ACCelerate 2022: Call for proposals
This is a guest post from the organizers of the ACCelerate: ACC Smithsonian Creativity and Innovation Festival.
Wake Forest University is seeking projects for the third ACCelerate: ACC Smithsonian Creativity and Innovation Festival to be held in Washington, D.C. in early April 2022 during the Cherry Blossom Festival. Attendance is expected to exceed 60 thousand.
We are seeking exciting trans-disciplinary projects to represent the University at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. Collaborations between Wake Forest faculty, students and community teams are highly encouraged. Projects will be evaluated based on the potential to actively engage the festival audience, as well as completion and readiness. The University will submit two projects and an alternate to represent Wake Forest in the festival.
Important dates:
- May 14, 2021: Application deadline for project consideration for the upcoming festival
- August 10, 2021: Projects submitted to the Festival Steering Committee
- September 2021: Notifications of final acceptance for the festival will be sent
Support from the Office of Provost will be available to help with the creation and transportation of the exhibits and exhibitors.
The ACCelerate festival is an opportunity for all ACC schools to showcase their work to the public, each other, students, alumni, companies, legislators and invited guests from the nation’s capital. The inaugural three-day ACCelerate festival was held in 2017 as a celebration of creative exploration and research at the nexus of science, engineering, arts, and design. Visit http://acceleratefestival.com/ to learn more about past festivals.
Read about Wake Forest’s participation in the 2019 ACCelerate Festival on the University news site, “Smithsonian to showcase WFU exhibits at ACCelerate Festival.”
To submit a proposal, please complete this form with as much detail as you can provide. We understand that you may not be able to answer all questions by the deadline. For more information, contact Tim Pyatt at tpyatt@wfu.edu or 336.758.5094, or Martha Allman at allmanmb@wfu.edu or 336.758.5175.
Categories: Guest Post, Inside WFU
Much preparation leads to Wake Forest participation in ACCelerate
After a year of much planning, Tim Pyatt and Andrea Ellis are looking forward to a special Atlantic Coast Conference event in mid-October that showcases Wake Forest in a setting other than on a playing field or a court.
Pyatt, dean of Z. Smith Reynolds Library, and Ellis, assistant vice president of innovation, served on the ACC steering committee that helped organize the first “ACCelerate: ACC Smithsonian Creativity and Innovation Festival.” Presented by Virginia Tech and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, the ACCelerate Festival is a three-day celebration of creative exploration and research at the nexus of science, engineering and design.
It will be held at the National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C. on Oct. 13-15 from 10 a.m. to 5:30 pm. each day.
The event is free and showcases the 15 universities of the ACC. It gives all of the universities an opportunity to display their work to each other and to the public. In addition to the 47 featured interactive installations, the festival will include panel discussions and performances through the three days.
Representing Wake Forest, Pyatt and Ellis began last October serving on the steering committee comprised of members from all ACC universities. By November, they had proposed the Wake Forest projects for the festival. And, after considerable deliberation, the final decisions were made later on which projects would be selected for showcasing at the festival. Throughout the summer, they have worked to settle the numerous details and logistics required to make it a successful event.
Asked how the public will respond to the Wake Forest exhibits and presentations, Pyatt replied, “All are amazing in their own way.”
The Wake Forest exhibits and presentations include:
- IMPROVment: Improvisational Movement for Brain and Body Health
- Wake the Vote
- The Story of My Life
- What is Language? Challenging our Intuitions and Assumptions
“Wake the Vote is so relevant and timely while IMPROVment epitomizes the Wake Forest ethos — bringing liberal arts and medicine together for the good of society. The Story of My Life celebrates six disabled adults and their personal stories. And What is Language combines humanistic research with data analysis. I think the public will be impressed by the impact of research at Wake Forest on society,” Pyatt said.
For more about ACCelerate, read here.
Categories: Faculty News, Inside WFU, Staff News
