Today’s guest: Neil Thompson, engineer, author and ‘teacher of geeks’

Guest bio: Neil Thompson is an entrepreneur, children’s book author, and patent agent. For years, he worked as a product development engineer in the medical device industry. He started the online platform Teach the Geek to help scientists and engineers with non-technical skills that often get overlooked. His first target? Public speaking. The first offering of the platform, Teach the Geek to Speak, is the online course to help with public speaking.

His children’s book, Ask Uncle Neil: Why is my hair curly? is about his nephew asking him why his hair is the way it is and Neil uses science to answer the question. The goal of the book is to encourage more Black kids to consider careers in STEM.

Show notes: In this episode, Neil talked about his inspiration for his podcast geared toward teaching technically minded people how to be better public speakers and communicators. He even developed courses around this topic.

We also talked about his passion for introducing STEM topics to children. The earlier the better. STEM careers introduce innovation in the world. Unfortunately, very few kids of color are involved in STEM and miss out on being involved in innovative jobs. Neil wants to change that. His first book (Ask Uncle Neil: Why is my hair curly?) is his attempt at changing that.

In the show intro and outro, Claude and I (Linda) talk about what STEM role models and mentors should look like in black communities. What do you think? Drop your comments below.

Purchase Neil Thompson’s book at AskUncleNeil.com. The site has testimonials from other parents. And it’s geared toward elementary school ages and has a STEM message. It would make a great gift.

Also, you can check out the Teach the Geek Podcast on several outlets online. Subscribe and rate on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, and YouTube Follow @teachthegeek and @_teachthegeek on IG

Visit the Teach the Geek website today.

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Show Sponsor:

STEM Dreams podcast is sponsored by Wildlands Engineering, a water resources engineering firm in Charlotte, North Carolina. Wildlands is dedicated to increasing diversity in engineering and environmental sciences like geology and ecology.

Wildlands, thank you for helping us help the next generation of STEM dreamers.

Credits: Show sound effects and music was sourced from FreeSound.org.