NEWSROOM

OKLAHOMA CITY, OKLA. (May 15, 2012) – The Oklahoma ArtScience Prize winning team was announced on May 11, 2012 at the Oklahoma ArtScience Awards and Announcement Ceremony at the Metro Technology Center Auditorium.  Team Virtual Hope, whose project is entitled One Step Up, seeks to bring together resources needed by homeless families.  Their decision to address this particular issue stemmed from the fact that two of the students have experienced homelessness first-hand.

Team Virtual Hope is comprised entirely of sophomores making it the youngest team in the competition. Members of Team Virtual Hope are Anant Attamakulri – Pathways Middle College High School, Thomas Hernandez and Vivianne Garcia –  Santa Fe South H.S., Ken Higuchi – Northeast High School, Victoria Washington – Harding Fine Arts Academy, and Sadee Parker – U.S. Grant High School.  Mentors for the team are Kara Whitmire-Floyd, an artist-in-resident at City Arts Center and art teacher at St. Eugene School, and Kaitlin Agel, a biology teacher at Santa Fe South High School.

The winning team earns a trip to the International Innovation Workshop in Paris, France the last week of June where they will be joined by teams from Harvard University along with ArtScience teams from Minneapolis, Boston, Paris, Dublin, Singapore, and Dhahran. Teams placing 2^nd – 4^th in the Oklahoma ArtScience Prize, will attend the Oklahoma Innovation Workshop at the University of Oklahoma from June 4-8.

In September of 2011, 36 students were selected from 14 different Oklahoma City public schools to participate in the first full year of the Oklahoma ArtScience Prize. Since the beginning of the 2011- 2012 school year, Oklahoma City teens have been meeting from 4:00-6:00 pm each Wednesday and Thursday at the Oklahoma ArtScience Lab at Creative Oklahoma.  The students were placed into six project teams under the guidance of trained mentors and tasked with designing a project about which they could passionately work to fulfill a societal need.  The teams chose to address teen stress, homelessness, school nutrition, stigmas of mental illness, lack of comfort for families of long-term hospital patients, and the massive trash gyre building in the world’s oceans.

This innovative after school program for inner-city youth is part of the international ArtScience network.  The ArtScience concept began at Harvard University under Dr. David Edwards.  Oklahoma City was only the second site worldwide to be selected for the ArtScience Prize.

All sophomores and juniors in the Oklahoma City public school system are eligible to apply for the program. Visit www.artscienceprize.org/oklahoma for more information.

About Oklahoma ArtScience Prize and Creative Oklahoma:

Oklahoma ArtScience Prize is project of Creative Oklahoma and an internationally federating educational program of ArtScience Labs. ArtScience Prize engages students in in-depth learning in the arts, sciences, and idea development to cultivate creativity and the ability to realize innovative project ideas generated in the classroom. Creative Oklahoma is a statewide non-profit organization advancing Oklahoma’s creative economy through creativity and innovation based initiatives in education, commerce and culture. The mission is to transform the state of Oklahoma through projects and collaborative ventures that help develop a more entrepreneurial and vibrant economy and an improved life quality for its citizens. Visit stateofcreativity.com for more information.

###

Media Contact:
Meg Jackson at 405.232.5573
meg@stateofcreativity.com

OKLAHOMA CITY, OKLA. (May 15, 2012) – Creative Oklahoma announces the one-day Oklahoma Creativity Forum 2012 will be held on Tuesday, November 13 at the Cox Convention Center in downtown Oklahoma City.

Keynote speakers include internationally recognized creativity and education leader and author, Sir Ken Robinson, and Chairman and CEO of the XPRIZE Foundation, Peter Diamandis. “The forum is a rare opportunity to learn from some of the world’s foremost innovative leaders,” said Susan McCalmont, president of Creative Oklahoma. “The Oklahoma Creativity Forum 2012 will bring internationally renowned speakers together with Oklahoma practitioners for a dynamic conversation about how to become a more creative individual and make your school, workplace, or community a thriving environment for ideas and innovation.”

Sir Ken Robinson, Ph.D. is one of the world’s leading speakers with a profound impact on audiences everywhere. An estimated 200 million people in over 150 countries have seen the videos of his famous 2006 and 2010 talks at the prestigious TED Conference. His book, “The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything,” is a New York Times best seller and has been translated into twenty-one languages. His latest book is a 10th anniversary edition of his classic work on creativity and innovation, “Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative.” Robinson is also the founding advisor to Creative Oklahoma.

Dr. Peter Diamandis is the Chairman and CEO of the X PRIZE Foundation, a non-profit focused on designing and launching large incentive prizes to drive radical breakthroughs for the benefit of humanity.  Diamandis is an international leader in the commercial space arena, having founded and run many of the leading entrepreneurial companies in this sector.  Diamandis is also the New York Times bestselling author of “Abundance – The Future Is Better Than You Think.”

Registration for the Oklahoma Creativity Forum 2012 will be available soon at stateofcreativity.com.

Creative Oklahoma also announces a Pre-Forum professional development workshop on November 12, 2012 that will be available to a limited number of registrants. The workshop will feature the Creative Oklahoma Experts in Residence, a group of nine Oklahoma academicians and practitioners in creativity and innovation. The workshop consists of four 90-minute in-depth sessions on creativity and innovation principles and how to apply those principles to your organization or business. Registration will be available July 1, 2012.

McCalmont added that Creative Oklahoma has year-round initiatives that encourage innovation in Oklahoma. The State of Creativity Awards program includes: Creative SPARKS!, awarding grants to Oklahoma students and their schools; Great Inspirations, recognizing inspiring past or current innovations by Oklahomans that contribute to the greater good; Oklahoma Innovation Prize, sponsored by SandRidge Energy, is a new award granting cash prizes to high school, college, and post-college youth for new ideas or innovations that address needs in the community, state, nation, or world. The Oklahoma Creativity Ambassador program honors nationally and internationally known Oklahomans for their creative contributions.

Other initiatives include the launch of the Oklahoma Innovation Challenge Index, a cross-sector project to investigate the creative inputs into Oklahoma K-12 education; the Oklahoma Creative Communities project, a creative-problem-solving initiative for Oklahoma rural communities; and the Oklahoma ArtScience Prize, a high-school after-school program using collaborative, aspirational thinking to resolve global issues. Additionally, Creative Oklahoma has been instrumental in changing public perceptions of Oklahoma through the national public television documentary series, ReCreating America, by award-winning producer David Kennard; educational workshops and webinars with renowned creativity experts; creation of the National Creativity Network, a network of 15 creative districts in the US and Canada; and representation as the only North American region in the 14 member international Districts of Creativity Network.

About Creative Oklahoma:
Formed in 2006, Creative Oklahoma is a statewide non-profit organization advancing Oklahoma’s creative economy through creativity and innovation based initiatives in education, commerce and culture. The mission is to transform the state of Oklahoma through projects and collaborative ventures that help develop a more entrepreneurial and vibrant economy and an improved life quality for its citizens. For more information please visit stateofcreativity.com.

###

Media Contact:
Meg Jackson at 405.232.5573
meg@stateofcreativity.com

May 1, 2012

OKLAHOMA CITY, OKLA. – Oklahoma ArtScience Prize (OK ASP) will announce which three teams will attend the weeklong Oklahoma Innovation Workshop at the University of Central Oklahoma and which team is to attend the International Innovation Workshop in Paris.

The awards and announcements ceremony takes place May 11, 2012 at 7pm in the Springlake MetroTech auditorium located at 1900 Springlake Drive Oklahoma City, OK 73111. All students who were selected and completed OK ASP for the 2011 – 2012 school year will be recognized and the six project teams will present summaries of their projects. Teams worked with the global ArtScience theme of ‘Virtual Worlds’ with Oklahoma team projects addressing homelessness, the trash gyre building in the Pacific Ocean, schizophrenia, school nutrition, therapy for teens, and helping families of long-term hospital patients.

Twice a week, OK ASP student teams meet in the downtown Oklahoma City office spaces of Creative Oklahoma where teams explore the concept of “Aspirational Design” which encourages students to identify an area about which they are passionate then develop a project that fulfills a societal need within that area. The projects that are developed by the team are presented to a jury and exhibit their ideas in a public exposition.  Following final presentations, several teams are selected to attend the Oklahoma ArtScience Innovation Workshop and one team is selected to attend the International Innovation Workshop in Paris.

The ArtScience Prize is an after-school program for inner-city students that is a design contest at the cutting edge of science. The Oklahoma ArtScience Lab is part of an international network including sites in Paris, Boston, Dublin, Cape Town, Dhahran, and Singapore and was developed by Dr. David Edwards, a Harvard professor, scientist, and developer of the Harvard Idea Translation Lab.

All sophomores and juniors in the Oklahoma City Public Schools are eligible to apply for the Oklahoma ArtScience Prize. For the 2011-2012 school year 36 students were selected and represent 14 different schools. More information about the application process for the 2012 – 2013 school year will be released soon.

The May 11 event is by invitation only. Press will be granted passes if requested.

Oklahoma ArtScience Prize is project of Creative Oklahoma and an internationally federating educational program of ArtScience Labs. ArtScience Prize engages students in in-depth learning in the arts, sciences, and idea development to cultivate creativity and the ability to realize innovative project ideas generated in the classroom. Creative Oklahoma is a statewide non-profit organization advancing Oklahoma’s creative economy through creativity and innovation based initiatives in education, commerce and culture. The mission is to transform the state of Oklahoma through projects and collaborative ventures that help develop a more entrepreneurial and vibrant economy and an improved life quality for its citizens.

###

Contact:
Meg Jackson
Creative Oklahoma
meg@stateofcreativity.com
405.232.5573

April 27, 2012

OKLAHOMA CITY, OKLA. – Creative Oklahoma announces the premiere of its second film in the ReCreating America public television series, Reinventing Yourself, with award-winning producer David Kennard of San Francisco-based InCA Productions.

This one-hour film, Reinventing Yourself, premieres statewide on May 3, 2012 at 9 pm on Oklahoma Educational Television Authority (OETA). The film tells the story of individuals who decided to start life all over again – re-shaping their work, their relationships and their world-view. The story of Governor Anoatubby and his work as the leader of the Chickasaw Nation, and as a mentor to second and third generation Chickasaws, is featured in the film.

“Governor Anoatubby’s creative leadership of the Chickasaw Nation is an important Oklahoma story of innovation and resilience. His life example of nurturing the imaginations and ideas of young Chickasaw artists and young professionals like composer Jerod Tate, provides inspiration for us all,” said Creative Oklahoma president, Susan McCalmont.

In 1987, the Chickasaws were facing very different circumstances than those that exist for the Chickasaw Nation today.  Anoatubby had a vision for the entire Chickasaw Nation, and ran for Governor that year. In the ensuing 25 years, his mantra – you learn by teaching – has helped individual Chickasaw people develop their creativity and to build a stunningly successful society. Chickasaw composer Jerod Tate is just one of the people to have benefited and the film features Tate passing his wisdom to a new generation of young artists.

To view a trailer and for more information, please visit Creative Oklahoma’s website at: http://stateofcreativity.com/initiatives/films/reinventing-yourself/

This is one in a series of films on creativity, produced by InCA Productions, in association with Creative Oklahoma and presented to the Public Television Network by OETA Oklahoma and NETA, the National Educational Television Association. Creative Oklahoma partnered with InCA Productions and OETA on its first national public television documentary, ReCreating America: Creativity & Learning, for statewide distribution in 2009.  ReCreating America aired nationally in April 2010. For more information on ReCreating America, please visit http://stateofcreativity.com/initiatives/films/recreating-america/

Formed in 2006, Creative Oklahoma is a statewide non-profit organization advancing Oklahoma’s creative economy through creativity and innovation based initiatives in education, commerce and culture. The mission is to transform the state of Oklahoma through projects and collaborative ventures that help develop a more entrepreneurial and vibrant economy and an improved life quality for its citizens. For more information please visit stateofcreativity.com

###

Reinventing Yourself Press Kit

Media Contact:
Meg Jackson
Communications Coordinator
Creative Oklahoma
meg@stateofcreativity.com
405.232.5573

OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. – Creative Oklahoma has announced the appointment of Jeff Alexander, CFRE, as the new operations director.

Alexander has a range of experience in the nonprofit sector and has held a variety of roles in nonprofit administration. Further, he is a Certified Fund Raising Executive (CFRE) and most recently worked as the director of development and communications for Travelers Aid International based in Washington, DC.

Alexander is a native of Wanette, Oklahoma. He states, “My first job was on my brother’s pig farm. After that summer working with those animals, my brother insisted that I go to college and do something other than farming.”

Alexander holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Design from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities Campus. In 2005, Alexander was awarded the Buckman Fellowship from the University of Minnesota for the study and practice of philanthropy, leadership and personal and community improvement. Most recently, Alexander completed a graduate degree in public administration from the University of Oklahoma with an emphasis in public management. He resides in Noble, OK where he is active in the management of his family’s mineral interests.

“Jeff brings many needed skills to our team and we are very excited to have him on staff,” stated Creative Oklahoma president Susan McCalmont. “We are committed to advancing Oklahoma’s creative economy and Jeff is exactly the right person to help us complete our goals,” said McCalmont.

Since its inception six years ago, Creative Oklahoma has significantly contributed to Oklahoma’s national and international positive perception change as “The State of Creativity” through strategic media initiatives; a national public television film series on creativity; selection of Oklahoma as the only North American District of Creativity, and one of 14 in the International DC Network based in Belgium; establishment of the National Creativity Network based in Oklahoma; hosting the largest Creativity World Forum ever in 2010 and the first Oklahoma Creativity Forum in 2011.

Formed in 2006, Creative Oklahoma is a statewide non-profit organization advancing Oklahoma’s creative economy through creativity and innovation based initiatives in education, commerce and culture. The mission is to transform the state of Oklahoma through projects and collaborative ventures that help develop a more entrepreneurial and vibrant economy and an improved life quality for its citizens. For more information please visit stateofcreativity.com

###

Contact: Meg Jackson
Communications Coordinator
Creative Oklahoma
405.232.5573
meg@stateofcreativity.com