Students from Waynesburg University and Assistant Professor of Arts Administration Xela Ann Batchelder went to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to assist with the Youth Innovation Night April 6, an event part of Inclusive Innovation Week.

Batchelder said the event in Pittsburgh is unique compared to the same event in other cities.

“Inclusive Innovation Week is run by the city and is all about business, data, programming and innovation,” said Batchelder. “A lot of cities have innovation week, but we’re the only city [Pittsburgh] that has Inclusive Innovation.  They want it to include anyone that is innovated, and so they also want to include the arts.”

Batchelder was contacted by the organization to assist in their Youth Innovation Night.

“They called and asked us to see how we could be involved with them,” said Batchelder. “We determined we could help with the Youth Night,” said Batchelder. “They opened it up and there were a bunch of organizations that were teaching programming. There were about 20 different groups across the city that took part in this.”

Other organizations and groups contributed, but the focus was on programming.

“A lot of it was programming. People who teach programming to children during the year came and set up tables and booths to teach people,” said Batchelder. “There was also a guy teaching video and green screen.”

The Waynesburg Arts Administration program contributed to the event as well by supplying music.

“Our Arts Administration program ran music [for the event],” said Batchelder. “We had some teen and college students coming, so we brought in staging, lights and sound.”

The event was held at the NOVA Place in Pittsburgh, which has evolved and became innovated over the years into a newer area with restaurants, office space and things to do. Batchelder said the Nova Place is the place to be for some businessmen.

“The Nova Place is an old mall that has a lot of business moving in,” said Batchelder.

According to weinnovatepgh.net, the Inclusive Innovation Pittsburgh organization strives to work in conjunction with the city of Pittsburgh to support collaboration and innovation by different groups in the area. The Department of Innovation & Performance and the Urban Redevelopment Authority are joint partners of the organization.

The organization focuses on six particular sections of innovation from Pittsburgh: city operations, civic engagement, clean technology, digital divide, local business and open data.

Inclusive Innovation Pittsburgh has been part of a multi-million-dollar rebirthing project, which has taken the former Allegheny Center and turned into a modern-day business and entertainment park in attempt to reconnect part of Pittsburgh’s north side to downtown.

In addition to last week’s annual festival, the organization works on two other main projects. The first is PGH Lab, a city-led project connecting new companies to the city for support. The second is ConnectHome USA, working with the Housing Authority of Pittsburgh and the Allegheny County Housing Authority to provide residents in assisted living to be a part of the transforming community.