Lincoln Center Institute’s 2012 Annual Benefit Gala on March 7

Once a year, supporters of Lincoln Center Institute (LCI) gather, enjoy dinner and a world-class musical performance, and honor individuals and organizations that embody LCI’s ideals. These fundraisers celebrate LCI’s tireless efforts to bring the arts to young people, and to develop their skills of imagination, creativity, and innovation. So it is with great anticipation that I announce this year’s Annual Benefit Gala, to be held on March 7 at Frederick P. Rose Hall in New York City.

LCI Talks to Arts Schools Network Conference

Today I had the honor of addressing the Arts School Network’s annual conference, held this year in Florida. (Alas, I spoke via Skype, so I wasn’t able to enjoy the Sunshine State’s weather.) ASN is a professional association of arts school leaders, with over 300 members worldwide, so this was a great opportunity for me to engage with a large gathering of arts educators. The organization’s executive director, Kristy Callaway, asked me to talk about Lincoln Center Institute’s (LCI’s) imagination initiatives.

Robots, Learning, and Play

Here’s an imaginative idea: Latitude, an international research consultancy, asked 348 children around the world, “What if robots were a part of your everyday life—at school and beyond?” The kids were to answer in the form of an illustrated short story. Now the results of the Robots @ School study are in, and they reveal what today’s young people think and feel about learning and technology.

The Imagination Network

Image by Jane Hoffer

What do Disney, the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (NCJFCJ), and the U.S. Army have in common? Representatives from all three organizations appeared at America’s Imagination Summit, the education event that Lincoln Center Institute (LCI) hosted in New York City this past July. Their presence was not arbitrary; rather, I believe that the dynamic intersection of such diverse influencers can lead to change in our country’s schools.

NASA Looks to Americans for Aerospace Innovation

Eric Liu and I write about “challenge awards” in our book, Imagination First—prizes offered to people for accomplishing a stated task or solving a given problem. We point out the value of deliberately open-ended challenges, which create more room for bold and unexpected ideas to emerge. The NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program’s recent call for proposals is a perfect example.

Bard College Launches New MBA in Sustainability

Lincoln Center Institute (LCI) hosted the Katerva Awards—which honor the world’s best sustainability ideas—here in New York City on December 7, as I reported a couple of weeks ago. I’m interested in sustainability in part because it’s inextricably bound up with imagination, creativity, and innovation: these skills enable us to figure out ways to make our planet healthier and improve our societies. So it seems fitting to mention on this blog that Bard College has taken an innovative step and launched a new MBA in Sustainability program.

Technology and the Arts: Can They Play Well Together?

The impact of technology on the arts has been a matter of debate at least since we had to be reminded to turn off our cell phones in performance halls.

At Lincoln Center Institute (LCI), we always prided ourselves on espousing the latest technology, but we also insisted on engagements with live performances. This duality was not easy to maintain, especially in a frosty economic climate, and, early on, technology came to the rescue in the form of video. After the students have attended a performance, they need something that will stay with them and be available as long as they study the subject: video allowed us to bring storytellers, chamber ensembles, and Shakespeare to classrooms where being stranded without technology would have meant being stranded without art.

WNET Spotlights LCI in Article on Arts Organizations and Schools

Lincoln Center Institute (LCI) is featured in a new article for MetroFocus, WNET’s multi-platform magazine. The piece, entitled “Surprising Schoolyard Pals,” focuses on the growing number of partnerships between area arts organizations and local schools. This isn’t an entirely recent phenomenon, however: we’ve been at it for 36 years.

MBA Grads Could Use an LCI Education

Image by opensourceway*

In order to succeed professionally, MBA graduates need creativity, innovation, empathy, and the ability to deal with failure, says a new Huffington Post article. These are all skills that Lincoln Center Institute (LCI) believes in, and strives to foster in students. Author and careers expert Stacie Nevadomski Berdan drew her findings from interviews with top business leaders, civil servants, and academics.

Grand Prize Winner of Katerva Awards Announced at LCI

Lincoln Center Institute (LCI) was thrilled to host an event yesterday, December 7, to announce the grand prize winner of the 2011 Katerva Awards: Sanergy, a company that addresses the serious sanitation problem in Nairobi, Kenya, by supplying public toilets and using the waste to produce electricity and fertilizer.