Thomas West: Seminars on Visual Learning

Learning & Behaviour Charitable Trust NZ
Press Release

August-Sept 2005, Thomas West, Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study, George Mason University.
“ Geninises who hated school” “Visual thinkers & Nobel Prizes”

Recent release “ Thinking like Einstien” will be the theme for our tour in Aug/Sept with Tom.
Cost yet to be determined.

‘Tom west himself can be described as one of the above’

Thomas West, author of the award-winning book In the Mind's Eye, now in its 13th printing. This book was recognized by the American Library Association with a gold seal as “an outstanding academic title” (1997) and, later, as one of the "best of the best" (1998). The book was published in several languages in 2004. According to one reviewer: "Every once in a while a book comes along that turns one's thinking upside down. In the Mind's Eye is just such a book. . . ." This book argues that major advances in computer visualization technologies promise to transform education and the workplace -- greatly increasing the perceived value of visual talents for understanding patterns in complex systems in business, the sciences and other fields. Many dyslexics are already leaders in areas of technological innovation as well as science and many other fields of business -- as technological change makes their distinctive visual strengths more and more valuable just as their areas of weakness become less and less important.

Mr. West was invited to join the Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study (interdisciplinary neuroscience research), George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, to develop a program to investigate the visual and non-visual talents shown by many dyslexics. In connection with In the Mind's Eye, Tom has been invited to provide presentations for scientific, medical, art and business groups in the U.S. and overseas, including groups in Australia, Canada, Great Britain, New Zealand, Germany, Spain, Italy, Ireland, Sweden, Hong Kong, Taiwan and The Netherlands. West has organized conferences and consulted on computer visualization of information for the National Library of Medicine, also for business leaders and media innovators. For years he has written a column on visualization issues for a quarterly publication of the international professional society for computer graphics artists and technologists. These columns are now being turned into a new book titled: "Learning to Think Like Einstein -- Returning to Our Visual Roots with the Emerging Revolution in Computer Information Visualization".

Prior to writing In the Mind's Eye, Mr. West worked with engineering and consulting organizations where he managed a large international research and training program, helped to redesign a national computer information system and integrated strategic planning for several federal government agencies, with periodic travel to the Middle East and the Far East. Based in Washington, D.C., West plans to begin work on a new book in late 2004, this one dealing with visual thinking and dyslexia in scientific families -- focusing, in part, on one such family that includes winners of four Nobel Prizes. Mr. West has appeared on TV programs produced by the BBC and by Twenty Twenty Television for broadcast by UK Channel 4. Articles reviewing or citing In the Mind's Eye have appeared in Computers in Physics, The American Bar Association Journal, The Boston Globe, Vanity Fair, The Roeper Review, The Financial Times, The Times Educational Supplement, The Independent, The Times, The Evening Standard, The Oxford Mail, The Australian, Kagaku Asahi Science Magazine and Nikkei Daily among others.

This seminar is a not to miss by anyone, the LBCTNZ was very lucky to secure Tom for August 2005, and he and his family are personal friends of our first overseas Patron Dr Gavin Reid, he also invited our own professor James Chapman, Vice-Chancellor Massey University, to be part of a panel at the last Conference held in Bangor Wales, July-Sept 2003. This is an honour for us, so please lets pull together for Tom West, so that he remembers his time on NZ.

Email: lbctnz@slingshot.co.nz

ENDS

These people that are our AT RISK potential criminals, drug, alcohol and suicide as printed in the Dompost 29th June – “How to pick a crim at age 3” have these predictors.

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