Bringing Together Two Passions — A Story of Co-Creation
A very special guest blog by Miral Kotb, Founder of iLuminate
In December, the DevExchange had the honor of hosting Miral Kotb and iLuminate (seen on America’s Got Talent) at NEXTECH — a Capital One conference focused around innovative digital experiences born from product, API, and open source initiatives.
With iLuminate, Miral found a way to combine her love of dance with computer science to create a dance-in-the dark technological sensation. How did this idea form? With collaboration and passion, with technological skill and creative discipline, and with a team from very different walks of life.
Watch Miral at NEXTECH discuss how she seamlessly combined two very different fields of creativity and how important it is to allow your personal passions influence how you approach your projects.
Let’s step back in time for a bit. I went to Columbia University in New York City and, while there, I danced at various groups and kept doing what I loved. Once I graduated from college, I had quite a few college loans (I’m sure that you relate) that I needed to pay off, so I got a job instead of committing myself to dance. The lucky part was that I discovered that I really did enjoy writing software. The job was originally meant to be something to help me pay my bills for a few years and then start dancing professionally, but I stayed longer because I really liked writing financial software.
After six years, I was ready to pursue dance again, but I still missed writing software. That got me thinking. How could I do both of the things I loved? What could I do with fast wifi (emerging at the time) in a live performance setting? And, how can I do that to help bridge the gap between the spectator and the dancer in a way that brings the audience into the dance and feature the dancer more? I wanted to make the audience feel more connected because I knew that a lot of people who don’t come from a dance background, really don’t understand dance. So, I wanted to make people more comfortable seeing a dance performance by bringing in another element.
That’s when the idea of lighting up the dancers and communicating with them wirelessly came to me.
What I really love about iLuminate is the collaboration between art and technology. iLuminate brings together choreographers, artistic directors, dancers, seamstresses, wardrobe professionals, sketch artists who design the suits, technicians who build the suits, software developers who program the suits, and hardware engineers who build the hardware the dancers are wearing. — all in the same room collaborating to create one of these shows.
It’s exhilarating and exciting for me because for so long these worlds have been separate.
At iLuminate, we’re also starting to bring our work to junior and high school students so that they can learn how technology and art can merge together in unexpected and creative ways. We’re really trying to push this collaboration at a young age so that students can learn how to respect each other and their skills rather than staying separated in their cliques.
What I really want to challenge you with is to bring together the things that you love to do into work and think outside of the box. Yes, you go to work everyday and manage projects and timelines and that’s great. But what if you love playing the guitar or you have a love for singing?. Think about what would happen if you brought that love into your work everyday — into your software development, into your testing, etc. The skills that you picked up while learning to play a piece of music could really change the way you approach your work.
For me, just as I start choreographing a dance, I dance in “freestyle,” I also approach solving a technology problem that way — with freestyle thinking. When you bring your passion into your work, you might really be surprised about what might come.
So, when you go to work tomorrow, bring what you love with you and see how it opens your mind. Find ways to merge those two loves. That’s what I did to create iLuminate and it has forever changed my life in the most profound and meaningful way — beyond what I could have ever imagined.
Hope you enjoy the videos of my talk and our performance from NEXTECH 2016
- Miral Kotb, Founder
iLuminate
DISCLOSURE STATEMENT: These opinions are those of the author. Unless noted otherwise in this post, Capital One is not affiliated with, nor is it endorsed by, any of the companies mentioned. All trademarks and other intellectual property used or displayed are the ownership of their respective owners. This article is © 2017 Capital One.
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