Teaching STEM Club at Unity Prep /  by Robert Stribley

Teaching with my colleague Kyle at Unity Prep in Bedford-Stuyvesant and Brownsville neighborhoods of Brooklyn.

Our group of us from our team at Razorfish/Publicis Groupe developed a curriculum to teach at the STEM Club at Unity Preparatory School in Brooklyn, starting mid 2020. Since then, we’ve taught each semester, expanding and developing our curriculum along the way. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed teaching this smart bunch of kids about AR/VR technology, collaborative sketching and user experience design in general.

We began by teaching remotely, so it was a real joy to join them in person this year for the winter session, when we brought in Google cardboard VR kits donated by the good folks at Google and had a great time demonstrating how to use them with the students. Each student got to take a VR kit home, too.

Teaching at Unity Prep /  by Robert Stribley

Along with some of my colleagues from Publicis Sapient, I’ve been helping teach a STEM club periodically at Unity Preparatory Charter School in Brooklyn. I’ve been covering off on collaborative sketching and user experience design. This week my team mate Sarah and I finally got to teach the kids in person after a number of times teaching them remotely during COVID-19. The kids were whip smart, funny, and super engaged, and we had a wonderful time teaching them about UX, usability testing and accessibility.

Brooklyn Product Design Meetup /  by Robert Stribley

Speaking at the Brooklyn Product Design Meetup. Photo by Brian Hui.

Speaking at the Brooklyn Product Design Meetup. Photo by Brian Hui.

After some 16 months of pandemic lockdown, it was wonderful to join everyone at the Brooklyn Product Design Meetup in DUMBO in mid July to present on the topic of “Designing for Privacy in an Increasingly Public World.” This was, no doubt, the first public presentation many people had attended in months and my first time public speaking, not online but “in real life” since early 2020. Here’s a video of the talk on YouTube. Presentation on Slideshare.

NYU Certificate in Global Affairs /  by Robert Stribley

NYU School of Professional Studies - Center for Global Affairs logo

After working on it for approximately three year, I have completed the Certificate in Global Affairs at New York University’s Center for Global Affairs. My studies included classes in International Relations, International Law, International Political Economy, Foundations of Transnational Security, Gender in International Affairs, and Energy and the Environment. I began the certificate on campus but continued with most of studies during the pandemic. Needless to say, between work and these classes, I spent a lot of time suspended before a screen in Zoom sessions during COVID.