Miral Kotb is a two-time cancer survivor, who has overcome extreme obstacles both personally and within the ever-changing world of technology.  Miral Kotb is also a prolific entrepreneur in the fields of technology development and the performing arts. In 2009, she combined her passion for dance and technology to create iLuminate, the world’s first light dance technology company.

Read her incredibly inspirational and uplifting story in Newsweek <here>.

Miral Kotb

Women are notoriously underrepresented in the fields of engineering, technology, design, science, and mathematics, but Miral Kotb challenged the status quo. Miral Kotb, founder and chief executive officer of iLuminate – the world’s first light dance technology company. After graduation from Columbia University, Kotb worked as a software engineer at Bloomberg, LP before freelancing as a mobile app developer. At that point, Kotb wanted to explore the idea of combining her “loves” – dance and software development – which led to the creation of iLuminate.

Miral Kotb’s iLuminate ignited an electrifying phenomenon, became a finalist on the hit television show America’s Got Talent, and was dubbed “the best new act in America”. iLuminate continues to perform at numerous corporate events across the globe and positively impacts millions of audience members with spectacular performances, including her new Las Vegas show “Happy Hour”.

Tech & Entrepreneurial Keynote Speaker

Miral is passionate about empowering young people to pursue opportunities in STEM/STEAM. An engaging and influential public speaker, she knows how to enlighten audiences about the creative side of technology. As a successful Entrepreneur she speaks about her experiences and the ups and downs of starting and running iLuminate, focusing on Women Entrepreneurs and general Entrepreneurship and Business Management.

Miral has spoken at numerous events, including Google Zeitgeist, Google’s Made With Code, On Cue, TEDx Teen, TEDx Broadway, Wonder Woman Tech, TIDE Conference, The Apple Developer Conference, Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, Adaptive Paths, Center for Global Brand Leadership, National Arts Marketing Project, NEXTECH, Capital One, and Acuity Brands, among others.

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The video below shows Rob Schiffmann interviewing actor/entrepreneur/philanthropist, Ashton Kutcher all about his different views on investing, technology, THORN and his other ventures. Read more background stories and inside scoops on interviewing Ashton Kutcher and many more things in Rob Schiffmann’s blog.

IBM Think

Think is the world’s most celebrated gathering of visionaries, technologists and innovators organized by IBM.  Think is where the curious convene and foremost business leaders connect to inspire and learn.

Rob Schiffmann

Rob Schiffmann is an award-winning Corporate Emcee, with twenty years of experience hosting meetings in such varied industries as banking, bio-tech, pharma, retail, food/beverage and many more.

Rob is the director and star of Broadway’s Next Hit Musical, a nationally-touring musical comedy improvisation show and spent many years as the star and director of Chicago City Limits, New York City’s longest running comedy show. Rob’s improvisational and musical background allows him to bring a level of interactivity to your meeting that will keep your audience consistently engaged through content-driven material that can either be pre-written or made up on the spot.

Whether Rob is improvising songs with your audience or writing and recording parody or original songs to underscore the content from an executive presentation, Rob’s understanding of the corporate environment allows him to be versatile without ever crossing boundaries.

Rob may be opening your meeting, providing fun interactive segues, creating songs and games for interstitial moments, introducing your speakers, hosting your live broadcast or interviewing your executives. Whatever Rob is doing, you can be sure he is helping to deliver your messages, make your people shine and make your meeting one that will be remembered for years to come!

Rob is a 3-time MAC award winner (Manhattan Association of Cabarets and Clubs), and hosted meetings internationally for many different corporations including Big Lots, Lenovo, Crayola, Merck, Folgers, Microsoft, Solvay, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, Bank of America, Ortho Women’s Health, BMW, DuPont, Genentech, Pepsi, Dannon and many more. Rob will bring his quick wit and charm to your meeting to help you to have a memorable experience. Rob will make your meeting more fun and more effective.

Keynote Program

The Power to Pivot: Mistakes are Gifts!

Life rarely goes as planned. Things go awry and as hard as you try to stay on the path you have laid out, you will invariably be diverted: the powerpoint on your presentation will go out; your deadline is tomorrow instead of a week from tomorrow; you only have five minutes with a stakeholder when you thought you had fifteen! These are the moments in which we all throw our hands up in frustration, we panic and/or we freeze! However, there IS another way!

Rob Schiffmann can show you the path towards presence and acceptance in these moments and show you how you can turn these “mistakes” into gifts. This interactive keynote will have audience members on their feet and armed with the ‘Power to Pivot’. Through the use of interactive exercises, professional and personal examples, the audience will walk away with the understanding that some of the world’s greatest successes have come when constraint has given rise to ingenuity.

Topics covered included in the interactive keynote: staying in the moment, listening actively and harnessing the power to accept and build upon the unexpected. You will listen, you will laugh and you will learn to truly live in the moment!

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Alexa Meade is an artist who turns the traditional notion of art on its head—instead of capturing the real world on a flat canvas, the real world is her canvas. Through detailed, trompe l’oeil brush-work painted directly on humans or objects, Meade transforms the 3-dimensional world into a 2-dimensional one. While her art has sent her all around the world, Meade made headlines recently for painting Ariana Grande in her God is a Woman music video. New York Magazine’s The Cut met up with the artist to find out more about her process, the ungodly amount of paint she goes through, and what it’s like to toggle between the 2D and 3D worlds. Read the whole article in New York Magazine: The Cut.

Matterport

Alexa Meade makes use of technology such as Matterport to help explore her art in 3D imagery. Matterport is a three-dimensional camera system that you can use to create realistic, fully immersive experiences. Artists and designers such as Alexa Meade have been using this tool to capture imagery, collect measurements and process data to create, edit and share a 3D rendering of their location or artwork.

Alexa Meade

Alexa’s work is being written into art history textbooks around the world. She has given lectures at the California Institute of the Arts, UC-Berkeley, National Geographic London, WIRED, and the TED Global Conference. Her TED talk “Your Body is my Canvas,” has been viewed millions of times. She worked with space-time researchers at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics and has also painted portraits of many individuals of note, including triple Grammy Award winner Gotye. Alexa’s work has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, NPR, CNN, Today Show, Nippon TV, BBC, Guardian, and hundreds of other media outlets around the world.

Alexa has been the recipient of numerous awards and honors. The short film Color of Reality was granted the “Art as Impact Award” by CNN and was included in the National Civil Rights Museum’s “Freedom Awards Ceremony.” Alexa was honored with the “Disruptive Innovation Award” by The Tribeca Film Festival. She accepted an invitation to the White House under President Barack Obama and she has twice achieved the coveted #1 spot on Reddit.com, “The Frontpage of the Internet.”

Corporate and Private Events

In corporate settings Alexa Meade’s work can be customized to incorporate attendees, who have opportunities to photograph themselves within the artwork, and post them for colleagues and friends through social media outlets. Within the art world, Alexa’s art has been exhibited at the Saatchi Gallery in London, The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery in DC, Postmasters Gallery in NYC, and Galerie Ivo Kamm in Zurich, Galerie Ingo Seufert in Germany, and Galerie Edouard Mazel in Brussels. Alexa has delivered keynote speeches about her work at the Wired Conference, National Geographic, and TEDGlobal.

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Michael Cavanaugh joined Dean Jaxon from Station KEY 101 Spokane for a radio interview. They talked about Cavanaugh’s upcoming performance with the Spokane Symphony playing “The Music Of Billy Joel”. This concert will be held at the Martin Woldsen Theater At The Fox on Saturday, February 2nd.

Michael Cavanaugh

Michael Cavanaugh was the original star lead performer of “Movin’ Out”, Twyla Tharp’s Tony-Award winning Broadway show based on the songs of Billy Joel. Michael was hand-picked by Billy Joel to perform all of the vocals and piano in the show and was nominated for Tony Award for his performance and the Grammy Award for the soundtrack.

Listen here to Michael Cavanaugh’s radio interview with station KEY 101 in Spokane in preparation for the show on February 2nd with Spokane Symphony Orchestra!

Michael Cavanaugh’s early career

Michael’s professional career began at age 12 in his hometown of Cleveland, Ohio. Since then this talented pianist and vocalist has performed all over the US and Europe. In addition to him being an accomplished entertainer, he has been the voice of an Emmy Award winning kids show character. He plays several instruments but is best known for his vocal and piano talent. He has been writing songs since he was teenager, has admired Billy Joel’s music for most of his life and is currently working on his own recording project.

Corporate and private events

At private events Michael performs several of Billy Joel’s greatest hits, but mixes up the rest of the set with classic pop/rock tracks by The Beatles (“Twist & Shout”), The Rolling Stones (“Brown Sugar”, “Honky Tonk Woman”), Elton John (“Crocodile Rock”), Jerry Lee Lewis (“Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On”, “Great Balls of Fire”), Van Morrison (“Brown Eyed Girl”), Lynyrd, Skynrd (“Sweet Home Alabama”), Bob Seger (“Old Time Rock & Roll”), and nearly any other major artist you can think of.  Michael is like a human jukebox and knows thousands of songs. And he also knows how to get your guests on the dance floor.

The post Michael Cavanaugh Radio Interview with KEY 101 Spokane appeared first on concept artists.

Read the full interview here

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