A Letter From the Founder

Jamie Hawthorne, Founder of theZAP Global Digital Public Park™

On a mission to alleviate digital inequality.

I believe it is true what is said about the people closest to the problem being the ones closet to the solution.

Solving the puzzle of how to encourage people to be enthusiastic about learning new technology skills is a journey I began from the perspective of living in a small beach town in central Florida. Soon after the the concept of social media found its way onto our cell phones, it became obvious that we were an entire community of people who knew little to nothing about technology except the WOW factor of big data mining advertising platforms and without trained mentors to guide a path toward understanding deeper skills necessary to learn how to use these new technologies beyond the simple pleasures of social media bells and whistles.

With a savvy marketing mindset focused on concern for the perverse nature of stealthily using people as products, and with the roar of a mother horrified at the shallow and insidious brainwashing behavior modification tactics social media monopolies use to addict my children and their peers, this passion has grown. Armed with the question, ‘how do we put something that is cool and trendy, yet has purpose and value behind those omnipresent screens,’ I embark on this very personal mission.

Using Einstein’s theory of “combinatory play” I look for everything in all sectors of society (real-world communities, media, advertising, technology. academia) that creates unity, is entertaining and has a greater purpose and adds value to our lives . What evolved over the years is our world’s first Digital Public Park™. A Stakeholder Capitalism media supply chain that builds a collaborative, unified, life-long learning platform while it engages and entertains. Think of it as an entertainment marketing machine, Kardashian’s style, but with a collaborative, virtuous cycle of promoting digital transformation knowledge and skills.

Like public parks that balance and unify great cities around the world, theZAP Digital Public Park™ is a digital gathering place unifying our collective social, civic and civil societies. A playful, entertaining lifelong learning network to encourage people’s hope and preparation for exponential digital transformations that will take us into an unknown future.

We focus on skills that will be necessary to thrive in a rapidly changing, interconnected global community. Since every great community in the world is united by a public park (a public green space) that serves as a hub for recreation, relaxation, entertainment, enlightenment and as a pause from the fragmented chaos of busy cities, it is increasingly necessary that we build a Digital Public Park™ for our interconnected digital global community with these same intentions in mind. Steve Jobs likened the computer to a “bicycle for the mind.” In a way, the time spent on today’s mind bicycles is often akin to aimlessly riding through dangerous, chaotic, crowded city streets without a map, while horns are honking at your every move. theZAP offers people a curated, purposeful and thoughtful place to ride our mind bikes — a digital green-space that serves as a strategic road map into a digital future filled with hope, purpose, and value. This Global Digital Public Park™ will allow all people to to safely and playfully ride our mind bikes toward common knowledge, creativity, understanding, and insight, all the while empowering the human spirit.

The Zap - Our World's Digital Public Park

theZAP is designed using three theories:

First we believe that if the internet, along with advanced technologies of the near future, are going to impact the world in positive ways, then ALL people must be able to understand how to use these innovations to the benefit of our lives.

Secondly, we believe that the buyers of the massive data sets (advertisers) are as responsible for using this data to enhance people’s quality of life as the sellers collecting the data for them. theZAP introduces a game-changing ‘sane advertising’ business strategy that will benefit corporations and people and society equally.

Finally, we believe that digital equality, a person’s ability to gain awareness and understanding of how to use technology in ways that add value to our lives, is the most important issue of the 21st century.

Considering how mass audiences use the technologies of today, in order to reach them with this essential conversation, we must present a trendy, engaging, fun-loving, and curated lifelong learning experience on a vibrant, playful digital platform designed to nurture knowledge about technology and humanity. A platform fueled by pop-culture, entertainment, interactive and real world events where learning skills to thrive as humans in a digitized world is part of the fun, and peer-to-peer learning becomes a byproduct of the the vibrant, playful community.