One of the great benefits of writing a column is that you get to meet interesting people. It is even more rewarding when you listen to somebody who is young and who has altruistic plans that can actually work. One such person is Dr. Luis Daniel Munoz, an independent candidate for governor. Previously, I wrote a column about his candidacy which focused on his innovative plans for economic development which would spur the creation of medical devices and the nanotechnology of the future. On May 30 he held a press conference to elaborate on his idea of a new type of community health initiatives as well as education of a new work force. Here are some of his ideas:

MEND-i (Mend and Innovate Community Health) represents a new type of community health centers which improves access to quality and timely health care. Participating community health systems would adopt the latest telemedicine and home monitoring technologies in order to provide accessible, affordable and higher quality care for all Rhode Island families. Through Skype and other conferencing mechanisms, addiction services, mental health services, and care coordination for seniors and veterans would be available online. Being able to “dial-up” professionals online not only would improve care delivery but also would reduce hospital costs by saving lives through better preventive measures.

DINO (Dynamic Intelligence for National Opportunity) - Doctor Munoz believes that investing in people by creating a nationally recognized tech-force that will power great industries has to be a laser focus on the state’s educational efforts. Starting in middle school children have to be exposed to “idea creation” through after school initiatives on creative and vocational training. By leveraging private and public technical universities and colleges by the time a student is in high school, these after school programs will produce a highly skilled and civically engaged talent force. Credits would be transferable to the universities and the older students would interact as mentors for younger students through programs at the YMCA, YWCA, and other community centers. Given the expected rapid changes in technology, Dr. Munoz wants course offerings to be vetted by business metrics and real time work at businesses. Juniors and seniors would have the opportunity to be part of a work force as interns and, parenthetically, earn money for college. Real life experience would count as credits toward graduation and also cut down on course redundancy.
RINO (Redefining Intelligence for National Opportunity) - Dr. Munoz sees the need to have frequent retraining programs for adults. This initiative would embody necessary language learning services, certification credits and business course work (e.g. business ethics, professional rhetoric, and finance). In effect, RINO is the adult version of DINO and would be open to adult learners and non-traditional students. The education would try to anticipate the growth, for example, in database professions from medical coding to robotics with learning how to code and react to alert sensors, etc. This program would focus on intermediary and high demand technical and managerial jobs in healthcare, manufacturing, sensor diagnostics and database management.

Nobody would ever accuse Dr. Munoz of being a small thinker. His bottom line is undoubtedly correct: Educational excellence is about building people not buildings. He is an asset in the debate over Rhode Island’s future.

Arlene Violet is an attorney and former Rhode Island Attorney General.