The teleprompter takes so much preparation and experience! Anchor, Kym McNicholas, worked with me on the above video. I did the styling! Love this necklace! It’s my favorite from Forever21. Oh and I can’t wait for the new iPad 2!!! Eeeek- someone please buy me a white one for my birthday! lol

It’s incredibly creative and I’ve never met someone so science and technology driven in their fashion sense.

Oh and I loved interviewing these really great Stanford University students in the video above. Fun!

In business, one of the most important things is to find a passion and a demand in the market. My passion comes from how technology helps people improve quality of life and do their personal best. As a reporter of technology trends for Pop17, the stories that interest me the most are how people can bring their passion to life and change the world with tech tools.

There are so many ways to use tech tools to improve the lives of others. These are the stories I like to highlight the most! For example, Kiva.org is a site that I like to support because they help to change the lives of so many entrepreneurs by allowing individuals to make micro loans to support small business. During times of disaster relief the internet has changes people’s lives through making it possible for crowd sourced fund raising. One loan can give people a step ahead and a step closer to alleviating global poverty.

Bill and Hillary Clinton are supporters of micro loans. So when my sister, Rebekah, and I made a short film about micro-loans for Hilary Clinton’s social network contests, Rebekah won the grand prize to work in China for a summer semester abroad. The exchange took place this summer, 2010, as an example of how Rebekah’s life was changed as a result of harnessing the power of the internet and technology. 

In a recent interview for a Pop17 blog series, I interviewed Tammy Camp about making change through technology. Tammy is a technology entrepreneur, speaker, and writer.

Here’s an excerpt:

Tammy: I made a Kiva loan to some lovely ladies in Dominican Republic. They need $400 more! Will visit on my next trip down. It is where I go to in Dominican Rebpublic so if the loan is complete, I will go down there and visit and see the $$ at work.
Sarah: How do you take the opportunity to be hands on when you are in the DR?
Tammy: They are female entrepreneurs, like myself. I know the country of Dominican Republic very well and understand the market segment. I’ll be able to advise them and provide insight on how they can grow their business. Plus give them encouragement.
Sarah: Since the recent earthquake there are so many people all over the world- we see their conversations on twitter- how do you keep your concerned followers up to date when you are there? What does a typical day look like for you there?
Tammy: I’ll livestream from the schools down there via Ustream, shoot video and post them on my blog here and also use Twitter to share my experience in real time.

Stories like Tammy’s are inspiring. For example, the one red paperclip guy is fascinating. This is a story of an ordinary man, Kyle MacDonald, who changed his life and the lives of others by trading his way up from a red paperclip to a house in 14 trades by using the internet. I love seeing how people can time and time again, use technology to turn lemons into lemonade. He helped others by making trades for their career advancement, like his 10th trade to Jody Gnant, who traded a record deal for her music in exchange for a year’s rent from her home in Phoenix, Arizona. The book, One Red Paperclip, is authored by Kyle who I was fortunate enough to sit down with at MIT in Massachusetts for ROFLCon.

I’m pretty much one of the biggest advocates for technology because I like to look at the people who use it and how that changes their lives. Technology is a way to change the world. If I could do anything with technology it would be opening up the lives of people to the resources technology has to offer. Everything from using the internet to find employment to aiding the disabled with tech tools that improve their lives show that change can happen with the right resources. Technology makes our lives easier and advances our quality of life.

Being a freelance video editor, software and hardware improvements can make the difference of what I can and cannot produce via the computer. I love Apple software and also software for PC’s, however, I’m more of an Apple girl today with exactly five excellent Apple computers.

I’m a fan of saving paper. We are moving away from print and closer to using electronic data transfers for information exchange. Having lots of computers is not always necessary, unless you are transferring massive amounts of data. When uploading data to my server, I like to keep the computer running without having to multitask.

Ever since I was 12 years old my friends and family looked to me for support with their computers. Today, I study and investigate computer information for reporting on various new outlets. I’m an online video journalist. You can see my work regularly on Forbes.com and Pop17.com. In the past, I was the head of video- video editor for the west coast- for Gawker Media, including Gizmodo. My favorite video project was the iPhone launch.

Recently, IT has been more than study for me. I’ve been dabbling in tech design and development. I’m the lead designer for the video player and the Facebook application game. Development and design are key elements. I learned how important communication and management become when running projects that I do not fully understand. I know a little HTML and CSS and am learning HTML5. However, most of what the developers on building the facebook games I’m not an expert at. I do reading and research so that I can speak the language and communicate with them.

Design is one of the other elements that IT is about. Other than the software that designers use, there are more tools available for people who want to design from their browser, software, or application. There are logo generating sites and easy tools to crowd-source design communities. I’ve organized several design competitions with my audience before and generated great results.

Finally, I’m seriously in IT when it comes to networking. Isn’t IT all about social media these days? My social network communities on Pop17 are really powerful and influential online. I have worked very hard for over 5 years in Silicon Valley to gain access to certain individuals and build strong interpersonal relationships. I have about 1,000 strong tech contacts that I regularly communicate with and 500,000 monthly video views to Pop17 live seminars. On twitter we have 30,000 followers and I was even featured in Vanity Fair as one of America’s Tweethearts. Today, I think of IT leaning more towards social media than ever before. Social media is the biggest trend to look out for right now.

Who’s excited for the iPad?! The New York Times looks to Technology research firms for an in depth analysis of the current market for the iPad. “One firm, NPD, found in a study that 18 percent of consumers expressed interest in owning an iPad.” If about one in 5 people want an iPad then it’s not the next iPhone.

Watch live video from pop17 on Justin.tv

I’m skipping out on this iPad because I don’t need it and it’s first gen. However, if and only if the iPad becomes more like a Mac would I want to wait in line for a release. It will be interesting to see how Apple decides to improve features like incorporating USB, camera with video, matte finish larger screen, updated OS X, and basically everything else that makes it more like a computer than an iPhone.

Getting an education has no ending. It will go on as long as the mind wants to consume. Education is stepping into the light and learning about things we were ignorant about before. The “light,” according to Plato, is being educated. It is being able to see the sun and being in the right place to do so. Getting an education is similar to getting a degree because they will both bring you into the light and open opportunities. 

When I first became involved with technology I did not learn about it in school. I was 12 and did not have a computer so I used the computers at school at lunch break and after hours. As a teen, I learned about tech by going to meet-ups, informational conferences, and social gatherings around tech in the Silicon Valley and Bay Area. There was nothing that could get in my way because I was so passionate about the power of technology and the possibilities of social media. 

By the time I was 21, I attended 32 different conferences internationally and nationally, interviewed over 200 technology leaders, created over 300 videos about tech, and wrote 182 blog posts about tech. By the time I was 19, people started calling me a technology leader. This happened because I had an education, but not because I had a degree in technology. Getting a degree is similar to getting an education because they both will take you places. 

Steve Wozniak, who didn’t get a degree, ironically wrote my college letter of recommendation as he told me I didn’t need to get a degree. He said that with my experience and leadership I wouldn’t have a problem getting a job, however, the only reason I should get a degree is so I can tell my kids to get a degree. (So many hires want at least a Bachelors degree). I have always looked up to Woz as a leader in tech along with Jobs and Gates. Woz would agree that getting an education is just as good as getting a degree. 

Getting a degree is similar to getting an education because along the way to a degree one does become educated. You are forced to see the light. The difference from getting an education and getting a degree is when you get a degree you finish with an ending. You take required classes along the way and graducate with a single sheet of paper that says you did it. Getting a degree is important to many and unimportant to some. 

p.s. As many of you know, I’m a full time student with an end goal. I like the structure of school and the joy it brings every day. For part of my high school experience I was home schooled. I learned that I didn’t need anyone else to help me learn. That’s why I decided to take education into my own hands. Be it in school, the real world, or both, education will set you free!

I’m geeky and looking for ways to express myself in tech. Having sponsors to help is what makes what I do possible. Ford Motor Company, Watchitoo, Media Temple and T-mobile are doing their part to sponsor me and Pop17. If you or someone you know is interested in sponsoring then see the sponsor page for more information.

I want to enable people to come together for a common purpose to help humanity. I want the right parts of tech to come together . That’s why I’m doing my part to help humanity with SummerSearch mentorship programs.