Today we are delighted to tell the world that JD Salinas III will join Advent GX has a managing partner effective Monday, June 25th. JD joins us after stepping down from his post as Regional Administrator for the US General Services Administration (GSA). You can expect to see JD here at the Innovation Underground in Bryan, TX in the coming months. He will also be working to expand the Innovation Underground network with new incubation locations in the Lower Rio Grande Valley region of Texas and in other areas of North America.

JD has served as Regional Administrator for the GSA’s Greater Southwest Region since November 2009. Prior to his service at GSA, Salinas served as County Judge of Hidalgo County, Texas. He is a graduate of Texas A&M University where he earned a Bachelor’s degree in Recreation, Parks and Tourism Sciences in 1991, and of University of Texas – Pan American where he earned a Masters of Public Administration in 2002.

We are honored that JD has chosen to join our team. He will significantly enhance our ability to reach and serve communities and businesses throughout Texas and North America. JD brings an exceptional understanding of local, state and federal issues that impact both local governments and businesses and his servant values are a perfect fit with Advent GX.

Texas music, Texas beer and locally crafted pizza were on hand to welcome international visitors to downtown Bryan and the Innovation Underground during the 2012 International Conference on Design, Computing and Cognition. The group of international travelers gathered in the IU’s patio garden to meet colleagues from across the globe representing a variety of disciplines all with a shared interest in design aspects of artificial intelligence and cognitive science.

According to Texas A&M’s website, Design Computing and Cognition is a biannual conference series that provides an international forum for the presentation and discussion of state-of-the-art and cutting-edge design research with a focus on artificial intelligence, cognitive science and computational theories in design. The conference proceedings form a continuing archive of design computing and cognition research. DCC is one of the few high-profile and highly respected international interdisciplinary conferences. Most conferences are dedicated to a topic that interests only a single discipline. DCC is different in that the audience, talks, and presenters are from a variety of disciplines, all circling around a central theme.

DDC’12 was chaired by Dr. John S. Gero, a research professor in the Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study, the Volgenau School of Engineering, and the Department of Computational Social Science at George Mason University. Dr. Tracy Hammond was the Texas A&M local chair of the event. She is an associate professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering and the director of the Sketch Recognition Lab.

Previously, the conference was held at MIT, the Technical University of Eindhoven in the Netherlands (DCC’06), the Georgia Institute of Technology and the University of Stuttgart in Stuttgart in Germany (DCC’10).

Viza-Go-Go 19 was great! I can’t decide what I enjoyed more – watching people walk their way through an entire building while walking in place or seeing their reactions to the 3D art. I do know that we were thrilled to have Viza-Go-Go’s exhibit on the first floor of the Innovation Underground during First Friday weekend this month.

Exceptionally talented Texas A&M Architecture students shared their wares as part of a showcase that stretched along Bryan’s 26^th Street from the Palace Theater to Village Café and our own Innovation Underground at the Federal Building.

The Palace Theater was packed as First Friday crowds stretched and craned to enjoy a glimpse of the animation showcase. We got a peek into the effort that goes into making animated creatures move so realistically and were entertained by the murder mystery that was woven into the film showcase.

Up the street at the Village Café (also know as the home of Art 979), an exhibit of undergraduate work from the visualization program took over the coffee house walls. The art is for sale, so be sure to stop by the Café and check it out.

Across the alley, at the Innovation Underground the graduate exhibit drew a crowd too. We were thrilled to host so many people in what was once the local post office. The Federal Building has been home to the USPS, the IRS and other federal agencies. Today, it’s our home for the Innovation Underground. We house eight businesses in incubation offices and provide a quiet place to work for freelancers at the Creative Space.

On the first floor, we’ll offer space for meetings and events in our Parlor Gallery and Library and we even have a unique outdoor venue in the patio garden.

Viza-Go-Go got us started and future events will be hard pressed to draw such a crowd but the venue stood the test…providing a space for innovative events with easy access to all that historic downtown Bryan has to offer.

If you missed Viza-Go-Go, enjoy these photos. If you have an event or meeting coming up, we hope you’ll consider the Innovation Underground. We’d love to have you here with us.

Over the weekend, Advent GX facilitated an ASD (Advent GX Strategy Deployment) workshop with Imani-Tumani-Upendo (means Faith-Hope-Love in Swahili) founders Jenny Jenkins and Rachel Driskell. We met in our yet-to-be-renovated gallery on the first floor of the Innovation Underground. It was an inspiring way to spend a Saturday morning.

You can learn more about Imani on their website at www.Imani-Africa.com, but the short story is this. Jenny felt the call to support African missions by coordinating mission teams here in the states and doing fundraising, etc. She shared her dream with Rachel and they’ve since formed a non-profit corporation, sent teams in summer 2011 and formed teams that will serve this summer. Imani already has relationships in place with Texas A&M so that students can earn credits for internships AND Imani is working to better represent churches by providing missions coordination support.

All this and Imani is less that two-years old. Wow!

We are so proud to have Imani as a member of the Innovation Underground and most grateful to the individuals who lent their insight and expertise to the visioning process, including:

• Dr. Carson Watt, Chairman of Board, Advent GX;Professor Emeritus of Texas A&M University in the Dept. of Recreation, Park and Tourism Sciences
• Liz Ylitalo, Founder, Sideshow Creative
• Marty Morrison, Audit and Enterprise Risk Services, Deloitte & Touche
• Elyse Debuck, Student TAMU and Imani Missions Team Leader
• Thomas Wynn, International Agriculture Development
• Jose Quintana, President, Advent GX and financial and systems engineer

We will continue the planning process with the help of this group and others and will certainly keep our followers updated on Imani plans through this blog. In the meantime, here are a few photos from the workshop.

Enjoy!

Logan Hooks films the entire workshop. So many great ideas. We don't want to miss a thing!

Members of the workshop team pose for a photo in the Imani offices at the Innovation Underground.

Jenny encourages Liz and Marty check out the products Imani has for sell in support of mission teams.

Introducing Big Chip Designs, the newest member of the IU network!  The Innovation Underground team held a strategy deployment workshop for Big Chip this Thursday evening.  The company, started by Jenny Jenkins and Elyse DeBuck in December, re-purposes found objects into decorative items. Their tagline is “we give junk some spunk!”.

The idea for Big Chip came from a simple hobby.  Both students at Texas A&M, the friends would meet during their leisure time to cook and do crafts together. Eventually, the pair started making crayon art.  Seeing that everyone was selling this type of art on Etsy, a popular online marketplace, DeBuck and Jenkins decided they wanted to be involved with something they felt was more compelling.  It just so happens that founders were huge fans of shows like American Pickers.

The duo started looking everywhere for unique items.  They would visit estate sales, antique shops and garage sales looking for objects that they could give new life. The IU/AGX team used the strategy deployment workshop on Thursday to provide guidance by way of identifying business expectations, possible stakeholders and the developmental opportunities for Big Chip Designs.

For more information on Big Chip Designs, email Jenny Jenkins and Elyse DeBuck at bigchipdesigns@gmail.com or visit their Esty shop.  For more information on the IU consultants and their services, visit our About page.

Growth starts here.

The Imani-Tumani-Upendo boutique, which means faith-hope-love in Swahili, has made the Innovation Underground their home.  The company is headed by Jenny Jenkins, Rachael Driskill and Kaylene Ullom.  These three women came together to combine three seperate dreams into one vision, the culmination of which would defeat poverty for children and families in Africa.

Aside from throwing the annual M.O.V.E event tasked with outreach and raising awareness for their cause in the B/CS community, the group does mission trips to various locations like Uganda and Kenya to help Christian missionary groups already working in Africa.  A couple of these groups are Healing Faith and Real-4-Christ.  Imani’s ultimate goal is to empower the people of these towns by teaching them trades and giving them much needed support to acquire basic amenities like food, water, and education.

For more information on Imani, please visit imani-africa.com.

The Innovation Underground hosted a group of student leaders from Texas A&M. The purpose of the visit was to give an in-depth look into the operations of a start-up venture i.e. The Innovation Underground.  Although the IU is a relatively new undertaking, the team behind the IU has over 25 years experience developing businesses.  The class of 20 to 30 students were addressed by Kristy Petty, the owner of the Village Cafe, and Joan Quintana, the director of Marketing for AdventGX.

Joan and Kristy lead student leaders through a tour of the Innovation Underground, explaining every step of the incubation process from selection of room sizes and paint samples to the business development process.  More specifically, Kristy describes her relationship with the IU/AGX team and her excitement over developments seeing her long-standing passion for entrepreneurship.

While touring the future home of the IU’s library and reception venue, Kristy and Joan explain their partnership in bringing awareness to agendas and issues surrounding Downtown Bryan, therefore revitalizing the area and bringing it’s diverse history to the forefront.  The main idea surrounding this goal is to get people re-involved with surrounding areas and to have them experience all the Brazos Valley has to offer.

Along with this effort, The Village Cafe’s main goal is creating awareness of local food, music, and art in the Brazos Valley.  The cafe has permanent and rotating art displays, with new artists being introduced every “First Friday” of the month.  The cafe tables and lounge-type seating allow for the perfect social environment.  For more information on The Village Cafe, please visit thevillagedowntown.com.

Notables from the Downtown Bryan Association meet at the Innovation Underground for a presentation going over analytics gathered from a survey conducted by AdventGX for the Texas Reds Festival.  Jose Quintana, the President of AGX, presents the findings of the survey as well as his suggestions on how the event could be improved.

AdventGX was established in 2004 and serves state governments, private industries as well as Texas communities.  With expertise in economic analysis, business development and entrepreneurship, AGX is the perfect candidate to offer this type of information.  In attendance were Ben Hardeman, Cassidy Barton, Chuck Konderla, Greta Watkins, and Kristy Petty amongst many other important figures involved in Downtown Bryan.

During the presentation, President Quintana offers implementation support by honing in on the expected outcomes, economic impact and high-level recommendations for improving the festival.  Some of the main issues were outreach and marketing in the Downtown Bryan community, econometric modeling, and analysis of opportunities.  The direct and indirect feedback of participants of Texas Reds Festival were also points of interest.

Visitors of the festival appreciated the hallmarks of the event, which were the Steak and Wine.  Many people simply supported the fact that the event was an investment in raising awareness for and revitalizing the Downtown Bryan area.  Visit downtownbryan.com for more information on the Downtown Bryan Association. For more information on AdventGX and it’s services, please visit adventgx.com.

The Innovation Underground team is happy to welcome Phil Haas, the creator and owner of Beautiful Abilities.  Beautiful Abilities is a healthcare service provider for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities.  Haas has 25 years of experience providing service in the industry.  The care provider is also a management consultant company who’s ultimate goal is effective and sustainable operations for all their clients.  Residential and community services are expected to launch during the summer while the consulting branch of the company is ready to serve statewide.

The sensitive nature of this niche in the health services industry requires particular insight and expertise to gain stability and scale operations.  Phil Haas and Beautiful Abilities not only possess the insight and expertise, but also the vision to reach for the stars.  The consultant branch of the company is ready with effective tools and systems to ensure success.   Beautiful Abilities consulting services can also be tailored to fit your organizations individual needs.

Haas has made it his mission to provide worthwhile opportunities for those with mental abilities.  This goal develops these individuals’ capacities by helping them become more integral members of their community through gaining self-sufficiency and therefore raising their quality of life.  Beautiful Abilities Ranch provides day services that involve participants in meaningful collaborative experiences while in a cozy, ranch setting.  These work opportunities include small entrepreneurial ventures, horticulture, and animal & equine care amongst others.  Community, cooperation and the support that arises from this nurturing atmosphere leads to extraordinary achievements for everyone involved.

Beautiful Abilities products and services include:

– Taskmaster pro service

– Quality assurance

– Local market research

– Unique service design

– Niche & expanded area marketing

– Business consultant services

For more information on Beautiful Abilities, call Phil Haas at 979-571-4900 or email phil.beautifulabilities@gmail.com.

The Downtown Bryan Association has teamed up with AdventGX to help improve the Texas Reds Festival.  Particularly, Jose Quintana, Ben Hardeman and Cassidy Barton are spearheading the project which involves the implementation of a 15 to 20 question survey.

The analytic survey was implemented over daytime and nighttime shifts during the event, which took place on October 7th and 8th alongside Downtown Bryan’s First Friday.  Twenty people volunteered to go out onto the streets of Bryan in teams of two.  Equipped with pens, clipboards, and free t-shirts to give away to participants  willing to communicate their experience at Texas Reds.

The 88 surveys taken yielded valuable information that will be used to improved the experience for the dedicated and newcomers alike at next year’s outfit, which will still be held in October but may not go on during First Friday.  Jose Quintana, the President of AdventGX, will present specifics and recommendations based on the survey’s findings to the Downtown Bryan Association.

For more information on the Downtown Bryan Association, please contact Cassidy Barton at executivedirector@downtownbryan.com  or visit downtownbryan.com.