admin_atc, Author at American Tobacco Campus

The Triangle got a national nod this week for its penchant for digital innovation and thriving local startup ecosystem. Ranked fourth in a national evaluation of America’s best cities to lead the digital economy, Raleigh-Durham stood out for its concentration of dynamic startups leading the charge in health and tech innovation. It fell just behind Boston, San Francisco and Denver. San Diego ranked fifth. Led by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation, The FreeEnterprise.com and Washington D.C. startup hub 1776, the second annual Innovation That Matters 2016 report includes analysis of 25 US cities. Researchers indexed data sets across a series of city-specific attributes, including: talent, capital, industry specialization, density, institutional connectivity along with cultural statistics. They conducted a comprehensive survey of more than 330 startup leaders. Researchers also met with public and private industry leaders in each city to evaluate the various environmental conditions contributing to ecosystem leadership. A roster of local startup founders along with leaders from key academic, corporate and civic institutions participated in organized roundtable focus groups to help researchers identify both successes and opportunities for improvement. In Durham in late January, local participants included: Mason Ailstock, Research Triangle Park; Laura Baverman, ExitEvent; Anil Chawla, Archive Social; Kevin Davis andDennis Newman of Duke University’s Office of information and Technology; Chris Heivly, The Startup Factory; Derrick Minor, City of Raleigh; Brett Wolfe, Microsoft; andAdam Klein, American Underground. That roundtable led researchers to identify the following key levers attracting entrepreneurs to the area: strong openness to new ideas, a high quality of life and a favorable regulatory environment. “The Triangle ecosystem works because of the low friction between universities, startups and civic entities. There is a long history of collaboration between these different spheres, especially with the creation of RTP, that makes it easy to build and sustain conversations within the entrepreneurial ecosystem,” says Klein, chief strategist of American Underground (ExitEvent’s parent company). “I’d contend that and the density of startups activity in downtown nodes will be crucial to our future success.” Continue Reading by Clicking HERE

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Durham’s Art Institute opens student-run restaurant for lunch

Posted on May 12, 2016 at 8:38 pm.

Written by admin_atc

The Art Institute of Raleigh-Durham has opened its student-operated restaurant in Durham’s American Tobacco Campus.

The restaurant, The District at 410, is open for lunch from noon-2 p.m. on Thursdays and Fridays, except on May 12 when it will be closed for a private party.

The restaurant’s theme is small plates. Favorites on the menu include pan seared scallops served with creamy polenta and balsamic drizzle; slider burgers; crispy fried Brussels sprouts with prosciutto, banana pepper and Parmesan cheese; savory baby carrots glazed in butter and brown sugar.

Prices range from $2.50-$5.50 for small plates, $6.50-$12.50 for large plates, $2 -$2.50 for sides and $4 for desserts.

The District is located in the lobby of the Fowler Building at 410 Blackwell St. Reservations are recommended; drop-in patrons will be seated as space is available. For reservations, please call 919-317-3200 or email thedistrict@aii.edu.
Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/living/food-drink/mouthful-blog/article76936067.html#storylink=cpy

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Moogfest Tops Rolling Stone List

Posted on May 9, 2016 at 8:37 pm.

Written by admin_atc

No matter what you like or where you live, this summer almost certainly has a festival for you. Below are the 30 American summer festivals we’re most excited about.

MoogFest

Where: Durham, North Carolina

Why Go: One of the most eclectic festivals in the country, MoogFest blends both mainstream and cutting-edge acts with panel discussions that explore progressive ideas. Some of this year’s speakers include Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo, Chuck Lightning from Janelle Monáe’s Wondaland camp, while Gary Numan, Laurie Anderson and GZA perform nighttime sets. With the recent statewide passage of controversial North Carolina state laws that discriminate against LGBT persons, MoogFest’s eclecticism is particularly relevant. “The liberation of LGBTQ+ is wired into the original components of electronic music culture,” the organizers wrote in a statement posted on the festival site. “We will use the podium, the stage and the dancefloor to manifest a world of inclusivity and compassion.”

Must-See Acts: Odesza, Grimes, Miike Snow, Gary Numan, GZA, Laurie Anderson, Explosions in the Sky, Blood Orange, SunnO))), Oneohtrix Point Never, the Orb, Actress, Daniel Lanois, DΔWN, Floating Points Ensemble, Kode 9, Tim Hecker, Tory Lanez

Official Site: moogfest.com

Read the entire list HERE

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Bull Durham Beer Co. Hits One Out of the Ballpark

Posted on April 15, 2016 at 8:35 pm.

Written by admin_atc

Bull Durham Beer Company, the first microbrewery located inside a minor league baseball stadium, introduces easy-drinking craft beers to lovers of the game.

Baseball’s greatest virtue is the time that it takes. Every precise pitch and calculated swing of the bat, unrushed and not ruled by seconds on a scoreboard, are what make baseball beautiful.

The beverage that tastes best with baseball isn’t something to be hurried, either. Beer takes hours to brew, weeks to ferment. But when we gulp it down, we can’t fully appreciate how it’s made and where it came from. We’ve got nine innings, so why not savor it?

Beer and baseball are a natural pairing, so it only seems fitting that every stadium across the country would have its own brewery. You’d think that, anyway, especially as we’ve become better acquainted with what’s in our pint glass over the past decade — but it wasn’t until last year that the Durham Bulls Athletic Park in the heart of downtown Durham became the first minor league baseball stadium in the country to have its own microbrewery. This brewery joined the four others in Durham: Bull City Burger and Brewery, Fullsteam, Ponysaurus, and Triangle Brewing Company, with two more in the pipeline to open in the coming months.

Bull Durham Beer Company is the brainchild of Sebastian Wolfrum. He figured that the beer-friendly city of Durham could use a stadium brewery, especially since the ballpark already featured a variety of North Carolina pours.

“It wasn’t a big leap to say, ‘Why don’t we just make beer on-site?’” he says.

But there were a few logistical matters to consider. The space where the brewery is situated required some finessing to fit the large kettle system required. The resulting brewery has the ability to crank out 15 barrels of beer each week when operating in full force.

The brewery sits on prime real estate in the stadium, just above the main entrance and in full view. While conventional breweries might see a steady trickle of beer drinkers throughout the day, curious game goers often pour into Bull Durham Beer Company all at once — before the first pitch, between innings, during rain delays. They pop their heads in for an impromptu tour of the place and line up to buy a beer at the serving station just outside of the brewery’s doors.

“People walk by, and they’ll see our station out there. They’ll ask, ‘Where are y’all from? Where does your beer come from?’” says Garrett Eder, assistant brewer. “I’ll just knock on the window and say, ‘Right here.’”

A lot of folks can’t believe it. Some have never even stepped foot inside of a brewery before. Wolfrum sees it as an opportunity to sing the praises of locally-made beer.

“There are a lot of first timers who never knew how beer is made or that it takes more than a day,” Wolfrum says. “For the five minutes that people spend in here, we get a snapshot of their attention.”

The easy-drinking brews that Bull Durham creates have the power to make fans out of most beer drinkers.

During its first season in 2015, Bull Durham only produced two beers: the crisp Lollygagger Kolsch and the balanced Water Tower Wheat. This year, the brewery has a stacked lineup as it adds an IPA and an amber lager to the roster. Both are robust, yet brewed with approachability in mind. “They’re not big and bold and overpowering,” Wolfrum says. “You sip along as you watch the game.”

When ball’s being played, Bull Durham keeps it simple with beers that quench summer’s thirst. Come offseason, Wolfrum and his team like to concoct new flavors and work with various bars and restaurants in Durham and beyond. It used to be that you could only drink Bull Durham beer from your ballpark seat, but now the beer is on tap at the likes of nearby tapas bar Mateo, among others reaching beyond Durham’s borders. This summer, Bull Durham will open its own taproom adjacent to the stadium, an opportune place to unwind any night of the week.

In the hopes of becoming more sustainable, the brewery is now experimenting with its own hop yard at Sassafras Fork Farm, just north of the city in Durham County. It’s pretty neat, considering Wolfrum also happens to own a Durham-based malt company.

“Hopefully, we’ll have a beer at some point in time that’ll [include] local hops and grain,” head brewer Tate Little says. “Not many people can say they have a beer that does both of those things.”

Homegrown flavor, like a home-team win, is worth celebrating.

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NanaSteak Among 10 Hottest Restuarants in the Triangle

Posted on April 15, 2016 at 8:34 pm.

Written by admin_atc

Looking for restaurants that are the best hot spots in Raleigh / Durham / Chapel Hill? You’re in the right place. Each month OpenTable analyzes more than 400,000 new diner reviews. They sort the results by category to help you discover new favorites. It’s a great partnership: you reserve, eat, and review. We listen…and deliver the results for all to benefit.

Here’s who made the cut:

M Sushi, Durham
Kings North Hills, Raleigh
Ginger 108, Kinston
Standard Foods, Raleigh
Counting House, Durham
Bida Manda, Raleigh
NanaSteak, Durham
Mateo, Durham
Gonza Tacos y Tequila, Raleigh & Durham
Garland, Raleigh

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Moogfest 2016: 7 Moog Musts

Posted on April 13, 2016 at 8:32 pm.

Written by admin_atc

Hailed as “a sci-fi dance party with a Ph.D. in STEM” by “The New York Times,” Moogfest 2016 will gather more than 250 technologists, musicians and artists to explore new technologies that are pushing the boundaries of creative expression. It’ll be an experience unlike any other. To prove it, we pulled together seven sensationally diverse, can’t-miss festival happenings.

All photos by Carlos Gonzales.

1. Grimes

Friday, May 20, 8:50 p.m. – Moogfest Main Stage outside of Motorco Music Hall

Moogfest celebrates and continues the legacy of Bob Moog, the engineer who invented the analog synthesizer among other creative tools – so, of course, music plays a huge role.

Since her critically acclaimed third album, “Visions,” was released, the Canadian electronic musician and producer Claire Boucher (aka Grimes) has toured the world and become an international phenomenon. She’s headlined festivals, performed on late-night TV shows such as “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon” and “Later With Jools Holland,” and has graced the cover of countless music and fashion magazines. Her latest album, “Art Angels,” is a sprawling, arresting work that’s as uncompromising as it is inviting. Grimes’ performance at Moogfest will include a special AV show, back-up dancers and plenty of Grimes’ fantasy-inspired costumes and visuals.

2. DJ Lance Rock and Yo Gabba Gabba with Mark Mothersbaugh, Bootsy Collins, Malcolm Mooney, Van Partible, Kate Stone, Dorit Chrysler

Saturday, May 21, noon-5 p.m. – American Tobacco Campus Amphitheater

Moogfest celebrates young fans of electronic music and invites both adults and children to experiment with new sounds. The program is anchored by an entire day of free outdoor performances, co-curated by DJ Lance Rock of the award-winning children’s TV show “Yo Gabba Gabba!” Workshops, installations and an open electronic music jam session will explore synthesis, collaborative improvisation and hands-on audio collage. DJ Lance Rock is pleased to be presenting the first all-ages program for Moogfest.

After the DJ sets from Lance and Nanny Cantaloupe, there will be a discussion with Nanny, as well as with music pioneers Bootsy Collins, Mark Mothersbaugh (of Devo fame) and original Can vocalist, Malcolm Mooney. Joining them will be Van Partible, creator of the Cartoon Network show “Johnny Bravo.”

3. RTP Convergence – Moogfest’s marquee art installation

May 19-22, CCB Plaza

In partnership with Research Triangle Park, RTP Convergence will be an interactive installation in downtown Durham’s CCB Plaza that invites people to work with each other and the environment to collaboratively create cityscapes made of light. It’s interactive art, and it promises to be fantastic.

Developed by Floating Point Collective, a field of LED rods form a volumetric display. Each rod is equipped with a touch sensor. When touched by a participant, colored light grows from their fingers, creating a light structure that rises into the sky and spreads outward through the other rods. When people are not interacting with the sculpture directly, another layer of interaction is revealed. The light city is affected by real time light data, shifting colored particles and allowing colors to mix in organic ways. Oh, and this attraction, too, is free.

4. Dr. Martine Rothblatt & “Transhumanism”  Keynote: The Future of Creativity

Friday, May 20, 2-3:30 p.m. – The Carolina Theatre’s Fletcher Hall

Futurist philosophers set the tone for Moogfest’s mind-expanding series of daytime seminars and workshops. One of the highly anticipated speakers is Dr. Martine Rothblatt: author, entrepreneur, transhumanist, and inventor of satellite radio. Rothblatt’s talk will explore the concept of “transhumanism” and include provocative ideas from her book, “Virtually Human: The Promise – and the Peril – of Digital Immortality.”

As a preview, the book introduces Bina48, the world’s most sentient robot, commissioned by Martine Rothblatt and created by Hanson Robotics. Bina48 is a nascent Mindclone of Martine’s wife that can engage in conversation, answer questions and even have spontaneous thoughts that are derived from multimedia data in a Mindfile created by the real Bina.

5. Afrofuturism Conversation: Can You Remember the Future?

Saturday, May 21, 2-3 p.m., The Durham Armory

A broad discussion featuring Reggie Watts, Tyondai Braxton and others about Afrofuturism – an aesthetic that critiques both the present-day dilemmas of people of color and also re-examines historical events of the past – as a discipline and a practice, its current state and what insights it holds for what’s to come in arts, culture, politics and beyond.

6. Transhumanism Conversation: The Future of Our Species

Friday, May 20, 10 a.m.-noon, The Carolina Theatre’s Cinema 1

Cyborg artist Neil Harbisson joins Pau Riba, BJ Murphy, Rich Lee and Daniel Lock to discuss how humans are taking an active part in their own biological evolution. By becoming technology, instead of using or wearing technology, humans are opening up the possibility of having additional organs and senses beyond the ones confined to our species.

7. Workshop: Music In The Brain with Duke Institute for Brain Sciences

Saturday, May 21, noon-1pm – 21C Museum Hotel, Gallery 6

Explore the effects of music on brain structure and function in this workshop, which will highlight the intersection between artistic and scientific perspectives on this fundamental and aesthetic form of human expression.

Want to Go?

A festival pass costs $249 and offers access to the entire event – performances, conversations, workshops and installations. A VIP festival pass is $499.

Find out more about Moogfest on its website – moogfest.com.

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2016 Back Porch Music on the Lawn Schedule

Posted on April 12, 2016 at 8:31 pm.

Written by admin_atc

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Durham is 6th-best city for women in the workforce

Posted on April 7, 2016 at 8:30 pm.

Written by admin_atc

Durham is the sixth-best U.S. city for women in the workforce, according to a new report from personal financial website NerdWallet.

The report began with 529 cities and scored them based on the following factors:

2015 unemployment rate;
Women’s median earnings as a percentage of men’s median earnings for full-time, year-round workers;
Median gross rent as a percentage of women’s median monthly earnings; and
The difference between men and women in the workforce as measured by the participation rate, which is the percentage of adults ages 20 to 64 who are employed or who are seeking employment.

Durham is one of only 17 cities where women outearn men. Women’s median earnings are 101.9 percent of men’s, compared to 79.8 percent nationwide.

The top three cities on the list of the top 100 cities for working women are all in Minnesota: Rochester, Minneapolis and St. Paul. Rounding out the top 10 are Iowa City, Iowa; Denton, Texas; Durham; Ann Arbor, Michigan; Bismarck, North Dakota; Skokie, Illinois; and Redwood City, California.

Elsewhere in North Carolina, Asheville is No. 22; Greensboro is No. 86 and Winston-Salem is No. 97.

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10 Extremely Tiny Restaurants In North Carolina That Are Actually Amazing

Posted on April 7, 2016 at 8:29 pm.

Written by admin_atc

Looks can be deceiving, especially when you’re dining in North Carolina. With a handful of diners and drive-ins, ‘small’ is not synonymous with ‘bad.’ It’s actually quite the opposite. While some of these restaurants fly under the radar, others experience a packed-out (albeit small) dining room on a weekly basis. Some aren’t ‘extremely tiny,’ while others are literally just a window you order from. Ready for some big flavor in a small environment? Try these 10 places.1. Soul Gastrolounge, Charlotte

Yelp / Cristyle E.Soul is a trendy tapas bar and lounge. Despite the above picture, it’s typically packed to the brim. Even on a Tuesday night you’re likely to encounter a two hour wait. Yet the wait is worth it. While the space is tight, it’s incredibly cool and cozy. Not to mention the food, cocktails, and sushi are out of this world.2. Tre Nonne, Winston-Salem

Yelp / Chris T.You really can’t beat handmade pasta, and especially the recipes of three Italian grandmas. Tre Nonne is new to the dining scene of Winston-Salem…but don’t let the exterior or interior fool you. While it’s small and simple, the restaurant packs big flavor. Even down to the unique house salad dressing.3. Big Oak Drive In, Salter Path

Yelp / Jason R.Big Oak is literally just a walk up window, with a few picnic tables outside. But you won’t mind eating in your car or taking it to go….they’re home to some of the BEST shrimp burgers you’ll find on the coast.Click here to view the ENTIRE LIST

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Moogfest is “Rain or Shine” for the May 21 Performances at American Tobacco.

Parking at American Tobacco for Moogfest

Bike Parking

Car Parking

Alternate Downtown Parking Locations for Moogfest

MoogFest

1. Grimes

2. DJ Lance Rock and Yo Gabba Gabba with Mark Mothersbaugh, Bootsy Collins, Malcolm Mooney, Van Partible, Kate Stone, Dorit Chrysler

3. RTP Convergence – Moogfest’s marquee art installation

4. Dr. Martine Rothblatt & “Transhumanism” Keynote: The Future of Creativity

5. Afrofuturism Conversation: Can You Remember the Future?

6. Transhumanism Conversation: The Future of Our Species

7. Workshop: Music In The Brain with Duke Institute for Brain Sciences

Want to Go?

4. Dr. Martine Rothblatt & “Transhumanism”  Keynote: The Future of Creativity