As @piedpiper wrote in his great Article: School is Dead

Educational institutions are not necessary anymore to gurantee a good education. They are more often contra productive, if you think about the opportunity costs of doing something you like in the same time and learn a lot through it.

Before I come to the details of what I see as my mission. I want to tell you a few key experiences I made:

Exosphere

Exosphere was very disturbing....but in a good way

The program for me was a garden: Soil, care, company and enough brain food were supplied, but the growing had to come from myself. But other then school, there where now targets given. No hoops to jump through. You had to find out for yourself in which direction you are pulled, because nobody can push you in the optimal direction.

If you are interested in the paths which doors stand open for you, then you can be really happy. But if you find yourself wanting to practice a specific craft, but have no way to do so, you will have a hard time finding something to fully invest yourself in.

Informatics: Self tought > School

I observed in a lot of videos, articles and reports the superiority of informatics. If you where interested in informatics as a kid and started with the topic, you would have a headstart that no one could catch up with that starts programming in university. Actually, with all the online courses, if you started programming yourself at home. A dedicated programmer can get a basic backgound and work faster then a student, that is occupied with the schaduled topics.

A joke under programmers

This leads to the situation that you have an advantage studying yourself instead of spending money on university. A fact that is reflected in the many IT statups and freelancers around the world. The profession of a programmer, coder ect. is not guarded by an institution anymore.

Electronics: Self tought ~ School

How not to do it

Electronics is starting off similar: with many guides and teaching video online, it is not hard to get into the profession. The materials needed are a little more than soldering irons, dremel tool and a little space for tinkering. Programs help with cirquit design and custom circuit boards can be ordered online. What is needed is dedication, patience and discipline, and a good access to electronic goods.

This is actually happening in Shenzhen:

While you can download everything you like in IT, you need actual hardware in electronics. The more diverse the supply, the more creativity is allowed. 

Sythesis: Engineering is 90% construction

In engineering, you are basically tinkering professional: You are not throwing together part that you have lying around to get things done, you have to provide the most optimal design for the production that fullfills a myriad of requirements. The reason for this is, that not only you, but each of your customers has to rely on optimal performance while paying only the lowest necessary price. This has to be fullfilled for each of the produced products.

This accuracy is important, because the correction of an error with the product later, that might cost the company thousands of dollars, is only a matter of cents during construction.

So what has this to do with informatics and electronics? In construction you techically work most of the time in front of the computer. You need to bring experience with you, but access to heavy machinery is not necesary needed during construction. 

I belive that it is possible to give a dedicated kid access to all the knowledge he needs and have him construct things. I don't belive that you have to be a certified engineer to produce accurate construction plans, nor do I think that being a certified engineer enables you to do that. 

My mission

After all the talk we now come to the question: What exactly am I thinking of doing now?

On the one hand, I have to find a way to give interested people access to engineering, specifically construction and developlment. A blue print to it can be an introduction and give a framework, that can then be filled out according to the interests and the specifications of the product. No need to learn about aerodynamics if you plan to construct a stationary machine.

On the other hand, there needs to be an incentive other then dedication. The production of construction plans has to become a production of value. I other words: it is for me to find out if construction documents can give value to other people.

It might be that the documents can be sold to factory owners, so that they have something new to produce. Maybe available products can be improved and the trick sold to the company? Or you can find a way to get a company to produce your product and ship it to a wholeseller that buys them from you for further distribution.

This question will be very hard to find out, because it is not something that you get tought in the university. I expect to experiment a lot, but maybe I even get someone else to find a way first. In that case I can focus on education and consulting again and be happy that a lot more people are now able to follow a passion that was cosed to them to before.