We’re currently sitting at breakfast with Emily Pilloton, indulging in more than just the great food. We’re sharing ideas and understanding the trials and tribulations of building community. We’ll soon be heading to the second part of Emily’s talk introducing our panelists and opening up the floor to those in attendance. More to come.
Monthly Archives: February 2013
TONIGHT
Emily Pilloton will be speaking tonight in Hewitt Ballroom from 7:00pm – 9:00pm on the positive impact of humanitarian design in SUNY Oswego’s Community Incubator.
Emily Pilloton, feature on TedTalks, is a humanitarian design activist. As a young designer, Emily Pilloton was frustrated by the design world’s scarcity of meaningful work. Convinced of the power of design to change the world, at age 26 Pilloton founded Project H to help develop effective design solutions for people who need it most.
In February 2009, Pilloton and her Project H partner Matthew Miller began working in Bertie County, North Carolina, the poorest and most rural county in the state, to develop a design-build curriculum for high-school kids, called Studio H. In August 2010 they began teaching their first class of 13 students.
Pilloton’s TEDTalks profile: http://www.ted.com/speakers/emily_pilloton.html
Project H Design: http://www.projecthdesign.org/
Random Acts of Kindness Storm Oswego County
(Oswego, Feb. 2013) Oswego County residents welcomed a different kind of storm this month, a flurry of kindness. The Office of Business and Community Relations (OBCR) at SUNY Oswego would like to thank the community for participating in this year’s National Random Acts of Kindness Week.
Students from Fulton, Mexico, Phoenix and Oswego City School Districts showed their spirit by performing small random acts of kindness for fellow students and their teachers. On campus at SUNY Oswego, students, staff and faculty are all in on the fun as well this semester, promoting collaboration, kindness, and paying it forward in our community.
Each participating middle school had its own way of recognizing these good-doing bandits at its school. “At EJD Middle School <in Phoenix>, we asked homeroom teachers to pass out the cards on Tuesday,” said Raina Hinman. “We put an announcement on each day explaining how to use the cards <provided by OBCR>. We also went online and found four kindness quotes to read over the loud speaker for morning announcements daily and to put on the TV system for the kids to see all day. We printed posters from www.randomactsofkindness.org and had students post them around the school.” Other schools had varying rewards to promote the kind acts, such as Mexico where they drew names of Go.Do.Good. bandits for ice cream tickets. In Oswego, art teacher Erin Platten, a Go.Do.Good.er, designed and decorated the drop box for the cards. It has been a real collaborative effort.
Some examples of the kind acts performed included Oswego’s Brian who helped Juan learn how to skate at the skating event held at the Campus Center Arena that included all Oswego Middle School and SUNY Oswego students who are a part of the SUNY Mentor Scholar Program. Another student from Oswego, Dakota, returned a personal book to a teacher that had her name in it, even though it wasn’t his teacher. In Phoenix, Zach helped Jake study for a test, Rebecca helped Donovan make up missed work from an absence, Morgan shared lunch with Breanna, Lauren held a door for Megan, Jacob carried Seth’s binder, and DJ and Grace lent pencils. Selena also gave her entire class candy and a pencil the day the cards were introduced, but it was planned before the cards were even announced. Way to go Selena!
These are just a few examples of many that happened throughout Oswego County during National Random Acts of Kindness week. With the help of Beth Hilton, Executive Director of the Greater Oswego-Fulton Chamber of Commerce, chamber members all received Go.Do.Good. cards to start their own campaigns personally and in their businesses. It was a true community effort.
“We’re so pleased with our community’s participation in our Go.Do.Good. campaign,” says Tammy Elowsky, Assistant Director of OBCR, “and we look forward to making it bigger and better next year with more community partners. It’s all about paying it forward and building our community. This collaborative environment will inspire our Community Incubator to thrive.”
For more information on thrive, Oswego County’s Community Incubator, initiative of Office of Business and Community Relations at SUNY Oswego, please contact OBCR at: obcr@oswego.edu.
TOMORROW: Emilly Pilloton at SUNY Oswego!
Emilly Pilloton, featured on TED Talks, will be speaking about Humanitarian Design in the Community Incubator. The event begins at 7pm in SUNY Oswego’s Hewitt Ballroom.
Emily Pilloton is a humanitarian design activist. As a young designer, Emily Pilloton was frustrated by the design world’s scarcity of meaningful work. Convinced of the power of design to change the world, at age 26 Pilloton founded Project H to help develop effective design solutions for people who need it most.
In February 2009, Pilloton and her Project H partner Matthew Miller began working in Bertie County, North Carolina, the poorest and most rural county in the state, to develop a design-build curriculum for high-school kids, called Studio H. In August 2010 they began teaching their first class of 13 students.
Pilloton’s TEDTalks profile: http://www.ted.com/speakers/emily_pilloton.html
Project H Design: http://www.projecthdesign.org/
This Wednesday & Thursday
More Random Act of Kindness Winners!
More Random Act of Kindness Winners!
Schedule of events poster
Update: Our semester’s first speaker is Emily Pilloton!
Design activist Pilloton to appear twice at
SUNY Oswego
OSWEGO — SUNY Oswego’s Office of Business and Community Relations will kick off its new Community Incubator initiative with two appearances in late February by Emily Pilloton, described as “a design activist, builder, social activist and champion of industrial design as a tool to change the world.”
Emily Pilloton
Pilloton, founder and executive director of Project H Design, will appear at 7 p.m. Feb. 27, in a free public presentation on “Humanitarian Design in the Community Incubator” in the college’s Hewitt Union ballroom.
The following day, at 9 a.m., Pilloton will appear in Hewitt Union ballroom as part of a facilitated discussion with area educators about design solutions originating with educators, students and others in the community that can stimulate development.
“This is an exciting opportunity for members of our community to explore the concept of Design Thinking and the means by which design ideas can positively impact society,” said Chena Tucker, assistant project manager in the Office of Business and Community Relations, who studied sustainable design at Marylhurst University near Portland, Ore.
In 2010, Pilloton’s Project H Design nonprofit began an immersive residency in Bertie, the poorest county in North Carolina. Pilloton lived and worked in Bertie County, and is now in Berkeley working with REALM Charter School.
In a TED Talk that has nearly 430,000 views, Pilloton explains the vision sparking youth-driven design for community improvements that she said will lead to empowered and inspired teachers and students, useful advances a community can take pride in, creative capital built over time, and education that is more fun, practical and innovative.
Her company’s website talks about innovative ways to deal with the “demise of rural America,” “hollowing out of small towns,” “brain drain” and the “dependence on subsidies” that Bertie County represented.
“Creating the conditions under which change is possible” is the initial goal, and it begins with designing for education, designing from within education and redesigning education itself, Pilloton said.
Panelists for the Thursday morning, Feb. 28, roundtable will include John Belt, longtime associate professor in the college’s technology education program; school superintendents William Crist of the Oswego City School District, Robert Pritchard of Mexico and Christopher Todd of Oswego County BOCES; and Gregg Hefner, commissioner of the county Department of Social Services.
For more information, contact the SUNY Oswego Office of Business and Community Relations at 315-312-3492 or obcr@oswego.edu