Kent Fenwick: Software developer, inbound marketer

Kent Fenwick is in his dream job, criteria for same established during his time with Ron at TAGlab:

“Some of time I felt so stupid: but it was a great feeling: what am I going to learn today? I loved it: having the smartest, most curious most empathetic people around me.”

Before going into computer science, Kent worked with the elderly and thought he wanted to be a doctor.

“I volunteered at a hospital, specifically with Alzheimer’s and palliative patients, who were unable to function in society. I found it easy to interact with patients,”

Then, came grad school and Ron and falling in love with Computer Science.

“I love Ron’s outlook: he’s a rogue. He’s a true pioneer in this stuff, totally ahead of his time. They’ll be digging up stuff that’s he’s done 50 years from now: he has a direct impact on helping people. “

Day 1: Prof Ron Baecker and The Challenge

“The day I met Ron, he gave me this challenge: we have a prosthetic to remind time but not one to remember people’s names. We created prototype, got great feedback. Alex Levy picked up research which led to my voice/talk rocket suggestive text prediction.”

Family Ties

Kent cherishes memories of his own grandparents, both of whom died a long time ago. He shares insights into communicating with those stricken with Dementia: don’t wrestle them into reality: feed the fantasy – have fun.

These days, Kent works for Tilt, a crowd-funding platform based in San Francisco. Working out of the Toronto office, and taking frequent trips to head office allows him to give his son, a strong relationship with his grandparents.

“It’s amazing seeing my son interacting with his grandparents. He is so lucky. To have this much love, and family around him, It’s hard to appreciate how lucky you are to have a family.”

Kent’s parents, in their mid-60’s, fall into the younger end of the ‘elderly’ that TAGlab targets.

“My mom takes a keen interest in everything I do. She loves this stuff, and loves learning along the way.”

I explain that I feel I’ve been let into a club, since my web developer gave me the courage and confidence to manage and make changes on my own site.  Kent laughs at this.

 “I call it bit of conspiracy: techs who like to keep their knowledge in a black box, make ’em feel special and smarter. It’s like in Medieval times: scribes were the only ones who could read and write and create knowledge for society. Only a handful of people who could do this: they were alchemists, creating magic. In the future: everybody will program, will empower tech to solve their probs.”

Algorithms explained

Good products start with good algorithms, says Kent, patiently putting into layman’s terms:

“It’s a way of thinking about a problem and the steps you take to solve a problem: loading dishwasher, following a recipe are algorithms. So, you write down a set of instructions follow them correctly and the output is beautiful. It’s not just for computers – tho the process got standardized with computers.”

Looking back on his trajectory, Kent counsels those who wonder about Grad School:

“Depends on who you’re working with: unless you want to be a prof, it’s not your thesis that’s important. It’s the exploration part: there’s nothing like it. I was sad to leave TAGlab when I did. Went through a mourning period.”

Having said that, Kent feels he’s in the right place:

“Every day different, I haven’t learned this much since Ron.”