Press Release
Learning & Behaviour Charitable Trust NZ
First time in New Zealand.
Presenting - “Thinking like Einstein” – Dyslexic Success
Every day, your school, your teachers, and even your peers draw lines to measure and standardise intelligence. They
decide what criteria makes one-person smart and another stupid. They decide who will succeed and who will just get by,
perhaps you find yourself outside the norm, because you learn differently – but, unlike your classmates, you have no
systems in place that consistently supports your ability and desire to learn. Simply put, you are considered lazy and
stupid. You are expected to fail.
We are delighted to bring Tom West to New Zealand to discuss
Geniuses who hated school – “ Visual thinkers & Nobel Prizes”
“Thinking like Einstein”
Tom West, from Kraznow Institute, George Mason University, Washington DC will be with us from the 26th April Auckland,
27th Hamilton, 28th Rotorua, 1st May Palmerston North, 3rd May Wellington, 8th May Christchurch, conducting a National
tour along these very themes. Cost - $250.00 + GST, we are grateful to Tom for dropping his usual fee.
Thomas West, author of the award-winning book “ In the Mind’s Eye” in its 13th print, was recognised by the American
Library Association with a gold seal as “ an outstanding academic title” (1997) and later as one of the “best of the
best” (1998). This book now published in several languages is according to one reviewer: “ Every once in a while a book
comes along that turns one’s thinking upside down, “In the Minds Eye” is just such a book.” This book argues that major
advances in computer visualisation technologies promises to transform education and the workplace – greatly increasing
the perceived value of visual talents for understanding patterns in complex systems in business, the sciences and other
fields. Many dyslexics are already leaders in areas of technological innovation as well as science and other fields of
business – as technological change makes their distinctive visual strengths more and more valuable just as their areas
of weakness becomes less and less important.
Mr West was invited to join Kraznow Institute for Advanced Study (Interdisciplinary neuroscience research), George Mason
University, Fairfax, Virginia to develop a program to investigate the visual and non-visual talents shown by many
dyslexics. In connection with “In the Mind’s Eye” Tom has been invited to presentations for scientic, medical, art and
business groups in the U.S. and overseas, including groups in Australia, Canada, Great Britain, Germany, Spain, Italy,
Ireland, Sweden, Hong Kong, Taiwan and the Netherlands. Tom has organised conferences and consulted on computer
visualisation of information for the National Library of Medicine, also for business leaders and media innovators. For
years Tom has written a column on visualisation issues for a quarterly publication of the International Professional
Society for computer graphic artists and technologists. These columns are now have been turned into a new book titled: “
Learning to think like Einstein – Returning to our Visual Roots with the Emerging Revolution in Computer Information
Visualisation”.
Tom West has worked with engineering and consulting organisations where he managed a large international research and
training program, helped to redesign a national computer information system, integrated strategic planning for several
federal government agencies, with periodic travel to the Middle East, the Far East. Based in Washington DC, West planed
to begin work on a new book in late 2004, this one dealing with visual thinking and dyslexic families – focusing, in
part on one such family that includes winners of four Nobel prizes. Mr West has appeared on TV programmes produced by
the BBC and Twenty/Twenty Television for broadcast by UK channel 4. Articles reviewing or citing “In the Minds Eye” have
appeared in Computers in Physics, The American Bar Association Journal, The Boston Globe, Vanity Fair, The Roeper
Review, The Financial Times, The Times Educational Supplement, The Independent, The Times, The Evening Standard, The
Oxford Mail, The Australian, Kagaku Asahl Science Magazine and the Nikkei Daily among many others.
This seminar for New Zealand should not be missed, the LBCTNZ have been extremely fortunate to secure Tom West for
April/May 2006, he and his wife Margaret (A Reporter) are personal friends of our 1st overseas Patron Dr Gavin Reid It
is a great honour for us as a country, lets pull it together for Tom West, so that he has much to remember about his
time in New Zealand.
ENDS