DETROIT ? There is a new acronym in education that expands on the popular STEM – Science, Technology, Engineering and Math. It?s called STEAM and it was the focus of a program on April 14 at the College for Creative Studies.
STEAM is STEM with addition of Art and Design. The all day summit at the College ? Designing Interactive Experience That Delight and Engage ? was for industry professionals, faculty, students, and Detroit?s creative community. The focus was around how to design interactive experiences considering the vast amount of technology people are constantly using, needing and responding to everyday.
The demand for STEM jobs has been increasing while the supply of students has been lower than demand. This conference took a different approach by elevating the conversation from STEM to STEAM as speakers throughout the day said they all had used technology to enable their own creativity, design, and business goals.
This diverse set of speakers included Tesa Aragones, Senior Global Director of Nike + Experience Design ? Digital Sport at Nike, who shared her background as a local Detroiter and her great previous success at Volkswagen working with their digital E-Business. She took time to stress the innovation she sees in Detroit and the College as a great part of the city. Her advice for those pursuing a STEAM field is to ?find your authentic voice and don?t be afraid to lead as you are.?
Sheryl Connelly, who works in Global Trends and Futuring for Ford Motor Company, spoke with global awareness of data on industries outside of autos. The College does a lot of work with companies like Ford in adding their touch to the design of many vehicle components we see today. Her talk provided good advice on how to ?imagine a future that?s unimaginable.?
Jeff Voris, Executive R & D Imagineer for Connected Experiences from Walt Disney discussed Disney?s desire to create deep, emotionally engaging experiences for guests around the world. She provided some examples and lessons learned. Roland Yu let his demos speak for himself with some true STEAM interactive and multimedia installations. Some of these installations used sounds, video, smell, and secret walls, but all were forward thinking, connected experiences.
Lynn Teo, Customer Experience Executive and leader in experience design for business transformation, shared a new College graduate program recently announced called a Masters of Fine Arts (MFA) in Interaction Design. It takes the principles of the summit, Art and Design, with technology and integrates proven business practices, research methods, and creative skills.
Said Lynn: ?This is the first time a MFA program here has been structured to be more blended. It will be the best of the classroom learning with a connection to the landscape of the industry.?
For more information about the College for Creative Studies, click on CollegeForCreativeStudies.Com
Associate Editor Nicole Johnson leads MITechNews.Com?s efforts to foster STEM education, as well as provides coverage for her fellow women in computing. If you have a story idea for Nicole, email [email protected]
