Glenville, WV – Create West Virginia, the statewide grass-roots initiative stimulating Innovation Economy growth in West Virginia, and The Building Conference, West Virginia’s placemaking conference, will hold their first-ever joint conference in partnership with Glenville State College in Glenville, WV, October 26-28, 2014.

“This year’s conference will break barriers in how our state thinks about growth and prosperity,” said conference creative director Rebecca Kimmons. “We want entrepreneurs, engineers, contractors, business and community leaders and educators to think about how connecting cultures through social and technology networks can generate new opportunities for our citizens.”

This year’s joint conferences are also unique with their unprecedented participation by young people, especially college students. Glenville State College is serving as host venue and planning partner with Create West Virginia and The Building Conference to stimulate feedback and ideas from the next generation of West Virginia leaders.

“As a participant in past Create West Virginia Conferences, I’ve seen first-hand how ideas and connections are sparked at this very unique conference,” said Dr. Peter Barr, Glenville State College president. “It became obvious to me that holding this statewide training and networking conference at GSC would add new opportunities to generate an even more exciting level of innovative thinking.”

The Building Conference portion of the agenda, organized by WV GreenWorks with support from West Virginia State University’s Economic Development Center, WVU College of Creative Arts, and the US Green Building Council WV focuses on the design and retrofitting of West Virginia’s buildings, communities and public places to attract and retain innovative, entrepreneurial people. “Partnering with Create WV makes it easier to bring everyone together who can and is making a difference across this state. We’re providing an expansion of Create WV’s Quality of Place track this year because so much more public discussion and cross pollination is needed on the subjects of making our building stock, public places and communities not only more attractive, but more efficient, healthier and supportive of the creativity of the people who use them,” said Sarah Halstead, WVSU Extension’s Community and Economic Development Specialist.

The Building Conference agenda at Create West Virginia offers Local Economic Development credits and points for development professionals working for the state, and with the West Virginia Housing Development Fund.

With support from the City of Glenville and Gilmer County, the conference will integrate nationally-recognized keynote speakers, hands-on workshops and cultural experiences into the conference.

Speaker highlights include:

•    Dr. Mark Bates is the son and grandson of Mingo County coal miners and has been involved in medical device innovation for 20 years. He holds  over 60 US issued and pending patents in the areas of stents, embolic protection, gene therapy, stem cell implantation, regenerative therapy, nanotechnology, spinal cord injury, catheter design and drug delivery. The founder of several medical start-up companies, he is CEO and founder of Nexeon MedSystems, Inc., a translational research company. He attended Marshall University, and graduated from WV State University and WVU Medical School.

•    Carla Diana is a “hybrid designer” focused on realizing new visions for smart objects and the Internet of Things. She is a faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania’s Integrated Product Design Program and an advisor for the group Tomorrow-Lab, a design firm that creates electro-mechanical solutions for smart devices. She is also a Fellow at Smart Design, where she oversees the Smart Interaction Lab.

•    Majora Carter, founder and CEO of the Majora Carter Group, is a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship winner and a community revitalization strategy consultant, real estate developer, and Peabody Award winning broadcaster.  She is responsible for the creation and successful implementation of numerous green-infrastructure projects, policies, and job training and placement systems and one of the first and most watched TED Talk speakers.

•    Paul Garnett is a Director in Microsoft's Technology Policy Group, where he focuses on promoting higher-bandwidth, more efficient and ubiquitous spectrum-based broadband connectivity. He has been instrumental in the development of TV White Space technology, which has been used to bring broadband Internet to rural areas of Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, and Tanzania. Paul's team, in partnership with WVNet, will bring this cutting-edge technology to Glenville for a special demonstration during the conference.

•    Ed O’Malley is the CEO of the Kansas Leadership Center, an initiative from the Kansas Health Foundation that equips people with skills to make positive change for the common good.

•    Tom Welch of Tom Welch Consulting is an education consultant, thought leader and former "Director of Seeding Innovation" in Kentucky's Department of Education.

Create West Virginia will continue its tradition of infusing diverse cultural and learning experiences throughout the conference. Showcasing Glenville’s legacy as a folk music and history center, renowned bluegrass and folk musicians will share music throughout the conference. Mike Curtin, CEO of DC Central Kitchen will join Karyn Calabrese and Kate Long in a session focused on using food to stimulate economic development, create jobs, and address health and wellness issues. DC Central Kitchen leads the nation in reducing hunger with recycled food, training adults for culinary careers, serving healthy school meals, and rebuilding urban food systems through social enterprise.

The 2014 Placemakers Awards will also be conferred on Monday evening, October 27, celebrating high performance buildings, communities and people. The US Green Building Council will offer an overview of the new LEED Version 4 accreditation program, while statewide water quality, energy and building code experts share trends in innovation, legislation, and accountability.

Sunday afternoon’s pre-conference program will offer free sessions for community members and any visitor to Glenville. Sessions on October 26 including training workshops on using YouTube and digital content to promote your cause or business, digital communication etiquette, and developing a unique value proposition for your organization.

The public is also invited to join building owners, designers, architects, engineers, energy efficiency experts and planners for a free community design session focused on a portion of downtown Glenville. Facilitated by West Virginia chapters of the US Green Building Council and the American Institute of Architects, this event will offer valuable information to all community leaders, planners and building owners on best practices for revitalization of buildings and public spaces for efficiency, lower operational costs and beautification.

A variety of attendance options are available, ranging from one-day passes to full-conference participation in both Create West Virginia and The Building Conference. All registration offers and pricing, along with the full conference agenda and speaker lineup can be found at www.createwv.org. Questions or sponsorship inquiries can be forwarded to info@createwv.org.