creativity is crucial
Transcription
creativity is crucial
creativity is crucial Now there’s “Years from now people will look back to September 2013 as the moment when science and magic converged.” Commander John B. Herrington, astronaut In 2013, the inaugural Beakerhead set Calgary on fire by opening a highly entertaining door onto the world of science and engineering. creativity is crucial ....TO SOLVING PROBLEMS IN SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING BUT IS USUALLY OVERLOOKED AND RARELY ENCOURAGED. Jay Ingram, science writer and broadcaster Beakerhead. The first year created powerful experiences in Calgary and generated pictures and stories that travelled around the world: 2.1 million 1,496 in-person encounters social media mentions volunteer hours 4,620 60.3 million by students attended earned media impressions 28 9.2 million 62,500 schools involved 252 volunteers paid media impressions So now it has begun... What is Beakerhead? A sandbox for human ingenuity Beakerhead brings together the arts and engineering sectors from across the city, province, country and world to build, compete and exhibit interactive works of art, spectacle and entertainment, during a five-day international phenomenon of culture, science and technology every September. From outdoor artworks and late-night laboratories, to community contests and celebrations, interactive digital events to event premieres, Beakerhead is a crucible for human ingenuity. Beakerhead is hands-on and citywide. It takes place indoors and out, includes ticketed and free events and involves venues and public spaces in Calgary, Alberta. Science and engineering just got mainstream – and spectacular! Thinking Big Elements Thinking Big •Collaborator Programs •Flagship Performance •Installations Students •Ignition Crew •Field Trips Ingenuity Challenges •Beakerhead Summer Intensive •Shell International Engineering Competition •Student Makers •Catharsis Catapult Competition •School Visits Families and Workers •Opening Ceremony •Four-to-Six •Speakerhead •Beakernight •Atomic Number 13 Ingenuity Challenge Communities •Workshops •Built in Your Backyard •Sustainival Thinking Big Thinking Big All hands on deck! In its first year, Beakerhead became one of Calgary’s largest collaborations. 70 organizations came together – producing events and programs that drew students, artists, engineers, scientists, Calgarians and tourists into venues and public spaces across the city. 40 distinct events took place over five days, some Canadian premieres and many of them staged by Calgary’s most established organizations. ...And new collaborations took form. FLAGSHIP PERFORMANCE Seven Calgary restaurants created Beakerheadthemed dishes and cocktails. One of them, Raw Bar by Duncan Ly at Hotel Arts, sold out of its engineered concoction. Not surprising. It was an interactive cocktail that required a small hammer to crack a sphere of ice. An intimate night with 1,500 guests, The Tremendous and Curious World of Beakerhead was a high calibre taste of culture mixed with science and engineering. A standing ovation and a few tears of emotion wrapped up a performance that was described by internationally popular blogger, Eugene Kim of My Modern Metropolis as “the best performance I have seen in my entire life.” Maker Faire Calgary’s Mini Maker Faire attracted over 150 makers and thousands of visitors over the course of two days of hands-on creativity – much of it involving technology. It was located this year at the Alberta College of Art + Design. Here’s a place where families could make and buy original works. Installations Beakerhead’s main information booth was accompanied – naturally – by a 40-foot tall rocketship, hosted by Victoria Park BRZ. Climb up! The all-day line-up moved quickly, so families only had to wait a few minutes to climb 18-feet up to meet the Five Ton Crane crew and explore the three levels of interactive control panels. Over the course of Beakerhead, 7,800 people visited the Raygun Gothic Rocketship. Strategic Goals for 2014-16 • Coordinate one major arts and engineering spectacle • Build year-round artist/engineer matchmaking program • Support expansion of community collaborations • Develop large-scale multi-partner projects Students Engineered Eats! Students Students Every child should have the chance to draw on both their creative and technical skills as they head down their career path. Beakerhead is the catalyst for that reaction through year-round education and outreach programs. This is Beakerhead’s core purpose. In 2013, 4,620 Students and 28 schools were engaged in Beakerhead activities •2,050 students visited by artists/ engineers •450 Aboriginal youth met an astronaut •1,500 students met Mondo Spider •100 students electrified by Arc Attack Ignition Crew Beakerhead Summer Intensive The Ignition Crew, an enthusiastic gang of youth ambassadors, took to the streets spreading the word about Beakerhead and meeting the makers. Dressed in bright orange lab coats, the crew participated in 12 different Beakerhead events over five days. Ten ambitious teens came together in a summer intensive program to collaboratively build a gigantic turtle bike that they proudly drove through East Village during Beakernight and showed off in the lobby of the Jack Singer Concert Hall at the Tremendous and Curious World of Beakerhead. SCHOOL VISITS FIELD TRIPS Students learn outside of the classroom by exploring and learning through hands-on experiences at the massive installations and programs of Beakerhead. In 2013, for example, 38 busloads of students took part in field trips to the interview competitors at the Shell International Engineering Competition and took an educational spin on the world’s first green carnival rides. Student Makers • 6 40 Atomic Number 13 Ingenuity Challenge participants • 1 20 students created self-directed in-school projects • 1 0 three-week long summer intensive program participants Strategic Goals for 2014-16 • Involve all six surrounding school districts • Expand programs to all Alberta post-secondaries • Increase number of students in Beakerhead summer intensive • Expand youth ambassador program Ingenuity Challenges Extraordinary mentors, educators, engineers and performers come to Beakerhead every year to perform and exhibit, so Beakerhead sends them out to educate junior and senior high schools while they are here. In 2013, schools visits included a 2,000 kilogram mechanical spider made by eatART from Vancouver, and a lesson in electricity with Arc Attack’s Tesla coil rock n’ roll performance (of America’s Got Talent fame). (Made possible by Calgary Educational Partnership Foundation and Calgary Board of Education) Ingenuity Challenges Ingenuity Challenges All Beakerhead competitions require creative and analytic skills. In 2013, Beakerhead included three main challenges: Shell International Engineering Competition Turn a piano and billiard balls into a calculator… Find a better solution for recycling tires from oil sands mining trucks… Those were the two challenges posed to university students from around the world in the first ever Shell International Engineering Competition. To top it off, the student teams had 24 hours to solve the problem. The challenge brought together: •15 universities from 8 countries •1,160 junior and senior high school students from Calgary areas schools •1,500 public visitors Catharsis Catapult Competition A challenge of creativity limited only by physics … and the need to vent! The first annual Catharsis Catapult Competition pinned competitors against one another to design and build machines to release frustration. Challengers included families (the youngest competitor was five years old), student groups and corporate teams with varied themes and designs. •4 teams •Invited to kick-off at the Calgary Stampeders’ game •1,000 public visitors Atomic number 13 Ingenuity challenge Strategic Goals for 2014-16 • Expand the Shell International Engineering Competition to include Asia and Africa • Grow Catharsis Catapult Competition to all western Canada • Involve all six school districts in an ingenuity challenge • Create a community challenge Families and Workers A massive roll of aluminum foil was sent to eight schools with a back-to-school challenge – change your world by thinking differently on a shoestring. 640 student makers from kindergarten through grade 12 rose to the occasion and built a stunning variety of creations. They wrapped their rooms, shaped new creatures, created stages – all with a spool of tin foil. Families and Workers Families and Workers Get them where they live. Beakerhead’s public programs bring famous and soon-to-be famous artists, scientists and engineers together in public spaces to experiment, create and delight. Everyone is welcome. Many Beakerhead programs are free and take place in public spaces, with a very liberal dose of mindblowing spectacle. 2013 achievements include: Opening Ceremony “A Sequence of Unexpected Events” attracted 450 students and 100 guests to Stampede Park to see history in the making. Decidedly Jazz Danceworks, parkour artists, Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi and Alberta Culture Minister Heather Klimchuk were among the 21 performers involved in the production. Four-to-Six Beakerhead brought Stephen Avenue Walk to life in a whole new light with art cars, science buskers, pop-up labs and kinetic art – a total of 43 performers encountered by 15,000 Calgarians over two days. Speakerhead A speaker and workshop series open to all, featuring famous and soon to be famous creative and technical visionaries, from astronauts to potato farmers. 25 presenters attracted 1220 attendees. Beakernight One Night, 1,000,000 volts. Beakernight is Beakerhead’s biggest public celebration, taking the collision of engineering and creativity to the streets. On September 14, 2013, Beakernight spanned three central city locations: Olympic Plaza, Victoria Park and East Village RiverWalk. 10,000 visitors stumbled into surprising situations including late night labs, a nine-foot tall laser cat, gigantic musical Tesla coils, heavy metal robot bands, three-storey tall 3D projections, art cars, and plenty of fire – all in the name of celebrating technology! A total of 31 companies and 81 people, Beakerhead staff and legions of volunteers, helped stage this spectacle. Strategic Goals for 2014-16 • Create opening ceremony as participatory community performance • Expand public programs aimed at adult learners • Consolidate and expand Beakernight Communities • Increase number of interactive public visiotr installations Communities Communities Beakerhead is an opportunity for community building year-round, with culmination in a high profile, highly concentrated expression of social and cultural creativity. IT’s contagious! •252 volunteers were the backbone of Beakerhead 2013. •1496 volunteers hours were filled. •Over 50 corporate volunteers from 12 companies were called in. •Beakerhead was selected as the volunteer choice for the winner of Calgary’s TimeRaiser event in 2013. WORKSHOPS Beakerhead held its first community workshop in spring 2013, inviting individuals and families to build green machines (aka art bikes) out of scrap materials. The results? Participants learned design processes and technical skills to build custom creations to take to the streets. Built in Your Backyard Dozens from around Alberta dusted off their inventions to show off as part of Calgary Mini Maker Faire during Beakerhead. This element of programming has been targeted for expansion. Sustainival Imagine running a full-sized midway of rides on vegetable oil? Beakerhead partnered with Sustainival to do just that – inviting the community to learn about the future of energy through 15 rides were powered by oil discards from Calgary restaurants. Strategic Goals for 2014-16 • Year-round workshops and build-days for workforce development • Rework green-powered midway rides to a “dining in mid-air”experience. • Increase non-local volunteer participation • Pan-provincial Built In Your Backyard program • Expand call for art cars to all of North America Measuring Impact of a WellExecuted Plan Just the Start: Economic Benefit Based on the 2011 Economic Impact Analysis projections by the firm Econometrics, Beakerhead generated the following economic impact in its inaugural year: Calgary Impacts 2013 •91 full time equivalent (FTE) jobs generated by Beakerhead in Calgary in 2013. •Income in Calgary augmented by $5.8 million. •The three levels of government collect $2.2 million on the local impacts. Alberta Impacts 2013 •113 FTE jobs generated by Beakerhead in Alberta. •Alberta provincial income augmented by $8.3 million. •The three levels of government collect $3.05 million on province-wide impacts. Amplifying Tourism Opportunities Beakerhead is a strong beacon amidst other September tourism activities. It leverages the unique timing of September for families to create a tourism event that is healthy for both the local community and professionals in trades and technology. “Fortunately the convergence of major international sporting events [...] combined with new, unique events like [...] Beakerhead to provide compelling reasons to visit Calgary in August and September.” Calgary Tourism Q3 2013 Destination Report Based on the national and international media buzz, the tourism impact is expected to climb in the years to come. Attention to visitors services will be increased to meet the demand through a business plan that works in close coordination with existing tourism organizations. Commitment to Sustainibility Instigating Authentic and Inspiring Social/Community Wellbeing The social enrichment that builds throughout the rest of the year culminates in a vibrant and inspiring community event each September that welcomes the world to see a new side of Canada’s culture – our technological savvy. The community pride that comes with building and hosting this contemporary event imparts a social benefit that is both rare and necessary. Beakerhead is committed to environmental and economic sustainability and operates with the goals of long-term stability, equality and opportunity for current and future generations. Beakerhead is aware of its core strengths and how it can work with skill and strategy as part of a larger community with shared goals for the public good. A long-term financial plan is aligned with the business and marketing targets based on current success. The appetite for Beakerhead’s originality, calibre and inclusiveness was seen in dozens of letters received, like these. “WOW!!!! The event at the Jack Singer Friday night was incredible! My son and I had such a great time, he was literally bouncing when we got home. I want to extend a huge congratulations on executing such an incredible festival. Everything I saw or read was amazing. You and everyone with Beakerhead should be very proud! Now on to Year 2!!!” “A huge thank you for creating and spearheading Beakerhead! My fifteen year old son, husband and myself attended several of the events and were mesmerized by the creativity, ingenuity, and passion of people who participated in Beakerhead.” “You and your team did such an amazing job of creating a wondrous, unique and educational series of events for our city…province… country…continent…planet! Congratulations on a job very well done!!!” Strategic and Aggressive Media and Marketing One quarter of Beakerhead’s budget is allocated to marketing events in a way that leverages paid media dollars to generate earned media attention. For example, marketing dollars invested in guerilla art events generate more attention than the same number of dollars invested in advertising. This also engages the community in the process of making cultural news. A strong and well-executed media and marketing campaign in 2013 yielded results that were approximately 300 percent greater than expected for a first-year event of this size: Paid media Local audiences Non-local audiences 10.9 million Earned media Local audiencesNational International 10.6 million 2.5+ million * 8.6 million 47.2 million * International numbers might be much higher. Data unavailable for outlets in Russia, Nepal, Venezuala, Kenya, Indonesia, Netherlands, Denmark, and many northern European and US blogs where “Best of Beakerhead” blogs circulated for several weeks post-event.) A record-setting 2.1 million social media impressions and trendings established Beakerhead as an interesting event to watch. This will help to build the base of participants and awareness among youth. BEAKERHEAD Board of Directors Chris Bedford President and CEO, Karo Donna Livingstone President and CEO, Glenbow Elizabeth Cannon President and CEO, University of Calgary Jennifer Martin President and CEO, TELUS Spark Science Centre Kevin Hanson President, Simon and Schuster Canada Mary Anne Moser President and Co-founder, Beakerhead Jay Ingram Co-founder, Beakerhead Larry Shelley Managing Partner, Citrus Capital Partners Len Webber Member of the Legislative Assembly, Calgary-Foothills, Government of Alberta It matters As individuals and as a society, we talk about the need for innovation. How do you ignite it? Full steam ahead (science, technology, engineering, art, math). New ideas and much needed solutions are born where creativity and knowledge meet. An ambitious vision and massive collaborative effort, Beakerhead is an opportunity to put talk into action, create critical connections between individuals and communities to stimulate change. Walk the Talk 1 Inspire Tomorrow’s LEADERS very child should have E the chance to integrate creativity and technical knowledge into future career choices. 4 Attract skilled Workers to Calgary As participants and visitors, people who visit Calgary with an interest in trades and technology see what the city has to offer from a cultural and employment perspective. 2 Stimulate Ingenuity Beakerhead promotes a culture of creativity that will invigorate people and communities. 5 Build a Contemporary Cultural Conversation Beakerhead shows Calgary and Canada as creative and original, investing in raising the profile of innovation nationally and internationally. 3 Engage the Community eakerhead builds B authentic, strong experiences for community building that encourage children, families, artists and engineers to see, touch, do and create. 6 Create Economic Benefit Beakerhead positions Calgary as a fall tourism destination and generates provincial income and jobs. 2013 Sponsors 2013 Beakerhead Secretariat: Hanan Chebib, Kirk Dunkley, Michelle Htun-Kay, Dallas Kitt, Lizzie MacNeill, Mary Anne Moser, Liam Nelson, Jasmine Palardy, Katie Varney Contributing Photographers: Neil Zeller, Stephanie LeBlond, Sustainival, Lizzie MacNeill, Katie Varney, Dana Teh, Jasmine Palardy, Fair Goods, Genomikon Contact Mary Anne Moser 403-629-3255 [email protected] Printed on paper containing 100% post consumer content.