Covergence in DC
Sunday, June 14, 2009 at 10:23PM In April we put together our first Convergence event here in DC and it was a great success! A lot of time and energy was put into making it happen.
We gathered four incredibly innovative entrepreneurs here in the city and discussed their ideas of convergence and how it applied to their projects and their business ideas that they are bringing forth and pushing forward.
Check out their bios. Four incredibly innovative and forward thinking individuals!
David Fogel
David Fogel grew up in the DC metro area the son of a government employee and founder of a non-profit arts organization. His upbringing helped him appreciate creativity and service. From there he migrated north to Vermont where he double majored in Asian Studies and Community Development. After graduating he decided to ply his new found knowledge in Japan where over three years he organized a weekend english camp ; an environmental festival ; an artist co-op ; a community center and played in two bands. 8 years ago he moved back to the DC area and started to work on enhancing the Creative Infrastructure by working with the Cultural Development Corporation; then as the head of the arts and entertainment district in Silver Spring for Gateway Georgia Avenue Revitalization Corporation and now currently as the founder of 88. 88 is multi-media events and creative solutions company. Last year, in conjunction with our sister organization 'X' we directly invested over $150K into the creative economy, worked with over 250 artists and produced events in 7 states. This year, X is focusing on building its creative agency - www.xagency.tv - and taking the X event into new markets.
Michelle James
Michelle is a business creativity catalyst, consultant and coach who has worked with hundreds of conscious entrepreneurs and organizations to unleash and focus their soul-based creativity to achieve business goals. Michelle is CEO of The Center for Creative Emergence and Quantum Leap Business Improv; founder of the Capitol Creativity Network; a performer of full length improvised plays with Precipice Improv; a CoreSomatics Master Practitioner and an abstract painting artist..
Michelle's commitment is to "mainstream" creativity, engaging the creative potential and the whole person in the workplace. She's been pioneering both Applied Creativity and Applied Improvisation in the DC area for the past 15 years, focused on integrating the worlds of business, service and creativity. Before founding the Center, Michelle owned a creative services/marketing firm followed by an organizational development company. Her work has been featured in publications, on the radio and television, and she is a frequent conference presenter. Clients have included Microsoft, World Bank, GEICO Insurance, Kaiser Permanente, Search for Common Ground, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Department of Treasury among others. Michelle was recently recognized for Visionary Leadership in the Fast Company blog, Leading Change.
Rakiyt Zakari
Rakiyt is the name behind The Original David and the owner of Zakari Group LLC the company that houses the David brand as well as women’s wear line Rakiyt Zakari. She is a graduate of Howard University with a BA in Fashion Merchandising. She has also studied experimental design at London’s esteemed Central Saint Martins. Zakari began her career in 2001 with a line of women’s wear clothing that has been featured numerous times in WWD, Essence Magazine, The Washington Post, Lucky Magazine and other publications. Zakari’s aesthetic juxtaposes her affinity for mixing media and a love for traditional cultural dress and history. She attributes this passion to her Nigerian(Fulani) roots and instinctual nature to mix obscurity with competence. It was during her fall showing of Rakiyt Zakari at Funkshion: Miami’s Fashion Week, that Zakari debuted The Original David. Both Vogue‘s Andre’ Leon Talley , and Project Runway’s Tim Gunn are fans of The Original David brand . Her clothing has been worn by Gym Class Heroes, Anthony Hamilton, The Cool Kids, Trey Songz, rap legends Big Daddy Kane, and the Roots to name a few. Rakiyt Zakari was the recipient of the 2007 Perrier Bubbling Under Award for emerging designers.
Neil Takemoto
Neil Takemoto is the founding director of CoolTown Beta Communities, a crowdsource-based placemaking and economic development firm codeveloping natural cultural districts with creatives. His work over the last 14 years has been committed to the development of places with significant economic, environmental and social benefit, currently working in Syracuse, New Orleans and Washington DC. Neil is the founder of CoolTown Studios, a ‘crowdsourcing cool places for creatives’ blog/news site that attracts 40,000 unique visitors a month. It has been featured in Architect Magazine and the ULI’s annual developers conference. He is also the cofounder of CoolTown Investments, linking investors with developers of urban smart growth developments for the creative class. CoolTown Investments’ partner is a capital management company with a $150M resource seeking to invest $2-$10M in equity in redevelopment projects in second/third tier cities in the eastern half of the U.S. With Andres Duany, Neil co-founded the National Town Builders Association in 1997, the only business trade group of Smart Growth/New Urbanism real estate developers. Prior to that, he founded a national nonprofit educational clearinghouse for the New Urbanism field.
Reader Comments (1)