Tuesday, November 12th, 2019

2:15 PM - 3:00 PM, Dr. Jackie: The Innovation Forum

Session I: Herscher Hall, Guerin B, Webcast Live

Innovation, Partnerships & Investment in Education - STEM/STEAM Programs on the Leading Edge

Todd Johnson, President and Chief Executive Officer, Beverly Hills Chamber of Commerce

Tim Greenleaf, President & Chairman of the Board, BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA

Chris Baccus, M.Ed, Co- Founder Limitless Stem Initiative

Warren Holden, Chief Executive Officer, Clesports Academy

Derek Steele, Asst. Director of Operations & Finance, Social Justice Learning Institute

Bryce Fluellen, Community Impact Director/Chef, American Heart Association, Moderator

 

Bryce Fluellen, Community Impact Director & Chef, American Heart Association LA: As American Heart Association’s LA , Community Impact Director & Chef , Bryce has leveraged his 20 years of community development experience and his creative blending of business and culinary skills to advocate for health improvement, especially in underserved, urban areas across the country. He joined the AHA almost 5 years ago to help grow Kids/Teens Cook with Heart (A healthy cooking program for youth ages 8- 18 yrs. old) and has positively

impacted over 5,000 children and adults throughout Los Angeles County. In 2017, his role expanded to include youth-oriented health initiatives overall as the Senior Manager, of Community Impact and now in his current role he is responsible for improving heart health outcomes for the communities of South LA, Long Beach, South Bay , & Inglewood. Bryce is a passionate advocate for health and enjoys running 5 & 10k’s . His goal is to complete his first half-marathon by the Spring of 2019. He’s an author and published his first book, Food A Vehicle for healing ( The fruitful journey) PT. 1 in 2016. His work has been featured in Huffington Post, Uproxx media, CBS & NBC news, LA Sentinel, and Disney Jr. He resides in the San Fernando Valley area with his wife & three kids.

 

Chris Baccus, M.Ed, Co- Founder Limitless Stem Initiative: Mr. Baccus started his career with a strong education in Los Angeles public schools and transitioned to the University of Southern California and Marshall School of Business where he completed the entrepreneur program his senior year.  Coming from a family with over 100 years in business, Mr. Baccus has the goal of creating opportunities for himself, others and giving back to his community. Beginning in 1991, he has worked on projects totaling approximately $50 million dollars in the real estate industry with low-income housing, rehab housing, ground-up single family home construction, and residential/commercial entitlement work. He started in the education industry with LAUSD as a playground supervisor, coach, a K-12 teacher, and K-12 counselor. He worked on programs like Avid, Talent search, USC’s Neighborhood Initiative, and other programs to increase the success of students applying for college. He also worked in after school and Saturday school, via the Beyond the Bell program, helping over 500 students each week to improve in reading and math. In 2002, Mr. Baccus completed his Masters in Educational Counseling at Cal State Dominquez Hills to continue the theme in his life to help others. He currently serves on staff as a Tenured-Track Faculty member at Santa Monica College working with the African-American Collegiate center and was a part-time Resource Counselor at USC’s Career Center. Working at the collegiate level he has counseled over 1500 students with educational, personal, and career counseling.  With the combination of business acumen and educational training this led him to being selected, in 2004, to serve as the volunteer executive director for Concerned Citizens Community Involvement (CCCI) a South Los Angeles based non-profit. With CCCI, he has raised over $10,000,000 for affordable housing and scholarships for community students that are attending college throughout the nation and incubated several academies including the Limitless STEM Academy and The Limitless Stem Initiative which was honored by the Obama Administration in the #CSforall movement. The Limitless Initiative purpose is to bridge the educational resource gap among South Los Angeles communities by empowering students to learn and master cooperative learning skills, technical skills and to develop professional aptitudes and attitudes. Using the KISS Institute for Practical Robotics curriculum and educational services, excitement is built, knowledge, and a practical understanding of science, technology, engineering and math.  In the competitive environment of the Botball Robotics tournaments, the students go toe to toe with children around the world and build pride in their ability to design, program, and develop technology to solve engineering problems. Limitless have serves over 250 elementary and middle school students in each year and has sent teams of students to the Botball international competition in 2015, 2016, and 2018. Mr. Baccus believes “To increase the diversity in the tech world a we must extend to elementary and middle school ages, college is too late”. This is the goal of thelimitlessinitiative.org and cccinvolve.org.