Welcome to the Venture Spa: International Edition! For those unfamiliar with the Venture Spa format (also known as the Demo Day in other hubs), it is a facilitated exercise in which a small group focuses their collective brainpower and energy on one person's idea, business venture, recent issue, or new technology.  On September 8th, the Venture Spa goes global. Our friends in Sandbox London... [read more]

Welcome to the Venture Spa: International Edition! For those unfamiliar with the Venture Spa format (also known as the Demo Day in other hubs), it is a facilitated exercise in which a small group focuses their collective brainpower and energy on one person's idea, business venture, recent issue, or new technology.  On September 8th, the Venture Spa goes global. Our friends in Sandbox London will be joining us (virtually) for a 90 minute experiment in real-time international collaboration with the help of AT&T's telepresence set up in downtown DC. We know. It's exciting.  We also haven't tried it before -- so let's figure it out as we go! DC:  AT&T Innovation Center // 1133 21st St NW, Washington, DC 20036 LONDON:  AT&T // Cardinal Place, 80 Victoria Street, London, SW1E 5JL, UK (Please arrive beforehand and be ready to start at 12:30PM // 5:30PM sharp!) Here's the breakdown: Introductions: Rapid fire intro's from both sides of the pond // opening remarks and welcome from AT&T  (5 min) Challenges:  The first 'spa visitor' will present their concepts and challenge to the group. (5 min) Clarifications: The whole group then asks the first presenter rapid fire questions to get complete clarity on their idea/venture, and issue/core problem. (15 min) Brainstorming: The presenter reads a book/magazine in the hallway, while the group addresses the challenge at hand through four layers: Ideas, People, Tools, Experiences.  This is an open forum to create a holistic solution to their challenge as quickly as possible :) (5 min) Regroup: Solutions are synthesized and presented back to the presenter (NOTE: this is collective brainstorming, but someone from London will report feedback back to DC and vice versa). Rinse & repeat with the 2nd presenter. At the end, we'll save 10 minutes to have an open discussion about what worked, what didn't, what we could do next time, and broadly speaking what other types of events and experiences we could create with the telepresence set up! ***Space is limited for what promises to be an awesome event, so sign up now!*** Thanks, and see you soon. -Sandbox DC & Sandbox London   A special thanks to AT&T for making this happen!