Assembly

Part of Locally Made's One Room.
In Assembly, gather for casual meetings of the minds and unexpected happenings curated by local artists and designers. Congregate for poetry readings, sonic performances, movement, projection, and more.
Melissa Withers and Allan Tear co-curate Entreprenuer Artist, Artist Entrepreneur: Building Beyond Business, Dreaming Beyond Art from 9/10 - 9/15. In this six-part series, co-hosts Allan Tear and Melissa Withers will feature six amazing local entrepreneurs who live at the intersection where art & design and business meet, their work serving as a powerful testament to the maker/artist culture that defines Rhode Island's DNA. With topics such as Medicine as Play, Making Metal Move, From Shape to Sound, and The Body at Work, the showings will enable participants to see, hear, interact and learn more about a new generation of startups and the artist entrepreneurs who drive them. — Melissa Withers & Allan Tear
9/10: Aaron HorowitzI will be speaking about the prototyping process necessary to take Jerry the Bear from concept to production. — Aaron Horowitz
Free with museum admission.
Betaspring Chief of Staff and nerd whisperer Melissa Withers (@mizwithers) manages Betaspring's Mentor network and coordinates programming for each Betaspring session. In her advisory capacity to Betaspring teams, her skillz are primarily in PR & media relations, customer experience design, and get-to-market communications. In 2011, Melissa served as communications director for the then newly-elected Mayor of the City of Providence. Prior, she was co-founder and Executive Director of the Business Innovation Factory, an organization that creates platforms to enable the design and testing of new business models in areas of high social impact. Melissa started her career in life science and previously served as Assistant Director of Communications and Public Affairs for Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, were she managed community relations and public communications, as well as Whitehead's pioneering science policy and advocacy program. She lives in Providence, and has soft spot for nerds.
Allan Tear is a founder and managing partner of Betaspring. Allan has founded three venture-funded startups: Elastic Networks, Incanta, and WhyData. He has raised over $15M from angels, venture capital, and strategic partners, including Slater Fund, Intel Capital and AT&T. He is an expert in new product and service launches. Allan is an active angel investor in early stage technology companies, and advises national, state, and local government on nurturing high-growth startup ecosystems. He helps students and schools with entrepreneurship through the Brown COE program, RISD Mindshare, and the Carnegie Mellon Dean's Leadership Council. He was selected in 2008 for the Providence Business News "40 Under Forty" list and in 2010 as "10 to Watch" by Providence Monthly. Allan is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University, with B.S. degrees in Electrical & Computer Engineering, and Public Policy.
Aaron is the Co-Founder and CEO of Sproutel, which creates interactive learning games for children with chronic illnesses. Sproutel's first product, Jerry the Bear, harnesses the power of play to help children with type 1 diabetes cope with diagnosis while mastering their medical procedures. He has shared his expertise in robotics and entrepreneurship through speaking at numerous conferences including CUSP, TEDxProvidence, IFTF, A Better World by Design, NYU Ambition, and SEEED. Aaron Horowitz graduated from Northwestern University cum laude with a degree in "Mechatronics and User Interaction Design," a major he created to gain the technical know how needed to execute Sproutel's broad vision. Aaron currently sits on the national board of Design for America.