[David Lame]

Here's a question I found very difficult to answer:

How important is meeting celebrities at the event(s)?

Being in the presence of People Magazine type celebrities means pretty much nothing to me, and I suspect that typical robotics students and mentors are less impressed by media superstars than are the general public. In that sense, it would get a zero on the importance scale.

On the other hand, people like the President of the United States, or the head of NASA, or a major tech CEO is a bit different. I would like to see those people at the event. (The President via live video, if possible. Actual presence requires too much security.) It's not that I think those people are cooler than rock stars or quarterbacks. That's not it at all.

I want our event to be so important, so significant, so worthy of attention that those people think it's worthwhile for them to come to us. If the President pays attention to us, other people will pay attention to what he pays attention to. I want tech CEOs to show up not because they are billionaires and I want our kids to get a chance to be in the same room them. I want them to realize that this is a rare opportunity to advertise in front of an important audience. They know that the best engineers of the next decade are in their audience, and they want those people to have a favorable impression of their company when they start looking for jobs after graduation.

When it comes to the media megastars, (like Will I Am for example) they can play a role, too, but not in an "I want to meet them" sort of way. Those people, for better or worse, draw attention. If having those people present draws the attention of the world on us and on our kids, then that's fantastic.

In other words, I want the event to be worthy of attention, and the presence of celebrities can help draw the attention the event deserves. In that sense, celebrity presence is at least an 8 out of 10.