The Center for Advancing Innovation and CODAME Partner to Unite Artists with High-Tech Ventures

BETHESDA, Md., Sept. 24, 2019 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- The Center for Advancing Innovation (CAI) and CODAME are partnering to unite artists with high-tech ventures. Cultivating "art spirit" in startups poises them for long-term success. They're better equipped to navigate uncertainty, make meaningful pivots, and ship disruptive solutions. Nurturing the humanities in high tech is essential to solving global-scale problems.

The Supply Chain and Logistics Enterprises (SCALE) Challenge immediately starts this partnership. CODAME Artists will join multidisciplinary teams of entrepreneurs to invent industry transforming breakthroughs. Orchestrated by CAI with funding from the Walton Family Foundation, the SCALE Challenge will launch 20+ high-tech companies.

SCALE Challenge spin-out companies will be planted in Northwest Arkansas, home to the Walton Family. It's also home to Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, for which Alice Walton is Founder and Chairwoman of the Board. In February 2020, Crystal Bridges will open the Momentary, an innovative arts venue. CODAME will collaborate with Crystal Bridges at this cultural hub for artists, musicians, and other creators.

Bruno Fonzi, co-founder of CODAME, said, "Jordan Gray and I founded CODAME to unite visionary artists and technologists to push the boundaries of innovation. CODAME's partnership with CAI will enable the CODAME community to disrupt industries and attract new members at the intersection of art and technology."

Rosemarie Truman, Founder of the Center for Advancing Innovation, said, "Artists provoke creativity, change the boundaries of rules and imagination, solve puzzles, fill holes, shed skin, and transform the world. CODAME Artists in CAI's challenges can illustrate how artists' involvement in high-tech entrepreneurship improves startup outcomes through creativity and art spirit, share their work with larger audiences beyond Silicon Valley, and catalyze transformation faster."

Through CAI's innovation challenges, artists will receive free, virtual entrepreneurial training and have a rare chance to monetize their productivity. Artists that launch CAI startups will be rewarded with equity, prize money, capital, and licenses to promising inventions from CAI's research partners, including NASA. To learn more about how CAI and CODAME are breaking down the barriers between art and innovation, attend the ART+TECH FESTIVAL -- focused on space -- in San Francisco, California on October 25th-27th, 2019: http://codame.com/projects/art-tech-festival-2019-space.

ABOUT CAI:
The Center for Advancing Innovation (CAI) is a global public-private partnership, non-profit focused on creating a virtuous circle of innovation and driving growth breakthroughs through novel, creative paradigms and models. CAI's mission is to accelerate and increase the volume of technology commercialization to ignite entrepreneurship, bolster the global economy, and maximize the potential of promising inventions. CAI's award-winning challenge-based accelerator, rigorous evidence-based due diligence, and capital-efficient lean management models serve to hyper-accelerate "gazelle" high-performing startups for outsized investor returns. Named as the "Tinder for Startups" by Nature, the "Kickstarter for IP" by Wired, and a "Powerful Innovation Toolkit" by the White House, CAI launched 300+ startups and trained 3500+ entrepreneurs in 100+ cities worldwide since 2014. For additional information about CAI, please visit http://www.thecenterforadvancinginnovation.org.

ABOUT CODAME:
As members of Intersection for the Arts, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, CODAME shapes the future by building ART+TECH project explorations and inspiring experiences. CODAME events, installations, and workshops connect people of all specialties and backgrounds. Join us to continue the visionary celebration, running since 2010. You can learn more about CODAME on http://codame.com/

SOURCE The Center for Advancing Innovation