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Collaboration Accelerator

Collaboration Accelerator 5.0

Since 2015, IACT (Institute of Applied Creativity for Transformation) has been working every summer with investors, mentors, and members of the greater Dayton community to collaborate and address societal challenges. As this summer internship program has evolved over the years, it has consistently focused on small cohorts of students from different disciplines of study, collaborating in a unique experiential learning environment.

For 5 years, IACT hosted the Collaboration Accelerator, a unique, 8-week professional internship opportunity that consists of cross-sector collaborative challenges that integrate applied creativity, innovative perspectives and community development. Each summer, we seek out the most engaged and creative students from different academic areas of study and bring them together to find creative solutions to real-world challenges posed by community partners. 2019 challenges focused on education, literacy and issues of food justice and sustainability. 

In 2020, the Collaboration Accelerator was replaced with the IACT Summer Micro-Internship Program.

Experiential Learning

Making an Impact with IACT

Leib Lurie, CEO of Kids Read Now, funds IACT summer program that offers students expanded hands-on learning. 

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2019 Deliverables: City of Learners

The City of Learners is a vision inspired by the current Mayor of Dayton, Nan Whaley. The initiative was launched in early 2014 as a “citywide effort to support Dayton's schools and students in achieving new levels of success and to build a stronger workforce for the future.” The IACT students’ final deliverables were modeled around this theme:

Purpose Play: The students worked with Preschool Promise and Learn to Earn Dayton to create a series of “Purpose Play” activities and targeted locations for those activities. The goal of these activities is to build connections between parents and children ages 0-5, and to kickstart early childhood education in places where parents already frequent (bus hub, job center, outdoor pavilion with free concerts, public sidewalk, etc).

Closed Captioning “Cool Club”: Students partnered the CC “Cool Club” brand with Preschool Promise/Learn to Earn to continue learning at home outside of the Purpose Play stations through online educational videos. The “Purpose Play at Home” signs instruct parents how to watch the educational videos using closed captioning.  Each video is linked back to the theme of a specific Purpose Play activity.

Holy Angels "The Nest": Deliverable was a response to the challenge posed by Holy Angels School — creating a space and culture where teachers feel empowered and supported.
Recommendations also included building an “empathy library” in the school.

Better Box: Better Box is a concept for a social enterprise focused on providing fresh produce to areas of food insecurity through delivering healthy meal prep kits. This product simultaneously uplifts people who are experiencing systemic barriers to employment by giving them experiences and training essential to re-enter the workforce.

About the ACCELERATOR Program

 

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