James Dyson offers 5 powerful pieces of advice at opening of new Dyson STEAM centre
As a tech company, Dyson is the veritable razor spear tip of innovation with offerings like a dust-detecting cordless vacuum, the unique Dyson Zone personal air purifier headset and the insanely coveted Corrale and Airwrap styling kit. It’s not an overnight achievement and has been the long result of close to three decades of toil.
Remembering his roots, Sir James Dyson, founder of the eponymous Dyson tech giant spoke several weeks ago on 2nd July 2022 at Gresham’s School’s Speech Day where he opened the new Dyson STEAM building on campus which was funded by a generous £18.75m donation from Sir James and Lady Deirdre Dyson.
The substantial donation is in gratitude to Gresham’s School for their support. When he was a pupil at the school in 1946, his father passed away of throat and lung cancer and Grisham’s School’s headmaster generously offered free board and education to him and his brother.
“My brother was eleven, I was nine and we had just started at Gresham’s. In those days there was no life insurance so the Headmaster, Logie Bruce Lockhart, said that me and my brother could board here essentially free of charge. Without that my education here would not have been possible and the school brought me up. It is great to now be able to give something back to the school.” said Sir James.
What is the Dyson STEAM building
The two-storey Dyson STEAM building itself is an eye-catching building on campus that immediately draws in the eye with its clean lines, glass facades, burnished copper panels and welcoming presence that is dedicated to Sir James’s father, Alec Dyson who taught at Gresham’s as a Classics Master. On the building is a plaque that reads ‘To my father – Wartime soldier and Gresham’s Master’.
Within the Dyson STEAM building are a host of classrooms, laboratories, workshops and an auditorium to teach the latest Science, Technology, Enginering, Arts and Mathematics (STEAM) with photovoltaic panels and ground source heating pumps for excellent energy efficiency.
After officially opening the new Dyson STEAM building at Gresham’s School, Sir James Dyson shared five hard-won nuggets of wisdom to the graduating class of Gresham’s School of 2022:
Be curious! throw yourself… into everything. Try out everything, seize opportunities. Discover what it is you love.
Be countercultural. Look at things from different angles. Maybe by starting the ‘wrong way’? Your view is as good as anybody else’s and if it’s different, it’s almost certainly more interesting.
Look out for guardian angels. Spend time with the people who encourage you. Be inquisitive and always wanting to learn. Inspiration will follow. Watch out for the experts, the boring know-it-all’s’ and ignore the naysayers and the doubting Thomases (All of whom say it can’t be done).
Embrace failure. People like to portray brilliance as effortless. But that is seldom the reality. Success demands determination to overcome problems, concentration and stamina. My life has been one littered with failures. Of course, you can learn many things from a textbook or through others, however, you learn more – and viscerally – from constantly experimenting and failing. Failure, causes you to examine and overcome the problem.
Do something you love. I’ve always pursued things that interest me and which I enjoy, everything else follows.
For more on Gresham’s School and the new Dyson STEAM building, check out the official Dyson Newsroom link at https://www.dyson.co.uk/james-dyson/invention-a-life/010
@hitechcentury Wise words from Sir James Dyson Part 2. #dyson #inspiration #quote #quoteoftheday #techtok #wisdom #jamesdyson @Hitech Century ♬ Epic Music(863502) – Draganov89
@hitechcentury Wise words from Sir James Dyson. #techtok #jamesdyson #inspiration #quote #quoteoftheday #dyson ♬ original sound – Hitech Century