The Utah Breakfast Club announced the launch of a new monthly event series that begins with two January 2015 events on "Making Utah an Entertainment and Technology Hub."
One week before the opening of the Sundance Film Festival, the first event, "Hollywood on the Wasatch Front," will consider the important role Utah plays in independent film production. It will also explore the growing nexus here in Salt Lake around computer graphics and digital animation.
The event will take place on Thursday, January 15, 2015, from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. at the Utah State Capitol Complex, State Office Building Auditorium. Confirmed panelists include Virginia Pearce, director of the Utah Film Commission, plus video entertainment entrepreneurs Jon Dean (CEO of XacFAQ) and Clark Stacey (CEO of Wildworks). Marshall Wright, director of business development at the Governor's Office of Economic Development, will provide insight from the office of Gov. Gary Herbert, and Craig Caldwell, a professor of engineering arts and entertainment, will lend perspective from the University of Utah.
The second event will take place on Friday, January 30, 2015, from 4:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. at the Gateway, and is part of StartSLC: Utah's Largest Grassroots Startup Festival. It is on "Silicon Slopes: How Real is the Marketing Hype?" The event is free to StartSLC participants. The panel includes Gavin Christensen, founder and managing partner of the Kickstart Seed Fund, and Clint Betts, editor of Beehive Startups.
The Utah Breakfast Club is an effort to enhance the state's advantages and confront its challenges by bringing together the state's leading policy-makers, business officials and citizens for a series of solutions-oriented discussions. Future events will consider air quality during the inversion, improving education in the state, maintaining a healthy outdoor recreation industry, and other topics.
Building on the model of the Broadband Breakfast Club in Washington, D.C., pioneered by founder Drew Clark, the Utah Breakfast Club is dedicated to the proposition that events bringing business officials and policy-makers have the capacity to build community and help find solutions to real problems.
The Utah Breakfast Club will meet on Capitol Hill on the second or third Thursday morning each month for breakfast, networking and lively discussion of the issue at hand.
Breakfast is included in the event, and registration is available to Utah Breakfast Club members for $15; and to the public for $25. Click here for information about the No Charge Three-Month Trial Membership in the Utah Breakfast Club.
The "Hollywood on the Wasatch Front" event will feature:
- Craig Caldwell, USTAR Senior Research Professor, Digital Media Cluster; and Arts Director, Engineering Arts and Entertainment, University of Utah
- Jon Dean, CEO XacFAQ and Guv1; formerly with EA
- Virginia Pearce, Director, Utah Film Commission
- Clark Stacey, CEO, Wildworks
- Marshall N. Wright, Director, Business Development, Governor's Office of Economic Development
- Moderator – Drew Clark, Founder, Utah Breakfast Club; Of Counsel, Kirton McConkie
