Guests: Nancy Conrad and Joshua Neubert were the guests today to discuss the Conrad Foundation and the Pete Conrad Spirit of Innovation Award. Find out more by visiting the following websites: http://www.conradfoundation.org/ and http://www.conradawards.org/ . Josh and Nancy explained the purpose of the Conrad Foundation and their incredible awards program. I really think it's likely the best inspiring and motivating awards program for high school students that I have learned about over the past 7 years and I told both guests this on the show. We had many listener questions about the awards, the teams, school, and kids who seemed to be similar in behavior to what Nancy told us about Pete Conrad when he was a youngster in school. You will certainly want to hear this. At one point, Nancy provided listeners with a gifted school and toll free number for parents being challenged with their kids and their school. Among the many topics discussed was the ease or difficulty in selling space in today's world, in getting sponsors for the teams and the program, and more. We learned that the award program will be available to the public at NASA Ames and is set for April 2-4, 2009. I will soon be making "hold the date" announcements about this event. Nancy Conrad shared much with us about how the awards program and the Conrad Foundation were modeled after the goals and life of Pete Conrad who passed from us in 1999. One of the lessons learned and approaches taken to inspiring kids is to "color outside the lines." Listen to the show to understand this in the context in which we discussed it. Listeners asked about the judges for the awards contest. Here, we learned that the judges come from the venture capital community, entrepreneurs, the business, scientific, engineering, and other relevant communities. In addition, some are professors from leading colleges and universities, this enables the student teams obtain relevant college entry information and even assistance in some cases. I believe this program to be exceptional. Please make sure you share it and the Conrad Foundation with your friends and relatives, especially if they have high school age kids. Maybe they will want to enter the contest and one might be the winner. As you will hear, selected and winning teams are given marketing, patent, and other relevant assistance to actually bring their award winning product to market, if possible. This is an exceptional opportunity for high school students so share the information and help get the word out. If you have a comment or question for Nancy Conrad or Josh Neubert, please use the Contact link on the website at http://www.conradfoundation.org/contact.php or http://www.conradawards.org/contact.php .
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The Space Show
