Urban ReThink was a collaborative effort between the foundation and downtown developer Craig Ustler to turn the former Urban Think! Bookstore into a cool space for budding creative entrepreneurs and local community events. The space opened in 2011 and has hosted events including those featuring famed author/activist Gloria Steinem, PBS Newshour host Ray Suarez and Bitly former chief scientist Hilary Mason, not to mention gatherings with local big names. It also has become a workspace for burgeoning entrepreneurs, including Kyle Christian Steele of local tech startup Doccaster Inc.
The good news is that we were all born to be creative. The bad news is that our education system (and in particular, our training to become engineers) drives it out of us. Here’s a startling fact: We lose nearly all of our creativity between the time we are about 5 years old and the time we graduate from high school.
From one perspective, creativity is the ability or act of making something new. It's the quality that lets us go beyond our current designs, concepts, and perceptions and emerge with something completely new. It's the quality that lets artists start with a blank canvas and create masterful images. It lets writers start with a blank page or computer screen and create new stories. It lets sculptors start with a block of stone and create meaningful shapes. And it lets engineers start with a need and define products or processes that meet that need.
“Orlando is my context,” he says. “But it’s all subconscious. With the cardboard art festival, for instance. Just seeing what we did this year compared to the direction it’s taking as we plan for next year is very cool. And that progress happens just from opening it up to more and more people and their submissions. I didn’t seek to make those changes, they happened naturally. Same thing with the SIT project. Someone just donated a bunch of beach chairs, how Florida is that?” He is referring to his best known and longest running endeavor, the SIT project.
ideally opening at about the same time as SunRail. Set to accept fares in May 2014, SunRail will run from DeBary in Volusia County through downtown Winter Park and Orlando to south Orange County. The $1.2 billion train should provide potential riders, Wilson said, because many will be looking for a way to get to their final destination. Wilson, who studies pedestrian and cycling patterns, said people typically are willing to walk no more than a half-mile.
Our CoLab Orlando members have likely seen a new face in the hallways. It’s Brian Wilson, CoLab’s new community director. Brian has experience in coworking, having spent time at a coworking space in Portland, Ore., and he already plans to help grow our community.
“It gives us an identify and names the location,” said Steele, who is also co-founder of Doccaster (Gotootie Inc.), an Internet-based document hosting and distribution platform for events.
Silicon Orange is not only a play on the name Silicon Valley, it’s also gives the location of the downtown tech community – mostly along, and close to, Orange Avenue. Steele’s Tweets also talk about juicy news or events, a reference to the orange in Silicon Orange.
“It gives us an identify and names the location,” said Steele, who is also co-founder of Doccaster (Gotootie Inc.), an Internet-based document hosting and distribution platform for events.
Silicon Orange is not only a play on the name Silicon Valley, it’s also gives the location of the downtown tech community – mostly along, and close to, Orange Avenue. Steele’s Tweets also talk about juicy news or events, a reference to the orange in Silicon Orange.