McElroy or Mickelson? 
WIP Interview – Gary Mc Darby
Gary McDarby has a background in biomedical engineering and Neuroscience. He is particularly interested in ways that technology can play a profound and positive role in human evolution. Some of his research areas include using technology in education, mental health and disability.
Today Gary McDarby sits on the board of Camara Education, and has been involved with the Irish charity since its inception. Camara takes in second-hand computers that have been discarded by Irish organisations. They refurbish, test and pack these machines before sending them to schools and colleges in Africa. To support these computers, Camara then recruits computer science volunteers to travel to the schools in Africa to provide basic computer literacy and maintenance training. Gary has travelled to Africa with the volunteers every year.
Camara was awarded the 2008 David Manley Emerging Entrepreneur Award, which in the words of Eirgen Pharma, last year’s overall winners “it must be regarded as the number one accolade for any emerging business in Ireland”
Gary McDarby is also on the advisory board of the Liberties Computer Clubhouse - an initiative with a much more local educational focus situated very close to Camara in the Digital Hub. www.gmcdarby.blogspot.com
- What were you doing when you were my age?
When I was 22, I had just finished engineering about a year, and I wanted to do something more 'human'. At the end what I chose to do was a Jesuit Volunteer Community, which was the first time that program had been ran. Basically the idea was to take a year out of your life, you live on the dole, you live in a disadvantaged area and you live in a community with others doing the same thing. You then devote your entire day to doing community work, and frame the entire experience in some sort of spirituality.
What the Jesuits do is this thing called Ignatian spirituality, which is what their order is founded upon. Essentially what it is, is that you reflect on your experience, and the things that influence you, and the things that hold you back. It's called the Path of Discernment. That year there were 22 of us that did it, and it became a real anchor for me for the rest of my life.
There's a couple of fundamental things about it. First, one was you surround yourself with people that have the same value system as you. You need it. Ultimately you will be confronted with things in your life where your values are tested. You need support around that. I think it's really important to reflect on what you do, and on your choices.
Through it I got to meet some really great people. I worked with Peter McSherry for example. Peter devotes his time to children that are homeless. They are kids who were at the point where they kill themselves or somebody else or end up in jail. They are on the precipice - they've even left the public health system and hospitals. They are very troubled kids. This experience really brought it home to me about the the underbelly of society, those we don't address, those we want to forget.. That kind of shaped a lot of what I did in future
I also did 6 months in St. Michael's House where we were dealing with people with profound mental and physical disabilities. The idea is that they were trying to integrate people like that back into their community. That was just an incredibly difficult period. That tested my ability to give, because you don't get anything back. It was purely a caring role, and if you are not good at that – I'm not – you have to really work at it. It was an incredibly frustrating job, but I learned a huge amount at that too.
- How did you get to where you are today?
If I was to put it down to two things, firstly it wasn't education. If I'm honest about education I did all the things you are supposed to do, including going to grade institutions that are recognized worldwide. But the educational system is something to get past, get on, you use it to get where you want to go. But as a learning experience? Most of the things I've learned are from people I've met. Most of the important learning experiences come from people I've met.
So where'd I got today? Fortunately I met great people. A couple of those people just shifted off a particular path and then I was on another one.
There are three in particular – though I won't mention them by name.
I was fortunate in university of having an incredible professor, possibly one of the most brilliant minds I've ever met in my life. He invented things that are Nobel Prize winning standard – he probably will win one! But he has a son who was born mentally disabled. For the last 20 years of his life he devoted all of his academic studies and all of his talent to working with people in rehabilitation, especially with people with learning disabilities. A profoundly brilliant man. Really what he taught me was that in the see-saw of life, there are those that are born with lots of resources and those that are born with none – almost all the time a matter of circumstance. His philosophy was if you have the talents you address that imbalance, that accident of nature.
The second person was the tremendous Jesuit. He had a brilliant brilliant mind, and was a physicist before he joined the priesthood. He took that view that there were so many voiceless people in this world. He would be the voice of some of these, and he chose children who were homeless. He profoundly changed my view of life.
Most recently I was privileged to meet probably Ireland's greatest philosopher of the last couple hundred years – John Moriarty. John shifted my view of the technological world that we are immersed in. He got me started on thinking about 'wonder'. Never lose your sense of wonder. Suspend your disbelief. The imaginative journey is much more important than the rational journey. We live in a world of wonder. We are always to wonder at, not just to wonder about. The scientific journey is all about wondering about. How does that work? But take Mozart's music – do you wonder at Mozart's music, or do you wonder about his music. He says that in western society we've lost that sense of wondering at.
- Who was the most influential person in your life, and why?
The most influential person in my life – gosh that's hard! Certainly the most, in terms of career, was probably a Professor in UCD who convinced me that doing something with engineering - but in the medical space - was very worthwhile.
In terms of philosophy it would certainly be John Moriarty. John would have just gotten underneath you career, underneath your ambition, underneath your talents, underneath where we are as a journey.
John talked about the need to suspend one's disbelief. You have to 'go with it' sometimes. You have go with what you don't know. That's really important. The reason is because life is made of two main journeys - the love adventure happens when you are young, the death adventure that happens when you are wise. The love adventure is all about getting and gathering and embracing experiences. The death adventure is all about letting go, but it's a tremendous adventure! What you need for the death adventure is the ability to see the divine around you. That is the fundamental perception you need to embrace the death adventure. If we could structure a society around gathering the ability embrace that perception, that would be great.
- What do you value most in life?
Compassion. It is an emergent instinct in human beings, it is something that defines us. If you think of other species, they don't look after the weak. Some of the more evolved species do - dogs and elephants do - but generally speaking they nurture the strong. When there's a crisis in the community they look after the strong, weaker are left to die. What defines us is that we will look after the weak. If one of our children are very weak, our instinct is to protect that child. That defines us.
At an individual level, that's fantastic, and few would argue with it. When it comes to structural and policy and institutions however, it is way way behind, it is much more primal. Most of our policies are built around fear and greed. There are very few things that nurture compassion at a higher level, at a policy or institution level. One of the things I'm most interested in is how we get to that format that it comes as natural as breathing and eating that we are compassionate. A place where it's not seen as being a 'do-gooder', that being compassionate is just the natural way.
- What advice would you give to a young university graduate from Northern Ireland/ireland?
I think the most important thing is that you have to practice giving. Now it sounds mad, but you have to practice giving unconditionally. When you do it early, you have the energy and wherewithal, you can take that the failures a lot easier to get over. It's much harder later to take it up later on in life when you have grown more comfortable. So practice giving, practice giving unconditionally, stay in that uncomfortable zone between what you can do and what you can't do, and for as long as you can! It will shape your values in a very positive and profound way, and it will prepare you for greater challenges ahead.
When you are young there is a great sense of ability, that you can do anything. You would never question that. But when you get older something will hit you whether you like it or not – be it a tragedy or injury, whatever it might me. Having practiced giving while you were younger will prepare you for the second half. It also serve a greater cause!
- What do you see as the main obstacles for young people in achieving their full potential today?
My view is that we excel in different areas, and we have to then work together. A good example is when you look at Africa, and you look at the way the AIDS pandemic has crippled them, especially before the antiretroviral drugs. People were dying very young, in their twenties and thirties, leaving kids orphaned. They had no help, no social welfare. What happened was that the extended family got together to protect the children, and that occurred naturally. So when there is scarcity of resources, human beings can be extraordinary.
The problem with today's young people is that they grew up in a culture of abundance. It nurtures the primal urge for self-protection, and makes it really easy to protect your own. I think that is a dangerous thing for a community. All the emphasis is on gathering gathering gathering, there's no sense of giving or accommodation.I think it creates individualism, and for me it's the fundamental problem with the way capitalism works.
Very recently I heard this from Chuck Feeney when asked 'why did you give it all away?' replied that the answer was simple - there were too many people in this world who couldn't afford to eat. That sums it up for me.
- What criticisms (if any!) have you of today's university graduates?
The good points would be that they are more educated, more worldly, and aware of the bigger picture. A bad point – I guess I question young peoples' sense of commitment to things. Anything that matters, anything meaningful, takes time. There's an awful focus today on things transient, part time. One of the biggest criticisms I would have is in part time work in the developing world where you go out and experience poverty, and that's supposed to change your view on life. I think if that's all it is, then it's a tragedy, no - it is a travesty.
If you look at some of the people who worked out on the African missions with the church, with all their flaws and all their failings – and I've met some of these people each year. - at least we know about their commitments and values. We don't produce people like that anymore, people that devote their lives to care. That's a tragedy. Where that stuff comes from, I don't know. But I do worry about that. That's a big one for me.
- Volumes have been written about what makes a good leader. Have you any insights of your own?
Humility. The most important thing for me in a leader is humility. What I found strange is that beyond decision making, beyond management skills, beyond courage, the thing which anchors it all is humility. That makes sure the leadership is going in a positive direction. Humility is linked to generosity and compassion, and recognizing that it is not just about the leader..
There's a spectrum along modesty, confidence and arrogance. I do agree that more Irish people should have more self-belief, but not to the point where we overdo it. There's nothing wrong with having confidence and better sense of direction! The Americans I would argue have to come the other way. We're all part of the jigsaw, not THE jigsaw.
- Are there any areas of public service that you see as being neglected, or which hold particular potential for improvement?
The educational system. And I've gone through the entire system with honour's degrees, masters degrees, phDs, all the stuff. I would tear it to shreds. It's not an educational system at all, it's a system in which you do this to get that. Learning is an entirely different thing. It should be founded on three things - confidence, curiosity and creativity.
We should nurture confidence or self-belief, not arrogance. Be curious, ask questions. Be creative. Those are the three fundamentals for me. For us however, as soon as you enter Junior Infants they kill off those three things. This is how you learn, this is what you learn, if you don't pass your exams you are a failure.
- What motivates you to get out of bed every morning and do what you do?
Let me frame it in the context of a story, one that captures the good and the bad.
A couple of years ago I was working with a guy with cerebral palsy. His way of communicating with the world was by a little switch which he could move with his chin. He used binary code, switching it on, switching it off. This fragile connection was his link to the world. So simple, and so fragile.
Now he asked me about 8 years ago was there some way he could independently send a text message. Without someone helping him he wasn't able to spontaneously text. We tried building something, but it was so fragile I didn't give it because it kept breaking. Since then the technology has gotten much better.
A couple of weeks ago I started working with a guy called Stuart Mangan, a guy who is paralysed from the neck down. Through working with him we were able to build the system which enabled texting, and it's really transformed his life.
About a week later I got an instant message on my phone from the guys from 8 years ago. Because typing was so slow, he could only really send a couple of words per message. It was always a very brief conversation. He texted to know if I ever did learn to do that texting thing. We had built the technology, but I had forgotten to even tell him. I was able to tell him where to go, how to do it, and he installed it himself. Now he can send his own messages, and three days ago he texted to say 'thank you so much' for doing that for him.
I could not believe that it took him asking me to do that for him. I didn't priortise this project, even though he was much more vulnerable than Stuart. I'm really annoyed that when bluetooth stabislised a few years ago I didn't call out and sort the technology for him right then.
I believe there are lots of things like that we can do, that aren't scientific or aren't great research, but are just a matter of joining the dots. This story for me reminds me to keep making those connections, keep joining those dots. We have so much potential. I'm trying, but failing regularly - that's important to stress! But I guess that's my motivation.
