Topics that I’d like to brainstorm about at Mind Camp:

‘’‘Computational thinking:’‘’
*In the early 70s, no one imagined there’d be more computers in our homes than TVs
*In the early 80s, no one imagined regular people, every day, would do their own word processing and financial spreadsheets
*In the early 90s, no one imagined hundreds of millions of people, every day, would be researching, shopping, chat, mailing, fileswapping and gaming on the Internet
*In the early 21st century, no one imagines that people will be casually and effectively programming their computers (especially the mobile ones!) every day

But they will be.  The keys are:  ‘’‘Simplicity’‘’.  ‘’‘Accessibility’‘’.  And support for the ‘’‘killer scenarios’‘’ that interest people enough to make them want to do this.  Scenarios around gaming, music, photos and chatting, for instance.

I’m exaggerating (slightly) when I say ‘no one’, of course.  Check out this Research Paper on Computational Thinking by Dr. Jeannette Wing at Carnegie Mellon University.

‘’‘Where Virtual Meets Reality:’‘’

This is already happening, but there’s a technical evolution of Internet standards which I think could happen (now) to make Virtual Reality available as a ubiquitous experience of computing.  Lots and lots to talk about here, including:
*’‘'What’s already happening here?’‘’ (Second Life, MMOs, online commerce and digital product, existing connections between virtual and real economies - others?)
*’‘'Where is this likely to go?’‘’ (This is half brainstorming and half science fiction - but we’re actually the technologists who will help make this happen!)
*’‘'How do we get there from here?’‘’ (I submit that much of the technology already exists to take the 2D experience of the Internet into 3D today - and that we can talk about specific problems and specific technology standards which we already know about)