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RISD Arms Class of 2011 with Artrepreneur Kits, Including Etsy Fellowship and Square
05/19/2011
PROVIDENCE,
RI – For the second consecutive year, Rhode Island School of Design [RISD] is
arming its graduates with “artrepreneur kits.” This practical parting gift includes
tools and resources to help these highly creative thinkers to maximize their
potential for innovation and explore entrepreneurial possibilities.
As part of the kit, Etsy is offering
the first-ever Etsy RISD Fellowship to
the 2011 graduate whose shop on the recently launched RISD Etsy Team Page shows the most
promise. The winner will receive a $1,500 grant to attend Hello Etsy: A Summit on Small Business
and Sustainability, which takes place from September 17–18, 2011 in
Berlin, Germany. The Etsy summit is a hands-on gathering for small
business owners who want to connect with their peers, get advice on how to establish
successful independent businesses and be part of the movement to build human-scale
economies.
Square,
Inc. is again providing Squares and
activation codes for graduating students, which enables credit card payments to
be processed anywhere via a small square card reader that plugs directly into a
mobile phone input jack. In 2010 RISD was the first college to distribute the
newly-launched hardware/software combination.
Also, Behance, the world’s leading platform for creative
professionals, is giving graduates free six-month accounts to Prosite, its newly launched online portfolio
site. This simple yet sophisticated platform offers unlimited hosting and
unlimited project space, with no programming skills required, for $11 per
month. Behance is also including an Action Journal for each grad.
YouSendIt, Inc., the global leader in secure digital content
delivery, is providing each RISD graduate with a 2GB account free for three
months, followed by a service discount. YouSendIt allows the transfer of files
too large to send via email, eliminating the need for cumbersome FTP sites and
expensive overnight couriers.
“A
new kind of art+design-led leadership is needed to innovate in the current
global economy,” notes RISD President John Maeda. “Artists and designers bring
their intuitive, creative thinking to a broad array of fields, and with our Artrepreneur Kit, we are providing them with just a few of the tools and
resources that can help launch their work into the public spectrum and help
them make a living, in whatever way they choose.”
In
addition to the Artrepreneur Kit for
graduates, RISD helps students to build a solid foundation for financial
literacy, career preparation and market savvy while they are still on campus.
“We have been working diligently to create valuable opportunities for students
to get both real-world and experiential career preparation,” said Raj Bellani, RISD’s
associate provost for Student Affairs. This division, which includes both the Office
of Student Life and the Career Center, also works closely with Academic Affairs
to develop co-curricular programs that complement the academic experience at
RISD.
Charles
Adler, a co-founder the of online funding site Kickstarter, visited
RISD earlier this year to speak to students about the joys and challenges
of entrepreneurship. At the presentation, he was joined by Ben Kaufman of Quirky and Vanessa Bertozzi of Etsy. “Our purpose is to help you establish a
real, human connection with people who will support you,” Adler said.
Shortly after the event, RISD
teamed up with Kickstarter to help
students and alumni increase funding and gain visibility for their creative
projects. The site allows creative people in every genre to post a description
of their project along with their target fundraising goals as a means of
soliciting micro-funding from a multitude of backers to make their endeavor a
reality.
The new section of Kickstarter, called
curated
pages, creates a sub-section of
the site dedicated solely to projects by RISD faculty, students and alumni,
bringing together projects that were previously scattered throughout the site.
The RISD Etsy Team Page followed
shortly after.
Other
recent creative career initiatives include RISD Continuing Education’s The
Business of Art + Design – seminars, lectures, workshops to support
entrepreneurs; Amy Whittaker’s studio Paint
by Numbers: Economics as a Studio Art Practice; and a collaboration with
the American Craft Council to host Artonomics:
New Tools for Artists and Designers, a free-form symposium that explored
opportunities emerging from new modes of communication, marketing and
distribution.
About Rhode Island School of
Design
Rhode
Island School of Design (RISD) has earned a worldwide reputation as the preeminent
art and design college in the country. Today, with more than 26,000 alumni, the
college enrolls approximately 1,900 undergraduates and 400 graduate students
from the U.S. and almost 50 countries, offering degree programs in the fine
arts, architecture, and design disciplines, and art education. Academic programs include research and
design initiatives, the exploration of art criticism and contemporary cultural
concerns, as well as international exchange programs. Each year, RISD hosts
prominent and accomplished artists, critics, and authors to its campus. Included within the college is The RISD
Museum of Art, which houses a world-class collection of art objects from
Ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome and art of all periods from Asia, Europe and
the Americas, as well as the latest in contemporary art. For more information, visit www.risd.edu or our.risd.edu