Boston's arts, design and tech communities are set to start melding minds. The Startup Institute has teamed up with Future Boston Alliance to launch "The Hello Project," an event series focused on uniting the city's creative classes.
The idea came to Allan Telio, the director of Startup Institute Boston, after he heard Karmaloop Founder Greg Selkoe, co-founder of Future Boston, deliver a keynote. In it, Selkoe said that Boston can do better — that the arts and tech community needed to be lured out of their respective shells and start collaborating more.
Telio started working with Malia Lazu, the founding director of Future Boston, and, as he candidly, humorously described it, "It's been a real love fest between the two organizations. … It's kind of rare to find something when you start to click."
The idea of The Hello Project is simple: Throw a massive networking party that allows Boston's equally-as-massive creative class to come together and say, "Hello."
"It's really just about making connections and seeing what happens," Telio said, adding that both groups of people succeed when they have a way of looking at something differently and can tackle a problem from a unique angle or perspective. This event series will help facilitate those new connections.
Currently, the creative and tech communities feel rather siloed. Lazu noted, however, that that is indicative "of this very tribal, overall societal culture here in Boston," where "the city has spent a lot of years not encouraging people to come together." Yet, with a new administration under Mayor Marty Walsh's regime, visible changes are being made. Now, it's time for the rest of the city to step up and start working as one.
"We think a lot of special things are going to happen," noted Lazu of The Hello Project, saying that when people come together from different backgrounds and are able to share ideas, magic happens. Lazu admitted she would also like to see friendships — more metaphysical rather than tangible outcomes — spring from the series.
Beyond celebrating a "beautiful collision," Future Boston will also be celebrating the second anniversary of their organization, which has been proudly promoting the arts, as well as working to attract and retain talent locally.
The Startup Institute and Future Boston have formed partnerships with Techstars, MassChallenge, Silicon Valley Bank and Pintley to help promote the event series, which will kick off on Wednesday, May 14, at GEM and go from 7 to 10 p.m. To register, click here.
A second event is currently being planned for late July and is expected to take place at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.
Image via Future Boston Alliance
