The Center for Design Innovation is a University of North Carolina inter-institutional collaboration between NCSA and Winston-Salem State University, in partnership with Forsyth Technical Community College. The CDI was created in response to a 2003 Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy, developed by AngelouEconomics, that recommended that the region pursue a course to accelerate the growth of the emerging design cluster in the Piedmont Triad.  

The mission of the CDI – which will specialize in the application of digital design in entertainment, life science, education, product design, and product marketing – is to generate and facilitate design-focused instruction, research, workforce development, and entrepreneurial activity; to promote educational programming that emphasizes innovation; and to act as a design-based business cluster accelerator to make the Piedmont Triad a nationally recognized center of design.

Strohecker will be a full-time employee of NCSA, where she will serve as an instructor, and a faculty member at WSSU. Her office will be in the CDI’s temporary quarters in leased space in Winston Tower in downtown Winston-Salem, which was made possible by a grant from the Golden Leaf Foundation. The space is slated for completion in September. Strohecker will manage an initial budget of $2 million, from the University of North Carolina Board of Governors, and will provide vision and guidance in the design of a $10 million facility at Piedmont Triad Research Park in Winston-Salem.

“We believe that Carol Strohecker is the right person to lead the CDI in creating a powerful economic development engine that will build upon the strengths of the Piedmont Triad region,” said Randy Mills, assistant provost for administration and planning at Winston-Salem State University. “We are confident that she knows how to tap into this region’s remarkable potential.”

Strohecker is the founder of Strohecker Associates of Dublin, Ireland, generators of tools, programs and environments for learning. She was principal investigator of the Everyday Learning research group at Media Lab Europe, the European research partner of the MIT Media Lab (http://www.media.mit.edu/). Prior to joining MLE, she worked in the United States at Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories (http://www.merl.com) and in the Human Interface Group of Sun Microsystems (http://research.sun.com).

She earned the Ph.D. of Media Arts and Sciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1991 and the Master of Science in Visual Studies from MIT in 1986. She has served MIT's Program in Media Arts and Sciences as a lecturer and as a Presidential Nominee on the MIT Corporation Visiting Committee.

Strohecker also has served advisory panels of the European Commission's Directorates-General for Education and Culture and for Information Society and Media. She acts internationally on research-related boards and program committees, and holds four U.S. patents for her work in interactive media tools and methods.

She received fellowships to work with the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Artists Foundation of the Massachusetts Council for the Arts and Humanities.

Herb Burns, department chair of architectural/construction technology at Forsyth Technical Community College, said, “Now that our new director is in place, we look forward to initiating classes, workshops, and projects at the CDI.”

 Among the initial offerings will be animation, part of a new track in the NCSA School of Filmmaking. More course offering will follow in the winter. Additional information on workshops will be become available in the fall. Students at NCSA, WSSU, and FTCC may consult course offerings for available cross-registration classes.

Parties who are interested in exploring research and project opportunities with the CDI should contact Carol Strohecker at 336-770-3202. 

For more information about the Center for Design Innovation, visit www.ncarts.edu/CDI.