To give you some history on the event, last year John Caner, from the Downtown Berkeley Association, approached myself and a group of local East Bay leaders to Burning Man back to Berkeley. He was referring to the How Berkeley Can You Be art car parade that had stopped running a few years ago. Our group joined forces and in less than three months, we created Berkeley Spark and filled Civic Center Park with art, music, dance and so much more. We were thrilled at the turnout and the support we received and when we met up this spring, we decided to do it again though we felt it was important to create more of a conversation between art and technology, thus emerged Berkeley Spark 2.0.
"Arc of Reflection" by Oakland artist Amy Stabler at Berkeley Spark 2013
In building upon the East Bay's thriving art and technology climate, Berkeley Spark 2.0 is also hosting the East Bay Innovation Tech Corridor, creating yet another avenue for community dialogue on the convergence of art, technology and science here in the East Bay. Local innovators, designer, makers, hackers, scientist and futurists will be sharing their ideas and inventions with the Berkeley Community.
As part of the innovation side to the event, The Farm House (a co-living house in Berkeley, CA) will be hosting a panel discussion on the ever-evolving technological landscape here in the Bay Area and at the event, we are also hosting Berkeley Spark Playspace focusing on experiential workshops for children and adults.
We are grateful for the support of the Downtown Berkeley Association and the City of Berkeley's Office of Economic Development in association with Berkeley Partners for Parks, Berkeley Startup Cluster, Burning Man Project, Drakes Brewing Company, Ecology Center, Impact Hub Berkeley, The Mead Kitchen, and Urban Innovation Exchange.
If you'd like to know more about our festival, go to https://www.berkeleyspark.org and https://www.facebook.com/BerkeleySpark.