Media

June 20, 2016

Rick Gehringer Finalist for CTO Awards

Rick Gehringer was selected as one of the finalist for The Los Angeles Business Journal’s 2016 CTO Awards.  The Los Angeles Business Journal event was held on June 7, 2015 in Santa Monica, CA to honor Chief Technology Officers, or more broadly, those in the top information technology positions within their organizations (CTO, CIO, VP, Director, etc.).  These important powerful and influential individuals play vital roles in making Los Angeles businesses, institutions and nonprofit groups successful. Together with their CEOs, their decisions impact all aspects of the business including their company’s growth, profitability, functionality in the marketplace through decisions in […]
June 20, 2016

Think Outside of the Box: 5 Tips for Branding Your Company

There’s no secret formula for branding that works 100% of the time for every single company. If there was, everyone would be following it and creating a unique brand would be a piece of cake! Unfortunately, branding isn’t as simple as 1-2-3. But with an out-of-the-box approach and meticulous research, you can put yourself ahead of your competition. Below are some ideas to point you in the right direction: Do Your Research. Pretend you know absolutely nothing about the industry and research, research, research. Find out everything you can: get to know your competition, investigate the market you are targeting […]
May 5, 2016

Social Entrepreneur or Economic Entrepreneur?

Innovation is the core aspect of any enterprise. Innovation results from a search for a solution to an existing problem, a pain, or an improvement over status quo. An enterprise gathers and deploys all the resources needed to apply the innovative idea to create value. An enterprise that generates economic (or monetary value) is what we think of as a “corporation” in a normal sense of that word. Wealth creation through innovation is the main objective of a corporate entity. On the other hand, the objective of a social enterprise is to create social value, that in turn creates social […]
March 3, 2016

When ‘ideas worth spreading’ was no longer enough…

… we developed InnovatorsOC to bring action to those ideas. In 2011, along with a group of dedicated volunteers, we produced the inaugural TEDxOrangeCoast program entitled Innovation Without Borders. The goal was to offer a unique platform to inspire, connect and start a conversation among the best and brightest. We welcomed over 1,500 guests to the one-day event. This initial success confirmed the need for bringing people together to innovate and break boundaries in our Orange County communities. We quickly realized that sharing powerful ideas was not enough, to drive true change we needed to make these ideas actionable. Producing TEDxOrangeCoast (TEDxOC) events was […]
January 11, 2016

IOC Founding Partner Honored as a Woman of Influence

IOC Founding Partner Megan Lynch, was recently named to the L.A. Biz list of honorees for its 2016 class of Women of Influence. The program recognizes women business leaders in the Los Angeles area who innovate, succeed and “pay it forward.”
October 30, 2015

IOC Members Champion Charter Schools

Young Minds in the Balance: Discover how public education is changing in Orange County, who is leading the charge and why community leadership and philanthropic involvement are critical right now. IOC members and Orange County Advisors in Philanthropy (OC AiP) presented “Young Lives in the Balance” featuring Bill Podlich, Andy Horowitz and Dr. Pamela Lawrence Horowitz. They spoke about charter schools as a proven way to help those most at-risk in Orange County’s failing schools. Discover how these nationally recognized visionaries are leading a coalition of parents, teachers, philanthropists and government officials to rewrite the story for children’s education in Orange County, […]
October 15, 2015

Supporting the ChartersOC Initiative

Innovators in Our Community (IOC) and California Charter Schools Association announced a unique partnership on November 7, 2014, to increase the development of additional high-performing and high quality schools in our local orange county communities – ChartersOC. Together these two amazing organizations are working to support the ChartersOC Initiative.
October 2, 2015

A Quality Education for All: Bridging the Opportunity Gap in Orange County

Why Did IOC Partner with the CCSA to create ChartersOC? The creation of ChartersOC was based on the need to address the following educational deficiencies that plague Orange County’s low income learners: 45% of Orange County’s fourth graders are not reading at grade level, this is a critical indicator of a student’s future academic success or failure 254,000 students, more than half of Orange County’s students, are eligible for free or reduced meals, meaning they live below the poverty line. A large number of these students are concentrated in the northern part of Orange County and have limited access to high quality schools. The state has identified 125 failing schools in Orange County Is There a Solution? Why Charter Schools are a Good Answer for the Community We believe the demonstrated success of high quality charter schools speaks for itself. The number of high school graduates completing all college preparatory coursework is 4 times higher at charter schools that it is […]