A Direct2TV Blogging Essay by Carlton Ragsdale

When I was five years old, I thought I had my future mapped out.

I knew exactly what I wanted to be and had a rough idea of how I could get there. But by the time I turned six, I realized that becoming be a Jedi wasn’t realistic. After all, where’s the money in it?

There’s no doubt that my early obsession with science fiction lead me to love technology in all of its myriad forms, from building computers and playing video games to robotic design competitions. However a problem still remained – how do I capitalize on my passion, and what can I do with it?

Technology has given me learning experiences and opportunities that I doubt any other field could. For example, my love of technology helped me land an internship last year at Beanstalk Innovation. There, I beta-tested educational software and provided the company with feedback about how to make their products more appealing to kids while still maintaining their high educational standards.

Beanstalk then flew my colleague Max and me to Dublin, Ireland, where we presented to a group of over forty software developers at the Global Education Think Tank Conference, sharing our ideas in support of video games being used more meaningfully as part of an engaging academic curriculum.

We explained the surprising amount of math, strategy, and creativity required to play complex games like Civilization and even games that aren’t perceived to have as much academic value, such as Pokemon.

Technology is a driving force behind many of my day-to-day actions as well. After being a professional nerd for all of my life, I’ve made my peace with the fact that social opportunities for people like me can sometimes be… slim. To counter this, I created a group at my high school that meets every Friday to play video games, learn some coding, or engage in anything else that nerds love doing – which typically leads to just playing more video games!

In addition to the incredible fun I derive from gaming, I also use technology to work harder (and smarter) and to engage in several entrepreneurial pursuits. When I was fifteen, I created my own online business and mobile phone apps: Cullman Life, which I continue to run successfully. The site is dedicated to informing residents and visitors about local events and activities taking place in Cullman, Alabama, where my grandparents live.

As the town’s largest information hub and with over 10,000 Facebook fans, my site earns several hundred dollars from advertisers each month.

I can’t imagine not continuing to utilize technology each day, so it’s important to me that I take it seriously and am able to build a career out of it. To further this ambition, I’ve enrolled in C++ classes at my high school (Ohana Institute), which will enable me to strengthen my interests and skill sets by learning to create games of my own with this programming language. These courses enrich my game-design and software engineering enthusiasm by highlighting not only the fun of playing video games, but also the empowerment that comes from being able to build these programs myself.

Perhaps the aspect of technology that most drives me is its continuous evolution. From the ancient wheel to militarized lasers, technology continues to become bigger, better, and more awesome because there are dedicated people working tirelessly to unlock the next key. I can’t wait to be one of them.

Watch this video for a brief tour of how my CullmanLife.com business works:

And here’s a short video about the coffee business that I started with three other students: