IdeasCityWS to lead discussion on 'Scale' and helping ideas grow

Wake Forest University, New Museum’s NEW INC in New York City, and more than a dozen local businesses and organizations, are engaging in a unique year-long partnership under the banner “IdeasCity Winston-Salem.”

IdeasCityWS will host “Scale” a Beta Bonfire discussion on scaling a business and the process of helping ideas grow, on Wednesday, Feb. 3 at 5 p.m. Executive Director and Founder and Managing Chef of Winston-Salem-based Providence Kitchen Jeff Bacon will share his story of how he scaled his local nonprofit into a global effort to lift individuals and their communities. Meet Chef Jeff Bacon, who went from serving time in prison to helping disadvantaged people find lasting employment in the food industry in this video, “Providence Restaurant Serves Up Second Chances.”

Beta Bonfires are a series of virtual events engaging local arts leaders and entrepreneurs in timely, solutions-based discussions on how art, entrepreneurship, technology, and design can solve challenges facing mid-sized cities. The “Scale” Beta Bonfire is free and open to the public. Register here. 

The discussion will be moderated by Susan Morris, Founder of SueMo Consulting, a Winston-Salem personalized consulting firm building community connections for individuals, businesses, nonprofits and entrepreneurs. 

Other “Scale” Beta Bonfire participants include:

• MICRO – Amanda Schochet, an award-winning science communicator, co-founded MICRO in 2016. MICRO’s mission is to provide equal access to fundamental knowledge by creating a fleet of six-foot-tall science museums that go to the places where people live their daily lives. From Rockefeller Center to public hospitals, MICRO’s distributed museum has reached over 400,000 visitors across NYC, and recently began expanding to more states.
• ARTERNAL—Sean Green founded ARTERNAL in 2015. It was the first technology company to focus exclusively on bringing Client Relationship Management (CRM) technology to the art world. Green’s goal was simple: to provide a unified resource that allows the art professional to focus on what they do best – sell art and deepen relationships with their clients. 
• New Reality Co – Co-founded by Milica Zec and Winslow Porter, New Reality Co. is a critically-acclaimed creative studio dedicated to synthesizing storytelling, art and technology into groundbreaking, emotional experiences. New Reality utilizes virtual, augmented and actual reality to tap into positive social change and explore the human experience.

IdeasCity, which began as a collaborative program of the New Museum, has taken many forms over the years as a platform that builds on the premise that art and culture are essential to the future vitality of cities. Winston-Salem joins a global list of cities that have hosted IdeasCity including Athens, Detroit, Istanbul, New Orleans, New York City, São Paulo, Shanghai, Singapore, and Toronto.

Throughout the 2020-21 academic year, community partners will host events to explore creative approaches to improve health and wellbeing, economic development, and justice and equity for members of the Winston-Salem community.

For more information about IdeasCityWS and to access a recording of the first Beta Bonfire on rethinking norms, visit https://ideascity.events.wfu.edu.