Et Cultura, a five-day cultural event held annual in St. Petersburg, Florida, held its second annual event last November 2017. A multi-day “Festival of Creative Culture,” the event invited not just artists, musicians, and various creatives from all over the world, but also some of the best innovators, businesspersons, and community leaders with bold ideas through an innovation expo.
In partnership with the St. Pete Innovation District and the Salvador Dalí Museum, the collaborative event featured four curated branches: Art, Film, Interactive, and Music. Each features some of the best talent in tech, music, film, and art, helping inspire and unite a like-minded community. Among those who joined Et Cultura 2017 were the Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital, Tilys Biotech, and Startups.co.
“We were really excited about the Et Cultura expo hosted by the Dalí Museum,” said Joel Malizia, one of the five co-founders of Et Cultura. The bold idea behind that is to gather the most innovative businesses and entrepreneurs in one area to showcase what is happening in the area. The synergies in the missions between these tech and software companies.”
A Creative Collaboration
Malizia, along with his four co-founders Dave Allison, Lea Umberger, Jim Aresty, and Colin Lyman, patterned Et Cultura from the South by Southwest (SXSW) conference and festival held annually in Austin, Texas. However, Et Cultura is nowhere near being a copycat – rather, they were inspired by the thought that both local and international talent can be brought together in one location to interact, network, and get inspired.
It only made sense they chose to collaborate with the Innovation District, a group of institutions focused on media, healthcare, business incubation, higher education, and marine science. Located just south of St. Pete’s downtown, the Innovation District is dedicated to creating and maintaining a high-quality, dynamic environment for the internationally known Tampa Bay region.
In addition, the choice to collaborate with the Dalí Museum showcases the blending of the artistic and the business side of things. The museum is famous for housing the biggest collection of the Spanish surrealist’s paintings outside of Europe. This interesting partnership sheds a light on St. Pete’s brightest minds in a setting that nurtures creativity.
Bright Ideas, Bold Impacts
Some of the most notable names present at the Et Cultura event sat down for interviews with Bold Business, elaborating their bold ideas and how they may impact the future of St. Pete and possibly the rest of the world.
Melissa Powel of the Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital described one of the animatronic gadgets they had in store for the event. Named Super Tory, the newborn simulator is a true-to-life robotic baby designed to meet the needs of training neonatal care specialists. Designed by Gaumard Scientific in Miami, it features active movement and various patient movements. “She’s a high fidelity simulator and she is bold ‘cause she is fully animatronic,” she explains. “She has full sets of vital signs. Breathing, pulses. What she does to us is she gives us highly realistic simulation of a newborn baby.”
Another bold innovation present at the event was the Tilys Biotech Adapter. “This transforms the harmful frequencies from your cellphones and the beneficial ones for you,” said Dr. Mindy Beck of Tilys Biotech. She explained that their device, when attached to the backside of a person’s cellphone, renders these frequencies as biocompatible, allowing the body to access nature’s frequencies. On their website, they say the patent-pending solution helps a person “instantly become protected so you can safely advance with technology.”
Lastly, Startups.co co-founder and Chief Innovation Officer (CIO) Ryan Rutan described how their platform, a family of six different startup products, can help thousands of startup companies. “People needed help beyond the tool itself… needed guidance on how to use it,” he said. “In some cases, they need hands-on help. With most of our software, there is a service component if you want to have a full consulting team that rather than use a biz plan software to write your business plan, you can engage our consulting services team.”
These are just three of the many astounding ideas present during the most recent Et Cultura festival. They, along with many current and future attendees, will be present at the next Et Cultura event, to be held on November 14 to 18, 2018. They are sure to create even bolder impacts that help inspire people to bank on their ideas, enabling people to create and collaborate for many more years to come.
Learn more about Et Cultura here.
