Urban ReThink was a collaborative effort between the foundation and downtown developer Craig Ustler to turn the former Urban Think! Bookstore into a cool space for budding creative entrepreneurs and local community events. The space opened in 2011 and has hosted events including those featuring famed author/activist Gloria Steinem, PBS Newshour host Ray Suarez and Bitly former chief scientist Hilary Mason, not to mention gatherings with local big names. It also has become a workspace for burgeoning entrepreneurs, including Kyle Christian Steele of local tech startup Doccaster Inc.

Just the description alone – “an experimental performance by Jessica Earley featuring hyperbole, puppetry, dance, awkwardness, honesty and video projections to tell a story about heartbreak and healing” – was enough to conjure images of the kind of experimental performance art that was all the rage 40-plus years ago, but too often earns eye-rolls from today’s cynical audiences. “Hyperbolic” seems like the last adjective one might apply to the demure Earley, who I previously knew mostly through her visual art and past collaborations with performance artist Brian Feldman.

Our CoLab Orlando members have likely seen a new face in the hallways. It’s Brian Wilson, CoLab’s new community director. Brian has experience in coworking, having spent time at a coworking space in Portland, Ore., and he already plans to help grow our community.

Taizhou is about 190 miles south of Shanghai, China, and is dubbed China’s “medical city,” known for hosting major international corporations in pharmaceutical, biomedical and biotech enterprises, according to a news release.

In addition to Taizhou, Orange County has collaboration agreements with the Las Heras region in Argentina; Quindio and Medellin in Colombia; and the Hart van Brabant region in the Netherlands.

North of Livingston is the corporate campus, where digital commerce will fly through the air like invisible Frisbees, carried on the high-tech hopes of the community and kept aloft by investors with capital, catering to young, fast-growing tech companies.
Pipe dream? Perhaps.