The 28th annual Risky Business Conference will be held in Ames tomorrow, bringing together high school students, parents and professionals from across Iowa. Erin Kennedy, with Youth and Shelter Services, is coordinating the event which is expected to draw more than 700 attendees.
“It’s a great opportunity for youth-serving professionals and adults, this includes teachers, human service professionals, DHS workers, even child care workers, to come together with youth to really work on youth development topics.” Kennedy says the two keynote speakers for this year’s conference are Scott McLeod, a professor and founding director of CASTLE at the University of Kentucky and Alec Couros, a professor of Educational Technology & Media from the University of Regina in Canada.
“They are going to be working together and doing a dual keynote address called, ‘Co-creating Our Digital Reality,'” Kennedy says. “So, we’ll have our two presenters together with all of our youth and all of our adults together to look at ways digital technology can empower both youth and adults.”
Kennedy said the day-long conference will feature about 40 different workshops. One will focus on using assistive technology to enhance our lives, presented by Easter Seals of Iowa, while officials with the FBI will be presenting a workshop on human trafficking and its impact in the heartland.
The Risky Business conference will be held in the Scheman Building at Iowa State University. For more information, visit: www.yss.org.
By Pat Powers, KQWC, Webster City