University of Southern California’s Viterbi School of Engineering Chooses PMBC Group to Help Find “The Next MacGyver”
Los Angeles, CA (PRWEB) March 24, 2015 -- The University of Southern California’s Viterbi School of Engineering has selected Los Angeles technology public relations firm PMBC Group as its agency of record. PMBC Group will be responsible for publicizing the school’s global crowdsourcing competition, “The Next MacGvyer,” aimed at developing the first great TV show with a female engineer lead.
“We are excited to work with USC’s Viterbi School of Engineering to inspire and encourage the next generation of women to pursue engineering careers,” said Ola Danilina, CEO and founder of PMBC Group. “We are proud to play a key role in “The Next MacGyver” as we generate significant media awareness with a strategic national media relations campaign.”
The media campaign will target technology, consumer and entertainment press with the objective to generate more entries to the competition from aspiring television industry writers, producers and directors as well as engineers, technology enthusiasts and anyone with a creative idea, to create a compelling TV series that features a strong female protagonist who uses engineering-based thought processes to solve problems. The media campaign also aims to reach girls and women, educators, career counselors and other influencers, to raise awareness of the shortage of female engineers, with women comprising only 19 percent of engineering graduates nationwide.
USC’s Viterbi School of Engineering is collaborating on the project with the National Academy of Engineering and Lee Zlotoff, creator of the TV series MacGyver. To enter the competition, launched during National Engineers Week in February 2015, entrants must submit ideas by April 17. This will culminate in a Top 12 “Engineering Idol” event in Summer 2015 where finalists will pitch ideas directly before a distinguished panel of Hollywood and engineering judges. Five winners will receive $5,000 each and be paired with Hollywood mentors, including CSI creator Anthony Zuiker and President of Producer’s Guild of America Lori McCreary, as well as distinguished engineering professionals to develop their pilot scripts.
With women comprising 37 percent of the Viterbi School of Engineering’s freshmen class, almost double the national average, USC is proud to lead this initiative to increase the number of female engineers nationwide. The university has attracted women and led this movement to raise awareness about the number of women in the engineering field through its visibility and mentorship of strong Viterbi female faculty. Since 2009, six women of Viterbi’s faculty have been named on the MIT Technology Review’s prestigious list of “Top 35 Global Innovators under 35.”
About PMBC Group
PMBC Group is a fast-growing public relations agency based in Los Angeles, with offices in Beverly Hills. PMBC is dedicated to delivering tactical, results-driven public relations campaigns that build brand value and advance immediate and long-term business goals. PMBC’s success-proven formulas are designed to navigate the modern media landscape utilizing a collaboration of new and traditional media to achieve strategic media exposure to reach key consumer audiences, industry influencers, investors and other constituents that matter to our clients. PMBC is comprised of a team of professionals of varied backgrounds from public relations, journalism, social media, merchandising, product development, venture capital, entertainment and hospitality. For more information please visit http://www.PMBCgroup.com.
About USC Viterbi School of Engineering
Consistently ranked among the nation’s top 10 graduate schools of engineering, USC Viterbi School of Engineering, situated in the nation’s entertainment capital in Los Angeles, has enjoyed close ties to the film and television industry, as well as its fellow USC School of Cinematic Arts, the nations #1 cinema program. USC Viterbi’s own interdisciplinary work with USC Cinema include the nation’s top video games program (USC Games), and the USC Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT), a U.S. Army-funded research center which has resulted in cutting edge work in virtual humans and motivation capture technologies, including Oscar-winning visual effects of films like “Avatar,” “Spiderman 2” and “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.” USC Viterbi is also home of the Integrated Media Systems Center (IMSC), a NSF-supported Engineering Research Center at the crossroads of media, entertainment and engineering. For more information please visit http://www.viterbi.usc.edu.
Lisa Inouye, PMBC Group, +1 (310) 777-7546, [email protected]
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