Today we’d like to introduce you to Jordan Rose.
Atlanta Science Festival got started in 2011 as a conversation among passionate colleagues searching for a way to celebrate all Atlanta has to offer in the sciences – from educational pathways and career opportunities to cultural happenings and informal learning. While working at Emory University, Meisa Salaita, Sarah Peterson, and Jordan Rose created a vision for a week-long celebration of local science and technology with engaging public events that would feature the great science education and outreach work being accomplished by museums, universities, and companies across Atlanta. The Festival was designed to provide a platform for new collaborations and to broaden access to our region’s STEM opportunities. The idea was pitched to leaders at Emory, Georgia Tech, and the Metro Atlanta Chamber, who became the founding organizations of Atlanta Science Festival, Inc. an independent non-profit. Our first annual Festival was held in 2014, with 100 events at 60 venues across the metropolitan Atlanta area for 35,000 people.
With the support of 100 partners and sponsors, the annual Atlanta Science Festival has reached more than 150,000 curious kids and adults since 2014 with the awesomeness of science.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Our initial challenge was in helping people to understand the scope of our vision. This is not a science fair. This is not students sharing research projects on trifold boards. This is a Festival! With fun and engaging opportunities to learn, meet scientists and engineers, see the science in our everyday lives, and imagine how science can change our world. And it’s not a single event in a single location. We have 100 events over two weeks at 60 different venues across metro Atlanta, plus one big science party, the Exploration Expo – Atlanta’s biggest free, family-friendly, interactive science event – at Piedmont Park this year.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Atlanta Science Festival story. Tell us more about the business.
We are shining a light on science in Atlanta. The Festival takes you on a walking geology tour of the buildings in midtown, into the bowels of the aquarium’s filtration system, and inside the laboratories at our colleges and universities. We are showcasing the science and technology at work at companies like Delta Air Lines, Google, Georgia Power, UPS and The Clorox Company. We’re taking you out to our parks and streams, libraries, bars and restaurants to tell science stories, dance with mathematicians, laugh at science jokes, investigate outbreaks, and taste the science in chocolate.
Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
I am lucky to live in Atlanta’s rich smorgasbord of opportunity, among passionate and creative people striving to make Atlanta a better place to live and work. It is my good luck to have connected with others via the lenses of science and STEM education to broaden access to lifelong learning opportunities for all. It is through the collective efforts of hundreds of collaborators, champions, and volunteers that the Festival has succeeded.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://AtlantaScienceFestival.org
- Phone: 770-322-4992
- Email: info@atlantasciencefestival.org
- Instagram: http://instagram.com/atlscifest
- Facebook: http://facebook.com/AtlantaScienceFestival
- Twitter: http://twitter.com/atlscifest
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