Jewish Federation of St. Louis is looking to get your creative juices flowing through the Jewish community’s first Idea Slam Workshop. Community members, innovators and entrepreneurs alike are invited to come share their ideas for building and improving our community. Using the power of the group, the Idea Slam will generate a high volume of ideas and crowd-source the strongest ones. This is an opportunity to explore one’s potential as a social entrepreneur and an introduction to the JFACE PresenTense Accelerator.

Location: Venture Café (4240 Duncan Ave. #200, St. Louis, MO 63110)

Date & Time: September 14 | 5:45-8:00 pm (networking reception from 5:45-6:30 pm)

Modeled broadly after contemporary poetry slams in which poets come together to extemporize verse in competition with one another, the Idea Slam focuses more on cooperation than competition, but takes advantage of the energy of a poetry slam and its ability to inspire its participants on the spot.

Before getting down to the business of coming up with ideas on how to transform the St. Louis Jewish community, Ben Fox described the Idea Slam as “an opportunity for creative-minded Jews to address challenges their communities are facing.”

He added, “I’m hoping we can make St. Louis an even more innovative Jewish community.”

He said the slam process has a basis in contemporary social thought and is derived from the concept of design thinking developed at Stanford University.

The process also draws on NASA research on brainstorming that found that the first person to articulate an idea in a brainstorming session tends to define everything that follows. The slam process tries to avoid that pitfall by having participants write their ideas on sticky notes, which are then organized on the wall as “clouds” of related ideas that may be further refined as the slam process proceeds.

JFACE is the Jewish Federation of St. Louis’ innovation program. This year, JFACE is collaborating with PresenTense, community of innovators and entrepreneurs, thinkers and leaders, creators and educators, from around the world, who employ entrepreneurship as a tool to enrich communal life, grow local economies and solve critical issues facing society. PresenTense equips people and institutions with the principles of innovation, the wisdom of Jewish values, and the power of a shared community to develop creative solutions for a vibrant and engaged future.

JFACE is inviting a diverse group to the Idea Slam: young adults, professionals, students  and more will engage with one another to generate, exchange and develop ways to make our community better.  All are welcome. Show up ready to innovate. Contact Ben Fox with questions at BFox@JFedSTL.org.