Events

Leveraging the New World of Work to Provide Opportunity to Rural El Salvador

Having led a school through a pandemic in the USA, Joe realized he could work virtually connecting his love for the community in El Salvador to launching an organization to provide education and economic development.  Now 14 months later, Grande Center has launched a school and an adult training program in rural El Salvador.  Within the next few months, they will also launch a company to employ people from the region to do data labeling, an entry level career in the field of artificial intelligence.  The profit from the company will be turned back over to the educational model to create a self sustaining cycle of opportunity for former refugee communities from the Salvadoran Civil War.

Joe Albers, born and raised in San Jose, has dedicated his career to education for underserved communities in El Salvador and in San Jose.  He is the founding President of Grande Center for Education and Economic opportunity whose mission is to educate rural communities of El Salvador to thrive in the digital global economy.  With an innovative model of school by day and adult training by night, Grande Center is catalyzing economic opportunity in a region that has had all of the cards stacked against it. 

Joe has been visiting and working with the people of Chalatenango, El Salvador since 2000 and founded a scholarship program in 2011 in the town.  Joe previously served as founding Principal at Cristo Rey San Jose Jesuit High School from 2013 to 2021.

Tonya will be speaking about the family letters she recently acquired from the Civil War, the Oregon Trail, and from 1850s California – as well as the books they have inspired her to write, the related research she has been doing, and her two recent trips to Missouri to visit relevant historical sites and meet people who can help her in this exciting historical journey.

Tonya McQuade has been teaching English and serving as the Interact Club Advisor at Los Gatos High School since 1992. She is a member of Poetry Center San Jose, serves on the board for Tabard Theatre, and is a long-time honorary member of Los Gatos Rotary. In her spare time, she enjoys poetry, historical fiction, blogging, playing piano and guitar, travel, hiking, genealogy, scrapbooking, volunteering for local theater and concert productions., and spending time with family and friends.

Another in-meeting service project. This is easy - not at all technical- and many hands make light work. We will be prepping wires that Fisher science class students will be using to build solar kits sent around the world to communities in need of reliable electricity. Electricity -> Light -> Ability to do homework -> Literacy!

Join us from 5:30 to 7:30pm

Gali Tasting Room at 21 W. Main Street in downtown Los Gatos!

Campbell Scott is a retired scientist who now volunteers for The Climate Reality Project, Silicon Valley where he is director of the speakers’ bureau .  With a bachelor’s degree from St. Andrews University in Scotland and PhD in physics from the University of Pennsylvania he pursued a career in education and research.  In retirement, he uses his background in physics, chemistry and education to inform the public about the causes, consequences and solutions of climate change.

It is increasingly evident that global climates are changing.  This talk will summarize the cause of climate change and the impacts that it is having, with a focus on the Bay Area.  Since the cause is well understood, the solutions are clear.  Each of us can play a role in contributing to, and benefitting from, these solutions.

Julie ‘Brain Lady’ Anderson is considered to be one of the nation’s top experts on the Brain Personality Connection. She is a dynamic and engaging international public speaker; business, communication, and relationship consultant; as well as a published author. For more than 15 years she has been igniting her audiences to fire up their brains to inspire positive changes in the relationships of all in attendance. The information she shares will help those who hear to accelerate their success in life and business through discovery of their natural gifts. Julie’s educational background is vast. She studied Natural Health, Psychology, Human Resource Development and Psychoneuroimmunology at Clayton College. She is a 3 time attendee of Realizations Inc. / Success Resources International’s Brain and Innate Giftedness program. She has also received CEC’s in the field of Depression, Anxiety Disorders and Brain Function. She has done extensive research in the areas of Personality Types, Brain Function and Anatomy, Brain Health, and the Brain Personality Connection.

At our club meeting on January 31st, we will give a sneak peek into our upcoming CrabFest and Auction being held at 5pm on February 4th at St. Andrew's Church in Saratoga. We will show you how to browse and bid on over 100 fabulous auction items on your phone! Fun prizes will be given to our most generous pre-event bidders. Come see what all the fuss is about.

Julia Anderson, a pastry chef and chocolatier, located in Silicon Valley, California is a seasoned chef, chocolatier and restaurateur with 20+ years of experience in the foodservice industry.

Born and raised in Los Angeles, she received her formal culinary education at Le Cordon Bleu. Over the course of her career, she has owned and operated two successful restaurants, which continue to thrive. Julia retired from restaurant ownership in December 2019. Since then she has been teaching cooking & pastry classes, catering, and as of 2022 is starting a new business, Blue Canary Sweets, an online chocolate subscription store. She expects to officially launch Blue Canary Sweets in January 2023. Chef Julia enjoys spending time with her husband and daughter, and likes to travel when she's not working.

Tom Boyce, of Los Gatos Rotary, will update the club on International Projects supported by Rotary.

Sandeep will talk about very large language models which are artificial neural network trained on massive amount of text data to generate human-like text for various natural language tasks. These profoundly change the way humans communicate and interact with technology. We will explore the use of these language models as business analysis assistant.

Background
Sandeep Gopisetty is an IBM Researcher obsessed with impact in developing large scale software solutions.  He has been awarded over 75 patents and numerous corporate and outstanding technical accomplishment awards and manages a highly talented group of researchers 

In February the Los Gatos Town Council unanimously endorsed a Roadmap for older adult services in Los Gatos. This Roadmap is the culmination of a 15 month effort by community members, local leaders, two Town Mayors and a Council member, presenting exciting new directions for providing services to older adults in our Town— where the older population is anticipated to approach 1/3 of the residents over the next decade. The Roadmap grew out of an effort by the Council with support from the Community Health and Senior Services Commission to address issues laid bare by the pandemic and was jump-started by Council directing $500,000 in American Rescue Plan Act funds for grants last year. A comprehensive official survey, 12 community workshops, and the benchmarking of seven similar cities provided the foundation for establishing seven goals and details for 1-3-10 year projects and milestones for each goal. The Roadmap is now moving from planning to implementation and we look forward to telling you about the Roadmap findings and plans for creating an age-friendly community where older adults are engaged, valued, and provided equitable opportunities to thrive.

Tom Picraux bio

Tom is a retired scientist. He served as chair of the recent Los Gatos Senior Service Committee. In addition to being a member of Rotary, he is co-chair of the Membership Committee of the Sourcewise Advisory Council, coordinator of the West Valley Service Providers network and is VP of the local League of Women Voters.

Dick Konrad bio

Dick Konrad is a member of Rotary, member and past chair of Los Gatos Community Health and Senior Services Commission, served as a member of the recent LG Senior Services Committee, a former member of the LG Parks Commission, and chair of the LG Beautification Committee 

Red Badge Bios presented