The Hunt's Urban Innovation Lab for Youth in Dallas

From the Dallas Morning News yesterday:

Hunter and Stephanie Hunt think any child in Dallas might be able to save the world — or at least make it a better place.

For the last year, the couple has been quietly piecing together plans for an unusual teaching center in downtown Dallas. Their Urban Innovation Lab for Youth will give underserved youths access to the latest technology and some of the world’s most creative mentors.

“Existing labs are typically private, very expensive and only allow access to a targeted few,” said Stephanie Hunt, who is leading the initiative. “We want to provide an open-access space where kids can collaborate or experiment together in solving problems — a place where they can feel safe to fail, iterate and evolve their thinking.”

As an example, students will learn about digital fabrication and rapid prototyping through 3-D printing with the mentorship of entrepreneurs, she said.

The 40-something son and daughter-in-law of oilman Ray Hunt established the Hunt Institute for Engineering & Humanity at SMU’s Lyle School of Engineering in 2009.
Hunter, 44, is president and CEO of Hunt Consolidated Energy Inc. Stephanie, 45, is the daughter of prominent Dallas banker Jim Erwin and the force behind Engineering & Humanity Week, which highlights problems faced by the acutely impoverished.

Their latest project, still in its formative stages, was given an unexpected boost last month when David de Rothschild of Los Angeles, a descendent of the international banking aristocracy, decided to give the project his famous Plastiki, a 60-foot catamaran made of 12,500 recycled bottles and other biodegradable products.

The 34-year-old global adventurer and his unconventional craft made international headlines in 2010 when he skippered it 8,000 miles across the Pacific Ocean from San Francisco to Sydney.

The Plastiki is being hauled for 12 days and 2,500 miles from San Francisco Bay to Fair Park, where it will be exhibited at Engineering & Humanity Week starting April 6.

“The Plastiki will be the symbol for the innovation center, its beacon,” Hunt said. “Having a partner like David who is high energy and passionate about sparking curiosity in the next generation matches perfectly with our desire to offer a fun, open-source space for young minds.”

De Rothschild also is a trustee of the Natural History Museum in London and has arranged for the Hunts’ lab to use the museum’s 300 scientists as resources.

The innovation lab’s primary focus will be on biomimicry, the study of nature to solve human problems. Plastiki’s hull design, for example, was inspired by a pomegranate.

After its stint in Fair Park, Plastiki will be moved to the plaza of the Perot Museum of Nature and Science for the summer. Hunt wants to use the Perot facilities for programming while the lab is being built.

Perot CEO Nicole Small shares that hope.

“We’re about to announce an exciting, fun summer exhibit that will tie directly with the boat,” Small said, not willing give details. “The way Stephanie thinks about creativity and innovation is very much in concert with how we think about it. We had a fun meeting a few weeks ago where we were brainstorming around how you inspire innovation and engage young people in creativity.”

Focusing on youths

 

The lab is being developed by the ROi (for return on innovation) Project, which the Hunts formed and funded last year. Their original idea was to create a physical space where people could congregate and discuss innovation.

The couple narrowed their scope to 12- to 24-year-olds after seeing how other countries used similar labs to tackle the skyrocketing unemployment of young adults. “Our tagline is ‘inclusive innovation,’” she said.

Southern Methodist University, Paul Quinn College and bcWorkshop in Dallas, the University of Oxford and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees have signed on as project partners.

The Hunts didn’t intend to go public with their plans for a downtown center until they had gotten a site, an executive director and other sponsoring partners.

But questions began to arise about where the Plastiki would go after Fair Park. It seemed unlikely that an 11-ton vessel would make the arduous and expensive return trip to the Bay Area.

Although Mayor Mike Rawlings hasn’t been fully briefed on the project, he’s excited about it. “It’s another example of Stephanie and Hunter stepping up in a major way to help revitalize downtown.
“Dallas five years ago didn’t have much to offer when it came to drawing in families. This shows that with inventive things, families are flocking to downtown. This is an important strategy for us.”
The Hunts won’t say how much money they’re kicking in or what the project is expected to cost, saying the financials depend largely on land, which they hope to lease or have donated. They’re looking at several downtown sites with access to public transportation.

“We have some property that they might be interested in,” Rawlings said. “We need to get together to make this happen as quickly as possible.”

The Hunts are looking for support from the community and city of Dallas. “We need this to be a community effort,” Stephanie Hunt said.

‘Kinship’ by design

 

Hunt said the center will probably be designed by Lot-Ek, an architectural design firm in New York and Italy. “They take old cargo containers, airplane fuselages, oil tankers and turn them into whatever you want, whether it’s a one-purpose building or a dormitory or a city.”

She would like to have the permanent structure ready by next spring. But mobile units — single cargo containers equipped with technology — should be ready to visit neighborhoods in the southern sector by the fall.

Giuseppe Lignano, Lot-Ek design principal, said this will be the first Texas project for his firm.
No contracts have been signed, but Hunt and Lignano see their collaboration as natural selection.
“There is a lot of kinship,” Lignano said. “We are definitely going to be able to interpret what Stephanie wants to do with this urban innovation center down in Dallas. We think we can create an incredible experience for the kids, not just to witness the design and construction of these buildings but also then to live in them and experience them.”

He’s intrigued by the idea of making the Plastiki the centerpiece component. “Dallas is inland, so it’s going to be interesting.”

De Rothschild had other offers for Plastiki’s post-sailing life but chose Dallas because he loves the innovation lab concept and is sure that Hunt will make it happen.

“If you’d said to me this time last year that the Plastiki was going to end up being positioned in Dallas, I would have said to you, ‘Really?’” de Rothschild said last week as he and his crew were loading the boat on to a flatbed.

“I know people who are very, very wealthy who don’t have the commitment. It takes somebody of Stephanie’s vision, energy, commitment and passion with everything she does.”