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Music, Art and Imagination Focus of Big Ideas Fest

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For press inquiries, contact Shenandoah Weiss shen@iskme.org

Music, Art and Imagination Focus of Big Ideas Fest

Education Renaissance in Half Moon Bay, Dec. 2-5

November 27, 2012 (Half Moon Bay, CA)--Naif Al-Mutawa, founder of The99 superheroes cartoon that’s sweeping the globe to unite young people of different cultures and faiths through a message of tolerance, is just one of the speakers at next week’s Big Ideas Fest, an annual convening of innovators in education held at the Ritz-Carlton in Half Moon Bay, Dec. 2-5 and hosted by ISKME, a nonprofit education institute pioneering technologies for open access to learning.

Sparking the creativity of the more than 200 participants will be Kiff Gallagher, founder of the Musician Corps, which brings musicians to public places, including schools, and Nirvan Mullick, a filmmaker inspired to shoot a documentary about a nine-year old name Caine, who built an arcade from cardboard boxes and inspired builders everywhere.

The opening keynote on Dec. 2 about creating the conditions for participatory learning will be delivered by Karen Cator, Director of the Office of Education Technology, U.S. Dept. of Education, and on Dec. 5, cognitive linguist George Lakoff will cap the event with a keynote on “Creative Intelligence: What the Brain Tells Us About the Importance of Teaching the Arts and the Humanities.”

Local scholarships for teachers and students in Half Moon Bay were raised by Brazzle Berry Yogurt, and a contingent of RoadTrip Nation students are attending from South San Francisco High School. A grant will be awarded to three teams that prototype promising Big Ideas in Beta 2012, and a new prize, the Innovation in Action Award, will be announced as well.

For more information, see www.bigideasfest.org. For press inquiries, contact shen@iskme.org.