Tree House Venture Joins Google Lunar X PRIZE JURBAN team
The Baltimore based Google Lunar X PRIZE JURBAN team announces it has partnered with Alexandria, VA based Tree House Ventures, LLC in preparing for an unprecedented commercial launch of an unmanned robotic “swarm” to the moon by 2012 pioneering both space and robot entrepreneurship.
“This ‘New Space’ industry is hot, sizzling with new business opportunities where students as young as elementary school can begin dreaming about their space entrepreneurship endeavors and turning their dreams into reality by applying real world problem solving skills using science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM)”, said Dr. Jayfus T. Doswell, director of the Google Lunar X PRIZE JURBAN team www.juxtopia.org/jurban.
The JURBAN team, directed by Dr. Jayfus T. Doswell, entered the Google Lunar X PRIZE competition in May 2008 to challenge underrepresented youth to apply this vision and take on the space robot entrepreneurship challenge.
For this challenge, the Juxtopia(R) Urban Robotics Brilliant Application Network (JURBAN) student and professional team will fly a robot to the moon by 2012, and place a flag on the moon to represent historically underserved and disadvantaged groups around the world.
In 2008, the overall space industry was estimated to exceed ~$250 billion annually. The Personal Space Flight Industry invested $1.2 billion in 2008 with a focus on space tourism. According to the Federal Aviation Administration, this trend will continue and could generate more than $1 trillion (USD) in annual revenue by 2021.
“Tree House Ventures is pleased to join the JURBAN team,” said Drew Bewick, Managing Director of Tree House Ventures. “The JURBAN team’s technology approach and innovative strategy will inspire a new generation of space entrepreneurs and forever change the commercial space industry, as well as, students’ perceptions of science and math.”
The 1st Space Entrepreneurship Forum (September 23rd, 2009, Capitol Hill) attended by the Administrator of NASA and hosted by Congresswoman Donna Edwards, JAKA Consulting, and the JURBAN team raised awareness about the economic benefits of improving U.S. science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) proficiency by mobilizing historically underserved and disadvantaged populations. The initiative aligns with President Obama’s recent call for all hands on deck to improve U.S. science and math competitiveness.
Consequently, Tree House Ventures joined the Google Lunar X PRIZE JURBAN team with a shared vision of challenging underrepresented youth and professionals interested in careers in STEM to collectively imagine, gather resources, roll-up their sleeves, and pursue a real-world business culture that innovatively bridges the theoretical with the practical.
The JURBAN Team is from Baltimore, Maryland and comprised of professional engineers and underrepresented minority middle, high school, and college students, including Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) and Minority Serving Institutions (MSI). The JURBAN team is the only Google Lunar X Prize team that hails from Maryland and the only one tapping the wealth of talent resident in these minority institutions.
The Google Lunar X PRIZE challenge is really motivating minority students to enter into science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) related majors and careers. Moreover the JURBAN team is encouraging and training young students to build their own businesses to contribute to the commercial space industry. JAKA Consulting Group is a minority-owned company offering a trademarked process of incorporating sports to accomplish business goals for its partners. JAKA Consulting Group engages each client and their constituencies through integrating athletes, events and other sports platforms into comprehensive strategic and development plans to achieve their business goals. This process is called Sportilization. Visit www.jakaconsulting.com to learn more.
JURBAN The JURBAN challenge is a program www.juxtopia.org/jurban developed by The Juxtopia Group, Inc. www.juxtopia.org, a non-profit research organization that investigates how learning technology interventions can improve the learning performance of underserved and disadvantaged populations, worldwide. The Juxtopia Group’s JURBAN Challenge Program trains underserved and disadvantaged students to build autonomous service robotic systems that have significant impact in their community, and in May, 2009, the JURBAN became an official Google Lunar X PRIZE team.
Tree House Ventures assists clients expand their innovation capacity by discovering opportunities and transitioning ideas to innovations users want most. Tree House Ventures’ innovation engineering process helps clients transition valuable innovations into viable and effective resources that meet strategic needs. Visit http://www.thvpartners.com.
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Allen Herbert
JAKA Consulting Group
Public Relations
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