In our interview with CEO Brett Kopf, he told us that the experience of being part of the Bailey Scholar program at Michigan State University was life changing in terms of finding a positive future for himself. He told me that his advisor was a really inspirational...
"I like to tell people I started the company in fifth grade. That's a lie. But, I was diagnosed with a bunch of learning disabilities as a kid and I really struggled in school. I had this teacher that totally changed my life, named Miss Whitefield. My parents were...
Across the pond, there's an entrepreneur who has a lot of grit and resilience. It might be because he was faced with adversity from day 1, because he was also born with cystic fibrosis and never expected to have a full life span. He is dyslexic, and also faced shaming...
CNBC had a welcome article about how important dyslexic employees are for increasing demands for creative thinking, design, and leadership. Their review was based on the Ernst and Young research paper The Value of Dyslexia. Excerpt: "dyslexic individuals have...
David Schoenbrod is a pioneering environmental attorney on faculty at New York Law School. Since his start in doing anti-poverty community development under a program initiated by Bobbie Kennedy, he has used out-of-the-box dyslexic big picture thinking to trigger a...
![Dyslexic Innovation: GOOGLE (X) CAPTAIN Astro Teller [Premium]](https://www.dyslexicadvantage.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/900px-Astro_Teller_candid.jpg)
Many of the world’s greatest innovators are dyslexic. These creators with a capital ‘C’, more often than not, arrive at their conclusions through wild leaps of their ideas rather than incremental, step-by-step invention. This pattern, which appears in so many accomplished people in every type of field and discipline, should be telling us what to look for in its raw form in young people, and what the end goal of the educational process should really be. A great case in point in Google’s X Lab Captain of Moonshots, Astro Teller. Astro doesn’t talk a lot about his dyslexia, but he did relate this story about his dyslexia at an educational conference: “As a student in school, I fell into the habit of doing things […]
Dr. Gail Saltz has a hit book on her hands, and it's called The Power of Different. In addition to being a professor of psychiatry at Columbia University, she grew up with a brother who'd win a Nobel Prize. Gail was kind enough to talk to her about what she learned...
![DEAN KAMEN INVENTOR [Premium]](https://www.dyslexicadvantage.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Screen-Shot-2019-09-10-at-12.32.34-PM.jpg)
“If you start to do things you’ve never done before, you’re probably going to fail at least some of the time…and I say that’s ok.” – Dean Kamen Dean Kamen is one of the world’s most prolific inventors with over 440 patents to his name – including the Segway, the Luke Arm (robotic prosthesis), a programmable insulin pump and portable water purifier for Third World Countries. He also created the FIRST LEGO league to encourage young people to build and engineer, and he considers that his most important accomplishment. Dean’s father was an illustrator for MAD magazine and Weird Science and his mother was a teacher. Precocious at a young age, he remembers inventing a way to make his bed without having to cross to […]
![How Herd Aversion Helps Adult Dyslexics [Premium]](https://www.dyslexicadvantage.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2019-09-09-at-10.33.07-AM.jpg)
“I have herd aversion to the point it’s ridiculous.” – Vince Flynn In our earliest interviews with adult dyslexics in research for our book, a recurring theme of “herd aversion” emerged. Herd aversion or tendency to avoid group think – seems to be a common feature among some of the most innovative and pioneering men and women that we’ve had the pleasure of knowing. Some may point to early childhood experiences of having to “go against the grain” or figure things out on their own, but regardless, as adults, it takes a lot of gutsiness because there can be a lot of messages from the world telling you that they don’t get you or that you’re flat out wrong. Fortunately, there are lots of disciplines […]
![Harvard Genetics Professor George Church on Dyslexia and Failing [Premium]](https://www.dyslexicadvantage.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Screen-Shot-2019-09-15-at-9.02.10-PM.jpg)
“If you’re not failing, You’re probably not trying as hard as you could be.” – Dyslexic Harvard Genetics Professor George Church From Harvard’s Gazette: Church had an erratic path through higher education like many dyslexic students, but his path shows a lot of ingenuity, passion, and dogged persistence in spite of not learning to read well. As a young person: “I was using books — even though I had a lot of trouble reading. By using the index and using photographs, I could figure out just about anything. So that kind of set me on a course of independent study. I was not particularly well adapted socially. I had dyslexia, narcolepsy, OCD, ADD — all these things were very mild, but made me feel different.” […]
"While my father was achieving phenomenal success at IBM, I barely made it through high school. It took me three schools and six years before I finally graduated at 19.… He knew I was drifting, but never gave up.” - Thomas Watson Jr, President of IBM, President Medal...
![Why Are So Many Dyslexic Student Good at Science? [Premium]](https://www.dyslexicadvantage.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/shutterstock_147597254.jpg)
Nobel Prize winners, MacArthur Geniuses, Engineers of the Century, SiliconValley pioneers, and more. Why are so many dyslexic people exceptional at science and tech? Here are 5 Reasons (there are many more…):
