According to the World Bank data from 2014, there are 97 mobile phone subscriptions per every 100 people in the world. Just 10 years ago, that figure was 42 out of 100. There’s no doubt that smartphones have transformed our world by creating communities, enabling content sharing, and facilitating a global marketplace at our fingertips. But in order to do this, many smartphones users spend hours a day staring at their screens for business and entertainment. And while this technology certainly makes some of life’s tasks easier, it is also easier to “miss” the world around us.
In partnership with AT&T, Thrival will have a discussion about what strategies people are taking to get work done while also taking time away from the screen — to connect with others face to face, person to person. Jim Penna, Director of External Affairs at AT&T, will be joined by Kevin Saftner, General Manager of James St. Gastropub (which recently implemented discounts for phone-free dinners), and Gil Teixeira, the inventor of CEEMI, a tool that allows any smart device to become a collaborative musical instrument.
For decades, radio was for many people the primary method of staying connected with the rest of the world. The ability to broadcast information over large distances constituted a major turning point in the course of human civilization, impacting everything from news and education to music and entertainment. Recent years have produced another shift: as technology has become more affordable and easy to use, listeners and creators around the world have been empowered to take more active roles in shaping our collective knowledge and interactions.
Meet Jackie Dempsey and Steve O’Hearn, the creative geniuses behind Squonk, a brazen ensemble of makers and music technologists who have wowed audiences around the world with their surreal post-industrial productions. Since their start in a Pittsburgh junkyard 24 years ago, Squonk has created thirteen original productions and performed in more than 250 venues across the US, and on 3 continents. With strong priorities in being accessible and transformative, they’ve taught workshops, directed collaborative creations, and done residencies at myriad universities, museums, and middle schools.
Squonk’s two most recent productions will be featured at the open and close of Thrival Music. Each day will begin with a performance of Cycle Sonic, their brand new bike-inspired rock concert on human-powered moving platforms. And to close out each night, Pneumatica will play, featuring a 40-foot high moving statue surrounded with fans, turbines, and inflatables. Don’t miss this chance to meet the creators, two of Pittsburgh’s most fascinating personalities.
*Note: Ticketed Special Event. Please be sure to purchase a ticket here.*
Technology is allowing us to empirically and accurately determine what we know, how we know it, and how to protect ourselves and our neighbors. Innovators have developed groundbreaking new methods and devices to fight back — we’ve enlisted help in surprising new sectors to allow women to employ science and technology as a means to to help protect other women and the vulnerable from harm — particularly within the realm of cases most difficult to prosecute.
Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, popularly known as CTE, has shaken the sports world to its core, most notably the National Football League and its penchant for offering fans jarring hits and sensational collisions every Sunday from September through February. Dr. Bennet Omalu discovered CTE in Pittsburgh, and has since become a global phenomena, with the recent film Concussion documenting his experience going toe to toe with the National Football League — an organization that fiercely disputed his findings and has found itself at the heart of the controversy. Dozens of football players and other athletes have been diagnosed, multiple have tragically taken their own lives, and numerous analysts believe this condition is not isolated, but an epidemic.
Jeanne Marie Laskas, author of Concussion and writer of the screenplay for the feature film starring Will Smith, will join the conversation with Dr. Omalu for a deep dive into the nature of courage, accountability, and the opportunity to tell the story for those who have lost the ability to tell it for themselves.
The current system of public education is more or less maxed out in terms of results. Continuing to invest in reforming this model will result, at best, in incremental progress and pockets of success.
Thankfully, it is increasingly possible to envision an entirely new paradigm for learning, one that would be much more aligned with the modern world, more equitable to those who have been marginalized, and more compatible with the future we want for our children and communities.
Sam Franklin argues for a new approach to education reform, one that would change the fundamentals of the shots we are shooting instead of trying to get us better and better at shooting from half court. And one that would stop using outliers as a rationale to continue doing what we're doing.
Register now for a provocative call for new education pathways, and start to envision what it would look like to combine the best aspects of education, past and present, to chart a better future.
Sam will be joined for a talkback session with Derrius Quarles, someone who made that “half-court shot,” working his way from various foster homes in Chicago’s South Side to earning over a million dollars in scholarships, and starting his own business, Million Dollar Scholar, to help other students secure financial aid for college.
Cities change. Neighborhoods evolve. These are all widely accepted truisms; however, in communities that have experienced disinvestment followed by new development, there is often a struggle to form a shared identity between long-time residents and newcomers. But there is an opportunity to bridge this gap by recognizing that the existing “authentic community” is (and was) never truly static. By viewing our cities and neighborhoods as constantly evolving places of innovation marked by the fingerprints of individuals from all walks of life, a new sense of authenticity can be discovered. Ray Gastil, Director of City Planning at the City of Pittsburgh, Dr. Daniel Campo, Professor in Architecture and Planning from Morgan State University, Janera Solomon, Executive Director of the Kelly Strayhorn Theater, and Matthew Lister, Director at Gehl Architects will explore this topics in depth and share perspectives from a variety of viewpoints.
Since Pittsburgh's anointment as America's #1 food city, there has been much celebration about the ascension of the city's culinary culture and community. This is great, however, there's a need for an open and transparent conversation about what this actually means long term, and if this type of notoriety is sustainable in the long-term. How do you build from here? What are the necessary steps needed to maintain the momentum? Does everyone have access to these benefits (short answer: no)? It doesn’t just end with food. The culture extends itself into a culture of microbreweries and craft beer that industry leaders that also make Pittsburgh their home.
Now that you’ve learned more about food and craft brewing culture, it’s time to stimulate other senses — most notably taste.
Thrival will activate 10,000 square feet to feature craft breweries, distilleries, and wineries (as well as some of the Pittsburgh's most popular food trucks) all offering free samples while engaging you in an interactive experience on sourcing, creation, design, and more.
And be sure to check out a live demo of Conversant Labs new app, “Yes, Chef,” that will be live demo’d by Jamilka Borges, James Beard Award semi-finalist and executive chef of Spoon.
Participants:
Voodoo Brewery
East End Brewery
Penn Brewing Company
Pittsburgh Winery
Grist House Craft Brewery
Look — making a smiley face out of eggs and bacon is nothing new. But making a pancake mural of Game of Thrones characters? How about a pancake that looks just like Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump? Those are griddle skills. Enter the minds behind Dancakes — best friends from St. Louis who have blended breakfast and art to introduce a social media phenomenon that has captured the world’s attention. Join us for coffee, a thought talk, and of course a selection of custom-made pancakes for your viewing and eating pleasure.
We’re past “Moneyball.” Sports franchises throughout the industry have adopted and implemented myriad quantitative and analytical tools to assess player performance on the field.
These developments have certainly led a revolution in the way we view athletic evaluation. However, we still lack a sufficient grasp on the games being played inside the minds of athletes. Do some people have a knack for defining the moment, while others fold under pressure?
The consequences are heavy — with trophies, championships, endorsements, millions of dollars, and at times the collective soul of entire fanbases riding on the thinnest of margins.
Thrival welcomes a panel of sports experts and professionals as they discuss the ins and outs of sabermetrics, the nature of the business of sports, and what it means to be clutch.
If you ask someone over the age of 30 to press the “pound” sign, they’ll know exactly what you’re talking about. Ask a college student and they may offer you a fist-bump. Such is the social media phenomenon of the hashtag: a singular icon that in and of itself seems rather insignificant, but when attached to a cultural movement or idea, can start to change the world.
Chris Messina, the inventor of the hashtag, helps us learn a little bit more about how one character has reshaped the social media landscape. Afterward, Pittsburgh-based artist, DS Kinsel, will sit down the Chris for a talkback session with the audience.
Beyond education and medicine — commonly referred in Pittsburgh as “eds and meds” — the art scenes have been transformative to the social fabric of entire cities. But what can separate one art town from another? Why is one city “better” for artists than the next? Is it talent, or perhaps a network? What are the key ingredients to sustaining and supporting an arts community outside of traditional hubs such as New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco?
CEEMI can be quickly described as the hardware generator of an instant virtual ensemble that turns any WiFi compatible device – a smartphone, tablet, desktop or laptop – into a collaborative electronic musical instrument on the fly. It was specially designed for the performance of music by groups of people without prior musical training.
CEEMI was conceived by musician/sound artist Gil Teixeira in 2013 and started being developed as a response to the growing global community of smartphone and tablet users who seem to be perpetually more disconnected in social settings. The vision behind CEEMI is to harness the power of technology to connect people in real time, in a live setting. It’s not so much about humans interacting with technology, but about technology as a means to human interaction.
Machine learning and artificial intelligence already are and will continue to be beneficial in health care. However, serious pitfalls dot the health care landscape — while failed experiments like Twitter chatbots may be amusing, mistakes in a medical context can have serious consequences. This talk will demystify the basic concepts of machine learning and several of the freely available tools that are making this technology more and more accessible, as well as explore the pros and cons of machine learning’s expansion across the health care industry.
For over 30 years, Dr. Jim Withers has traveled to underpasses, alleyways, and tent cities serving those in need — offering free healthcare to the homeless. He would eventually travel the world, connecting with those like him, real life heroes dedicated to serving those who were very much in need. Thus began a street medicine movement, one that spanned the globe.
Diving deeper into the story we can get caught up in describing the common elements and shared characteristics of what makes a hero in our modern society. By doing so, we often lose track of the fact that people and circumstances change — that more than just one person contributes to success — and a hero’s work is never truly done.
As such, we as a society must challenge our sense of thinking about who our heroes are and the purpose they continue to serve as they continue on their life journey. This is a conversation just as much about charting new frontiers as it is about our collective ability to come to terms with the past and gather courage for the road ahead.
"How to Be a Differentist" with Ann Makosinski
Most 18 year old college sophomores are thinking about final exams, summer vacation, and dorm room shenanigans. But before 18-year-old Ann Makosinski ever stepped into a college classroom, she had won the Google Science Fair, garnered awards at the Intel Science and Engineering Fair, was featured in TIME Magazine, and appeared on the Tonight Show — twice. Instead of couching herself in the typical definitions of “entrepreneur” or “inventor,” Ann has coined a term for herself: “differentist.”
In today’s celebrated and well-documented innovation economy championed by Silicon Valley wunderkinds like Mark Zuckerberg, we have a tendency to think that the best new ideas are exclusively coming out of Bay Area, or the offices of Apple, Uber, or other tech giants.
But sometimes, world-changing ideas come out of a home basement in the suburbs. Join Ann as she explains what it’s like to be a differentist in a world that’s constantly redesigning and reimagining itself, and charting new courses.
"Rust Belt Resurgent" with Josh McManus
From Detroit to Pittsburgh, the Rust Belt is making a comeback. What was once the world's most powerful heavy manufacturing corridor has reinvented itself — becoming a hub for technology, medicine, entrepreneurship, education, and much more.
But there still remains a regional stigma within the national consciousness that lags behind the reality on the ground.
Nonetheless, major cities within the American interior are sprinting forward, and redefining themselves, as well as their culture. Old industrial ruins are being transformed for modern purposes. Creatives and entrpreneurs are seeing post-industrial blight as a design template. Neighborhoods are experiencing unprecendented growth, leaving many questions lingering around the term "development."
Join us for the final keynote of Thrival Innovation, and explore why a region once forgetten is now at the forefront of the national discourse.
