First-ever all-day interactive summit aims to support the next generation of creative leaders and industry disrupters.
LOS ANGELES -- According to a recent report issued last year by the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies at UCLA, “women and minorities remained notably underrepresented in every arena.” One new foundation is helping to change this across all fronts, however.
Founded by entertainment industry heavyweights Alison Mann, VP of Talent for Illumination; Jill Gilbert, Head of Creative Affairs for Luma Pictures; and producer Nicole Hendrix, BRIC was created with the mission of creating new access points for women and members of underrepresented groups to excel at creative leadership and to enable cultural change through engaging and empowering talent.
BRIC stands for “Break, Reinvent, Impact and Change,” and seeks to support and nurture emerging talent as it pertains to women and underrepresented groups who have an interest in being creative leaders.
On February 9, BRIC will host its first-ever all-day interactive summit -- the 2019 BRIC Talent and Innovation Summit, bringing together a community of thought provokers and industry disrupters from different facets of the entertainment and tech industries -- an exciting day of crowdsourcing ideas and new workshopping solutions.
Set to be held at Downtown Los Angeles’ Hungarian Cultural Alliance (1827 S. Hope St.) from 8:00AM to 7:00PM, the 2019 BRIC Talent and Innovation Summit will bring together more than a dozen venerated speakers from myriad arenas. The event’s organizers seek to create actionable items that can be taken back to each speaker’s respective organizations to either be implemented or shared as ideas to affect change.
The day’s presenters will include keynote speaker Stephen Galloway, executive features editor of The Hollywood Reporter, directors Jorge Gutierrez and Trisha Gum, David Levine of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and producers including Monica Lago-Kaytis, Latifa Ouaou and Jasmine Jaisinghani, along with WGA award-winning writer Sameer A. Gardezi, executive producer and Women in Animation co-president Jinko Gotoh, and closing speaker Karen Horne, SVP of programming talent development and inclusion for NBCUniversal.
Other speakers include Cal State Long Beach director of the School of Art Aubry Mintz, Free the Bid’s executive director Emma Reeves, executive producer of Illumination Maggie Malone, SVP of creative for Illumination Zaid Al-Asady, EVP of development for Sony Animation Karen Toliver, Abrams Artists Agency literary agent Karen Kirkland, head of animation for Cal Arts Maija Burnett, journalist and host Michaela Pereira, artist lead for Sony Animation Miguel Jiron, founder and director of the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative Stacy L. Smith, executive director of NewFilmakers Larry Laboe, and Matt Waynee of USC Media Arts & Engineering.
The 2019 BRIC Talent and Innovation Summit would not be possible without the support of sponsors Illumination Entertainment, Sony Pictures Animation, Walt Disney Animation, Luma Pictures, Nickelodeon, Armed Mind, Snap, PSYOP and Women in Animation (WIA).
On-site childcare will be available at the event through BRIC Partner Collab&Play. They both share the vision that in order for “a work environment to be genuinely inclusive; childcare needs to be part of the conversation.”
To purchase tickets for the 2019 BRIC Talent and Innovation Summit and one of the limited childcare vouchers, visit EventBrite. Tickets are currently available for $85.
Source: BRIC
Formerly Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network, Jennifer Wolfe has worked in the Media & Entertainment industry as a writer and PR professional since 2003.
