Category Archives: Intelligent Growth

Inaugural ‘Riverside Startup Weekend’ Hailed as a Great Success

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Riverside’s first ‘Startup Weekend’ proved that the community is indeed a ‘Catalyst for Innovation‘, bringing together nearly 100 participants, advisors and judges to develop 10 new businesses in less than three days.

The winning Fetchit team poses with the judges at Startup Weekend. From left, UCR students Daniel Langridge and Chris Manghane, incoming UCR students Darrell and Daniel Peeden, Riverside Mayor Rusty Bailey, Inland Empire Tech Coast Angels President Molly Schmid, and Rajan Kasetty, CEO of Terrafore, Inc. (photo by Conley Read; source: UCR Today)

Startup Weekend is a global program that brings 54-hour events to select cities where “developers, coders, designers marketers, product managers and startup enthusiasts come together to share ideas, form teams, build products and create startups.”  Typically half of the event attendees have technical backgrounds while the other half have business backgrounds.

Riverside Startup Weekend organizers Benjamin Mueller, Conley Read and Mike Kennedy put the 54-hour event together with the help of several sponsors and supporters, including the City of Riverside, Cal Baptist University and local startup companies Signature.io and StopTheHacker, as well as many volunteers who donated their time to support the participants. The event was held at the Culver Center at the University of California in Riverside’s ARTSblock, further inspiring creativity amongst the participants.

“The whole weekend is spent on defining a problem, creating a set of solutions (assumptions), validating those assumptions with people through online surveys, or face-to-face discussions, pivoting and iterating on the idea, developing a business model that has a monetary return on investment, as well as discussions on how to properly scale and attract/build your user base,” explained Alan Roy, a user interface designer at C&C who served as an adviser during the weekend. “In the end, these individuals from backgrounds in development, design, marketing, business, and law come together to create an ‘minimum viable product’ to present to the judges on Sunday.” (source: UCR Today)

To read the full recap as published by UCR Today, including highlights of the winning teams and projects, click here.

La Sierra University Alumnus To Be Inducted Into Baseball Hall of Fame

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(As reported by Darla Tucker, La Sierra University Newsroom)

This July, sports medicine legend and La Sierra University alumnus Frank Jobe will receive one of the highest honors a civilian can get from the professional sports world – a special recognition from the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. during Hall of Fame Weekend 2013.

Sports medicine great Dr. Frank Jobe receives the La Sierra University Alumnus of the Year award from university President Randal Wisbey on April 19 with Jobe’s sons Meredith Jobe (left) and Chris Jobe standing by. (photo source: http://www.lasierra.edu)

But his first stop was La Sierra University where on Friday, April 19 he received an award as Alumnus of the Year during an Alumni weekend banquet held at the university’s Glory of God’s Grace sculpture plaza.

“Tonight we have the privilege of honoring him first,” said La Sierra University President Randal Wisbey in remarks prior to presenting Jobe with the crystal award.

“Our alumnus of the year’s impact on the game of baseball simply cannot be measured. And he never played an inning in the major leagues,” Wisbey said. In fact, Jobe changed baseball forever on Sept. 25, 1974, when he performed the first ever ulnar collateral ligament reconstruction surgery on the left elbow of a Los Angeles Dodger pitcher Tommy John. The procedure, now known as the “Tommy John” surgery, involved grafting a tendon from John’s forearm into his elbow to replace the ligament. John recovered and took his baseball career to new heights. Before Jobe operated on John, the pitcher had won 124 games in the big leagues. After the surgery, he won 164 games, and was able to play until age 46.

Since that groundbreaking achievement, Jobe has performed more than 1,000 Tommy John surgeries on pitchers of varying level and ability, and the procedure has prolonged or saved the careers of 150 professional baseball players. He later developed another revolutionary procedure, a shoulder reconstruction surgery that was first used to save the career of Dodger great Orel Hershiser.

Jobe graduated from La Sierra in 1949 with a Bachelor of Arts degree. He then studied medicine at Loma Linda’s College of Medical Evangelists, now Loma Linda University School of Medicine. In 1965, along with sports medicine physician Robert Kerlan, he founded the Kerlan-Jobe Orthopaedic Clinic which currently operates out of locations in Los Angeles, Beverly Hills, Pasadena, Anaheim, and Santa Monica.

Jobe spoke briefly to the audience of La Sierra alumni, family members, faculty and staff after they gave him a standing ovation. His son Meredith Jobe, daughter-in-law, Melanie Jobe, wife of Chris Jobe, and Jobe’s grandson, Kevin also all graduated from La Sierra. Jobe attributed his success in life to others, and he cited the life lessons he learned from La Sierra’s faculty during his college tenure.

“Those life lessons are probably more important than any book learning,” said Jobe. “They showed me how to live, how to be nice to people, how to take care of people. La Sierra has such a treasure in its faculty. I hope it’s never lost.”

As a ‘Location of Choice’ known for developing world-class athletes, it is a celebration for Riverside and a testament to the quality of education at La Sierra University, to honor an alumnus that has had such an incredible impact on the game of baseball and the field of sports medicine.

To read the full article as published by La Sierra University, click here.

Students Explain “Why College Completion Counts” in Scholarship Contest

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Completion Counts video scholarships are being awarded to 13 creative high school seniors from Alvord and Riverside high schools for producing imaginative videos to promote “why college completion counts.”

Completion Counts is Riverside’s collaborative endeavor to increase Riverside’s ability to be a Center for ‘Lifelong Learning for All‘ and to raise college graduation rates in the community. The partners are the City of Riverside, Riverside City College, the Alvord and Riverside unified school districts, Riverside County Office of Education, the University of California, Riverside, and the Greater Riverside Chambers of Commerce. The work of Completion Counts began in 2010 with a $3 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Poly High School student Mary Duarte won the Individual Grand Prize Scholarship of $1,000 for her “Top Ten Reasons You Should Get A College Degree” (contributed photo)

Poly High School student Mary Duarte won the Individual Grand Prize Scholarship of $1,000 for her “Top Ten Reasons You Should Get A College Degree” (contributed photo)

Poly High School student Mary Duarte won the Individual Grand Prize Scholarship of $1,000 for her “Top Ten Reasons You Should Get A College Degree,” given against a background promoting the Completion Counts www.College311.org website.

Other individual videomakers who are receiving $500 scholarships for promoting messages including the economic benefits of completing college, some using sports, arts, and career analogies to make their points, are Jedon Carter of North High School, Tanya Reyes of La Sierra High School, Katy Gutierrez of Norte Vista High School and Daisy Garcia of Norte Vista High School.

In the Group Video category, in which a cast and crew of up to three students could also compete for scholarships, the Grand Prize of $1,500 will go to Sara Emami and Emilie Abraham of La Sierra High School (who will each receive $750), with their video, “We Got This!”

Runners up in the Group Video category were a Ramona High School team of Fernando Banales-Mejia, Maria Rivera and Karen Figueroa; and a Poly High School team of Luis Torres, Rodrigo Lucatero and Matthew Beasley. Each of the group runners-up will receive a $250 scholarship award.

“We had some terrific qualifying submissions,” said Al Cardoza, Completion Counts’ Video Scholarship project manager. “Congratulations to the creative winners for finding fun new ways to promote the ‘college completion counts’ message!”

Winning videos will be uploaded the Completion Counts website and made available to the City of Riverside GTV  Channel 3.

“This scholarship is designed to start getting students thinking and talking about college. There are no essays, or a ‘straight-A’ average required – we’re simply looking for the best and most creative video perspective,” said Completion Counts Director Cindy Taylor at the contest launch in March.

The contest also invited participation in the www.careercruising.com free career assessment resource, which students can access with their student ID number, to get a better idea of courses of study for careers.

Career Cruising is one of many free education resources and links available to students and families through the www.college311.org website.

Eleven Riverside Students Receive Dell Scholarship Awards

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Riverside’s commitment to being a center for lifelong learning seems to be paying off. Recently eleven local seniors were notified that they had received a highly sought-after scholarship award from the Dell Scholarship Foundation.

Seven of the eleven Riverside students to receive the award were from Riverside’s Ramona High School – the second highest number of students from any one school in the nation. Each student will receive a $20,000 scholarship for college as well as a new Dell laptop and printer.

Riverside’s Ramona High School had seven Dell Scholars for 2013, the second most for one school in the country. Recipients are (top, from left) Marissa Huston, Tiffany Truong, Fernando Banales-Mejia, (bottom, left) Maria Hernandez, Karen Figueroa, Kathy Chu and Karla Venegas, pictured in their AVID classroom. (Contributed photo published on PE.com)

“Our school should be proud of the fact that we had the most winners in California and had the second most in the nation,” said Ramona counselor Mark Lim, who wrote recommendations for many of the 20 Ramona seniors who applied for the scholarship. “We were close to being No. 1, which speaks volumes about the caliber of our school and students.”

According to Oscar Sweeten-Lopez, the Dell Scholarship Foundation program director, there were 7,561 applicants and only 303 (4 percent) were awarded the Dell Scholarship. Alief Early College High School in Houston — with its first graduating class — had the highest Dell Scholars with eight.

“We are very impressed with Ramona,” said Sweeten-Lopez, who noted that Ramona has had 17 Dell Scholars since the scholarship program started in 2004. “The majority of our Ramona High Dell Scholars are attending top tier in-state and out-of-state private colleges or top UCs. I would venture that over 95 percent of our California Dell Scholars stay in state to attend a UC or CSU.”

“I’ve always felt our AVID program is one of the top ones in the nation, and this is validation of what we know is true,” said Ramona AVID coordinator Scott Lockman. The seven Dell Scholars are all in Ramona’s AVID program, which recently celebrated its 25th year.

A total of eleven recipients are from high schools in the city of Riverside. The seven Ramona seniors to receive the award were Fernando Banales-Mejia, Kathy Chu, Karen Figueroa, Maria Hernandez, Marissa Huston, Tiffany Truong and Karla Venegas. Mercedes Cornelius (La Sierra), Kathy Gutierrez (Norte Vista), Alicia Hernandez (J.W. North), and Vanessa Meteors (Arlington) were also awarded a Dell Scholarship.

To read more on the Riverside award recipients, click here.

For more information on the Dell Scholarship program, visit the official website at www.dellscholars.org.

Community Survey Outreach Promotes Inclusivity

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In a city that prides itself on being diverse and unique, the feedback that will help create the most dynamic, forward-thinking, creative solutions to propel Riverside towards a prosperous future must come from anyone and everyone that considers themselves “Riversiders”.

Since April 1st those who live, work and/or go to school in Riverside have been answering the call to take an on-line survey that asks their opinions about quality of life in this community. As the survey enters its final two weeks, everyone is urged to encourage friends, family, neighbors, co-workers, congregations, classmates and even mere acquaintances to give their feedback.

SOD Survey YOUTH AdAccording to the 2010 Census, 42.3% of Riverside’s population is under 25 years old. While this age group is significant, youth are typically underrepresented in community planning efforts across the nation. In Riverside, extra efforts are being made to gather the opinions of residents, employees and/or students who will be the community’s next generation of decision makers.

“As an inclusive city, we want to be sure this segment has a voice in planning our community’s future,” said Riverside Mayor Rusty Bailey. “We intend to make sure Riverside is the place students want to come for college and to live after.”

For those under 18 years, a special version of the survey has been provided online at RiversideSurvey.com. Please note that a parent or guardian must give approval for a minor to participate.

For all adults 18 and over, English and Spanish versions are available online (RiversideSurvey.com). Paper copies of all versions of the survey are also available in all Riverside public libraries, community centers and at City Hall.

The survey period ends April 30, 2013, and the results will be made available to Riversiders this summer.

Fox Theater Foundation Helps Connect Community with Performing Arts

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(Includes excerpts from the April 5, 2013 story written by Jennifer Dean and Jose Marquezthe as published on PE.com)

The Fox Riverside Theater Foundation was established in late 2008 to support the work of the Fox Performing Arts Center, the landmark theater that was reopened in January 2010. The Fox Cultural Arts Fund was then established with The Community Foundation to provide financial backing to the theater foundation.

“The mission of the foundation is to support the Fox Performing Arts Center and enrich the community by inspiring participation in the life of the Fox through community-focused performances, community outreach and fundraising,” said Cynthia Wright, Fox Riverside Theater Foundation executive director.

The foundation’s mission is important to the region because it helps the entire community — even those with limited resources — have access to the theater.

“The Fox produces some shows that are very affordable, such as the Humphrey Bogart film series last summer and the holiday showing of ‘A Christmas Story,’ ” Wright said. “On the foundation side, we increase access through such programs as Students on Broadway, through which we provide tickets to high school students (primarily) to Broadway shows.”

Riverside high school students pose after watching a performance of Fiddler on the Roof in late March (photo source: Fox Foundation’s Students on Broadway Blog)

The theater foundation also partners with the downtown arts organization, First Sundays, through its Family Fun Days, in which free arts activities for families are available.

“My favorite recent example … was the March 14 presentation of ‘Beauty and the Beast,’ an American Theater Arts for Youth production for elementary schools,” Wright said. “Schools from around the region sent 1,200 elementary school students to the Fox that day and the foundation covered the cost of 500 of those tickets.

“It was a crazy, wonderful day and the teachers couldn’t say enough about what the experience meant for their students.”

By providing connections and exposure to the performing arts as well as to the Fox Theater, a repurposed historic structure, the Foundation enables the community to experience all that Riverside has to offer as a ‘Location of Choice‘ that provides an abundance of opportunities to be amazed, inspired and entertained.

Click here to read the full article as published on PE.com.

For more information on the Fox Foundation, click here.

Riverside’s Community Quality of Life Survey Now Underway

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Over the next couple of weeks, those who work and/or live in Riverside will have the opportunity to provide opinions and feedback regarding the quality of life in our community. The purpose of this effort is to measure and set benchmarks aligned with the Seizing Our Destiny vision and spark community-wide engagement that promotes and continues to improve our quality of life.

Between now and March 24, 2013 some residents will receive calls to their home and/or mobile phone asking them to participate in a short random phone survey about their quality of life in Riverside. Participation in the survey will help to provide community groups and decision makers with important information concerning what residents think about living in our city. The caller ID for these calls will read CSUSB, as researchers from our regional California State University will be conducting the survey on Riverside’s behalf.

If you receive a phone call, don’t hang up! The researchers will NOT ask for your name, your social security number or your immigration status – just your opinions! Your identity and survey responses will remain confidential. Please share your thoughts to make Riverside a better place to live and work.

If you don’t receive a call, anyone who lives or works in Riverside is encouraged to share their thoughts through an online version of the survey which will be available at www.RiversideSurvey.com from April 1-30, 2013.

Phone, online and hard copy surveys will be available in English or Spanish.

All who live, work or both are encouraged to take the opportunity to participate in this process as it is all of us, and what we hope Riverside to be, that makes our city so unique and special.

For any questions or to request *paper versions of the online survey* email info@seizingourdestiny.com.

The Raincross Group Celebrates 25 Years by Honoring 25 Riverside Leaders

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The Raincross Group, a community advocacy group, celebrated its 25th anniversary as an organization on Feb. 21 by honoring 25 people voted the most influential to the leadership of the city in the last 25 years.

“Out of the hundred-plus nominations, 25 people stood out to our membership,” said Raincross Group President Wendel Tucker. “This gave us a chance to reflect on the outstanding leadership we have had as a city over the last quarter century, and it pushes us to emulate their example as we move ahead. That strong web of leadership is part of what makes Riverside great.”

“The commonality among all the people who have been named in this list is a dedication to the well-being of the city, outside of their work day,” said Collette Lee, Raincross Group President-Elect. “Each of these honorees sees community involvement as an essential component of their lives.”

RaincrossLogo1The 25 honorees who were  acknowledge at an event Feb. 21 at the Victoria Club include: Kathy Allavie, Dr. Chuck Beaty, Jane Block, Bob Buster, Jane Carney, Jack Clarke, Jr., Henry Coil, Ron Ellis, Jim Erickson, Tom Evans, Judge John Gabbert, Dr. Larry Geraty, Art Littleworth, Ron Loveridge, Roger Luebs, Rose Mayes, the late Judge Vic Miceli, the late Art Pick, Duane Roberts, Cindy Roth, John Tavaglione, Ofelia Valdez-Yeager, Jennifer Vaughn-Blakely, Timothy White and Jacques Yeager.

In the spirit of  ’Intelligent Growth‘, The Raincross Group advocates for open and effective city government through the engagement with and development of local and diverse community leadership to improve Riverside’s quality of life. For more information on The Raincross Group, visit their website here.

Tohoku University Center at UC Riverside Creates Opportunities for Sister Cities Sendai and Riverside

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(Includes excerpts from the article published in the Press-Enterprise written by Mark Muckenfuss)

On February 11, 2013 UCR and Riverside officials hosted representatives of the Japanese university to officially mark the establishment of the new UC Riverside Tohoku University Center, which will act as a funnel for Tohoku students wanting to study here. It also will assist UCR students who want to travel in the other direction.

Visiting Japanese college student Yuri Teraoka, 20, from Tohoku University in Sendai, collects prickly pear cactus cuttings with a classmate from a cactus farm at the El Sobrante Landfill in Corona for re-planting elsewhere on the property. (photo by David Bauman, PE staff photographer; source: PE.com)

Visiting Japanese college student Yuri Teraoka, 20, from Tohoku University in Sendai, collects prickly pear cactus cuttings with a classmate from a cactus farm at the El Sobrante Landfill in Corona for re-planting elsewhere on the property. (photo by David Bauman, PE staff photographer; source: PE.com)

Tohoku University is in Sendai, which has been a sister city to Riverside for more than 50 years. It is one of Japan’s largest universities with 10 separate colleges and nearly 20,000 students. UCR has slightly more than 21,000 students.

Officials said the new center will further strengthen the connection between the two cities, a relationship that escalated a notch two years ago when Riverside reached out in support following a large earthquake and tsunami that destroyed much of the Sendai region.

The two universities began talking about expanding their cooperative program three years ago. And last year, the Japanese government awarded Tohoku University a $10 million grant to increase international study over the next five years. Tohoku will be sending its international study students exclusively to UCR.

“This is one of a kind,” said Bronwyn Jenkins-Deas, director of International Education Programs for UCR Extension.

What makes it different, she said, is the effort to connect the exchange students’ projects beyond the campus, such as the ecological work at the El Sobrante Landfill.

“Both of us are going to work really hard to get the students into the community,” Jenkins-Deas said of the two universities.

Beyond the environmental projects, the current crop of students will be assigned to alternative energy and engineering work beyond the campus boundaries. Jenkins-Deas foresees assignments with city government, local schools and museums.

“I see at least 70 new projects that could come as a result of this,” she said. “Every time we contact someone, about five more ideas come out of things we can do in the future. It just builds, and it’s a tremendous opportunity.”

Creating opportunities for students and the community through the relationships and collaborations with our international sister cities demonstrates Riverside’s commitment to intelligently growing the economy through inventive and multi-disciplinary approaches.

Read the full article as published in the Press-Enterprise.