For several years now, Ideum has been happy to host the students of the United World College as a stop on their annual entrepreneurial tour of New Mexico. The tour typically takes place in March, but when the pandemic hit in 2020, their visit was one of the very first community events that were canceled. This March, however, after a two-year hiatus, we were happy to welcome them back.

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The United World College in New Mexico is a highly-ranked and top-tier high school, belonging to the wider, global system of 18 schools and colleges that has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. The New Mexico location’s history is described on their website as:

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UWC-USA was originally founded as the Armand Hammer United World College of the American West by Armand Hammer at the request of Prince Charles, then the President of UWC. Hammer chose the Montezuma, New Mexico location in the American Southwest, because of its remarkable beauty, proximity to immense wilderness areas in Northern New Mexico, and an architecturally compelling site within a historic region of the United States.

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The New Mexico school is further defined by three unique features: extensive community service that includes thousands of volunteer hours, a wilderness program that includes backpacking, hiking, and backcountry camping, and The Bartos Institute for the Constructive Engagement of Conflict which fosters conflict resolution and cross-cultural skills.

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Each year, the school takes the students on an extensive tour of New Mexico, meeting with a variety of companies, non-profits, and governmental entities doing interesting, cutting-edge, and meaningful work. The tour is titled an Entrepreneurial Tour. As such, we tailor their visit with the Ideum team as an opportunity to understand the work we’re doing and also a bit about the people performing the job - our backgrounds, how we landed here, what we like about it, and what we find challenging. The tour is titled as an Entrepreneurial Tour, and as such we tailor their visit with the Ideum team as an opportunity to understand the work we’re doing, and also a little bit about the people performing the work - our backgrounds, how we landed here, what we like about it, and what we find challenging.

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During their visit to the Ideum campus, the students met with Ideum Founder Jim Spadaccini, who presented Ideum’s history, from the start 20 years ago to today's offerings of a full multitouch tables and displays, fabrication, custom software development, projection mapping, full exhibition projects, and more.

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The students also visited with members of our experience design and project management teams, to hear about some of the upcoming and exciting projects we’re currently developing. We enjoyed sharing some of our prototyping setups, including a 3D printed model of an exhibit space, and a pepper’s ghost prototype set-up. From there, the students toured our hardware workshop, for an opportunity to see where and how we assemble our multitouch products, and for an opportunity to speak with some of the talented team members that build them.

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We greatly enjoy hosting community and student groups to our campus, and hope that the UWC students enjoyed their visit and found it enlightening in terms of how they might consider their own career paths. We look forward to hosting the school again in the future and wish this year’s cohort well on their journey!