I’ll admit it. I’ve groused and grumbled from time to time about our all-too-connected, time-sucking techy world—a place where just looking up from your screen tends to take some serious discipline. But somebody in Brazil came up with a simple idea that makes me want to thank Mr. Al Gore for dreaming up the Internet (or, at least, for dreaming that he dreamed it up).
There are a bunch of Brazilian kids, you see, who want to learn how to speak fluent English. And then there’s a bunch of elderly American retirees who just want the opportunity to talk, period. You know, have a conversation with someone about life, about their past, about the present and future—anything other than what mashed vegetable is on the lunch menu. And the advertising agency FCB Brazil (in a CNA language school project called “Speaking Exchange”) decided it would be cool to connect these two groups via web chats.
[View:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-S-5EfwpFOk:550:0]
You can see from this attached video that their idea was really pretty cool indeed. These unexpected new friends, half a world apart, are developing relationships that enrich young and old both culturally and emotionally. That’s an example of techy triumph if ever there was one.
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