63f/VirtualMentoring.htm

http://www.geocities.com/rm63f

"Leaders
are called to stand in that lonely place between the no longer and the not yet,

and
intentionally make decisions that will bind, forge, move, and create
history.

We are
not called to be popular.  We are not called to be safe.  We are not
called to follow.

We are
the ones called to take risks.  We are the ones called to change attitudes;
to risk displeasures.

We are
the ones called to gamble our lives for a better world."
--
Mary Lou
Anderson, April 1970

The
opinions expressed herein are solely those of the author.