Dr. Steven Lee Berman, Sunnyvale, CA & Leavenworth, WA: TEACHES GLOBAL LEADERSHIP, INNOVATION, DRAMA, SCIENCES, WORLD BUILDING, LAW, ENTREPRENEURSHIP/BUSINESS, AMONG OTHERS) BS/Advanced Graduate Work Engineering (Materials & Computation); J.D. (IP/Entertainment Law emphasis)
Board Director, Co-Founder & CEO, Academic for the following enterprises:
DIGIVATIONS XGENS, Silicon Valley, CA DIGIVATIONS Education Ventures, Vancouver, BC DIGIVATIONS CAMP DEMIGOD INSTITUTE, Leavenworth, WA DEMIGOD LODGE, Leavenworth, WA
Co-Founded
a STEM+ARTS+MOVEMENT K-20 creative learning lab, federal 501(c)(3)
non-profit Educational Organization and Innovation & Literary Summer
Institute for Talented & Gifted youth dedicated to inspiring the
next generation of innovators which was awarded peer reviewed NASA
Summer of Innovation grants. DIGIVATIONS™ offers K-20 programming
with a focus on fostering youth and professionals through the
Singularity Era. Steve is also Founder, CEO and General Counsel of Collaboratorium Innovation Resources, a company providing the following service offerings: IP Packaging to solve core international industrial market and societal needs; seed/prototype fund focused on bridging the gap between research and early stage development (translational research services); technology commercialization services, and strategic intelligence and reports; as well as advisory services to research and technology development corporations, universities, and business enterprises, among others. His relationships with senior level networks (corporate decision makers and Board level) help clients’ foster capital growth for new and existing enterprises and secure funding of innovative technologies. Read more about Steve.
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Anne Deane Berman, PhD, (Sunnyvale, CA & Leavenworth, WA: TEACHES MUSIC COMPOSITION, WORLD BUILDING & INTERACTIVE NARRATIVE DESIGN)BM Composition, Oberlin
Conservatory of Music & MA/PhD Composition & Computer Music from UC Santa Barbara
Co-Founder & Vice President, Academic Dean for the following enterprises:
DIGIVATIONS XGENS, Silicon Valley, CA DIGIVATIONS Education Ventures, Vancouver, BC DIGIVATIONS CAMP DEMIGOD INSTITUTE, Leavenworth, WA DEMIGOD LODGE, Leavenworth, WA
Dr. Anne's career spans more than twenty years in the fields of education, arts and
technology centered on innovation. New acoustic and electronic works installed/performed in more than 75 venues in over a dozen countries and for radio and TV (Carnegie Hall, SIGGRAPH, San Jose Tech Museum, IEE Conference: Germany, International Human Computer Interface Conference: Las Vegas, World Internet Conference: Madrid, Goteborg Museum of Art: Sweden, International Super Computing). Before she founded DIGIVATIONS with her husband, Steve Berman, Anne
was a faculty member at UCSB’s Technology Management Program,
University of British Columbia’s School of Music, Iowa State
University’s Virtual Reality Applications Center where she was one of
the founding faculty members of the graduate degree program in Human
Computer Interface. Read more about Anne's background.
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Dr. Karen Dresser (Greensboro, NC: THEATER, PLAYWRITING, 2D and 3D ART, COSTUME DESIGN, CULTURAL STUDIES & ENVIRONMENT) brings over 30 years of teaching and camping experience to her work at the Camp Demigod and XGENS Model United Nations Academy. Karen earned a Masters of Divinity from Wake Forest University, and a Ph.D in Cultural Foundations of Education from the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. Her thesis and dissertation focused on Holocaust Art, 2nd Generation Witnessing and Pedagogy.
Karen teaches Visual and Theatrical Arts (AP Studio Art 2D, Studio Art, Art Two: Acrylics, Art and Film, and Theatre of Witness) and Jewish Studies through Art (Bible and Art, Holocaust Imagery, Jewish Lens, Jewish Art and Visual Culture) at the international American Hebrew Academy. She served as Chair of the Fine Arts Department for eleven years, and currently serves as Faculty Arts Advisor for the prestigious Jewish Studies Certificate, the Academy Literary and Art magazine, Faculty advisor for the Art Club, and as a Homeroom Advisor. In addition, Karen is an adjunct professor in the Wake Forest School of Divinity and is a B’nai Mitzvah tutor at Temple Emanuel (Greensboro), where she also teaches 6th grade Religious and Hebrew School. She is a freelance artist, poet and playwright, and has won numerous awards for her art, poetry and playwriting. She maintains her own art studio at her home in Greensboro.
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Edward Buendia (New Jersey: DRAWING, PAINTING, WEAPON DESIGN, INTERESTS IN SCIENCE, HISTORY, HUMAN RIGHTS, & ADVOCACY FOR CHILDREN) DIGIVATIONS™ Camp Demigod Artist and Senior Faculty (2010-present), has created over a hundred images in collaboration with Co-Founders Steven Lee Berman and Anne Deane Berman, PhD. “His collaborative relationship with Dr. Steve is extraordinary. Eddie is able to interpret Steve’s complex concepts to create evocative images.” These images include illustrations for their “Rocketry Playbook”, “Sphere of Influence Game”, and murals, paintings and drawings created at Camp Demigod. He teaches drawing and painting and illustrates the camper’s characters and worlds.
He is the Founder and Creator of the non-profit “Eyes of the Innocent” children’s art program. Since 1975, he has taught over 3,000 children and adults in fine arts. In addition to his expert teaching, he has a long history of establishing and collaborating on the development of socially valuable multi-disciplinary artistic initiatives. In the 1970s, he founded Artistas Del Barrio, a collective of muralists in Southern California whose murals have taken on historical significance and influenced generations of muralists. In the last two years, he painted four shrines at Our Lady of Guadalupe/St. Lawrence Catholic Church in Lindenwold, New Jersey. In winter 2018, At Our Lady of Soledad in Coachella, California he repaint murals he painted in 1977. In two years he has been commissioned to paint a shrine for Our Lady of Soledad in in Coachella. Read more about Eddie here.
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Charis Martin (Cyprus and Scotland: 2015-2018 UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON CENTER FOR WESTERN EUROPEAN STUDIES DIGIVATION CAMP DEMIGOD YOUNG SCHOLAR IN ANCIENT GREEK & ROMAN CULTURES & MYTHOLOGY, CREATIVE WRITING & INNOVATION) graduated from the University of Edinburgh in 2018 with a Masters Degree in Ancient History, focussing on the Ancient Greek and Roman Civilizations. She credits growing up on the island of Cyprus, steeped in Greek culture and mythology, with nurturing her love for the ancient world and the tales that formed and inspired it. She has spent seven years working with children from the ages of three to fifteen and loves the opportunity to share her knowledge with them and see them develop interests of their won. Her own interests include writing original stories and fan fiction, reading, sailing, scuba-diving, archery and acting. She also speaks Greek and often attempts cooking traditional Greek foods. She shares her love for mythology with demigods through questions, writing, workshops, innovation classes and roleplaying. This will be her 5th summer at Camp Demigod as an advisor and SKYPE guest scholar.
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 United Nations, New York
Hajar El Ouafa (Morocco and Paris: 2018 CAMP DEMIGOD ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, 2019 EUROPEAN RECRUITMENT COORDINATOR FOR XGENS MODEL UN. LANGUAGE STUDIES IN ARABIC & FRENCH, INTERESTS IN BUSINESS, GLOBAL AFFAIRS, LEADERSHIP & ENTREPRENEURSHIP) has been an international coordinator of Model United Nations of Africa since August 2014. She just finshed her first year of graduate study at Paris University after receiving a bachelor degree in English linguistics from Cadi Ayyad University in Morocco. She studied English studies and North American Civilisations at the Sorbonne in Paris. She is currently enrolled in Paris 8 University, working on a second bachelors degree in Applied Foreign Languages. “Taking part in an international camp will enable me to help campers grow into leaders, discover their futures, become confident in themselves, and form lasting friendships with people from all over the world.”
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Shalyn Bowles (Geronimo, Oklahoma: PSYCHOLOGY, THEATER, INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, LEADERSHIP & MENTORSHIP) studies Psychology and Theatre at Cameron University. She has worked with the Wichita Falls Performing Arts Centre and now at Cameron University she works in the costume/Scene shop where she has learned valuable professional skills such as leadership, safety, and creativity. In both her academic and professional life, she has been consistently praised as a detail-oriented and enthusiastic worker by her professors and peers. She is a member of Model U.N. at Cameron University; History Club; Pride Club; Former Cotton County 4-H President; Leader of the Cotton County 4-H Alumni Team; Clover Buddy at Special Clovers 4-H camp; Volunteer at the Special Olympics for the past eight years. Whether working on academic, extracurricular, or professional projects, she applies proven team work, communication, and multi-tasking skills, which she will leverage into her role as lead counselor overseeing all the CIT staff.
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Jacob Berman (Leavenworth, WA: INTERESTS: GLOBAL AFFAIRS, LEADERSHIP, ENTREPRENEURSHIP, HISTORY, INNOVATION/SCIENCE, AI, WORLD BUILDING, GAMES/VR, LATIN FOR SPELL CREATION) is the son of the founders of DIGIVATIONS CAMP DEMIGOD INSTITUTE and DIGIVATIONS XGENS. Much of the curriculum they developed over the last 10 years has been driven by his interests starting when he was seven years old, including science innovations, history, theater, creative writing, LEGO, Robotics, Minecraft, VR, Camp Half-Blood, Camp Fandom and Harry Potter Camps. This year, his international experience as a Delegate to the Model UN in Geneva, Switzerland and as a Vice Chair at WIMUN New York 2019 is helping to shape DIGIVATIONS XGENS Model UN summer Academy and Conference as well as the XGENS Delegation to WIMUN Geneva in October and New York 2020.
Jacob attends Christa McAuliffe Academy School of Arts and Sciences, a private on-line school. Jacob finished third place nationally in the 2019 Kenpo karate and is a snowshoe guide in Leavenworth, Washington. Jacob is an education and fish production intern for the United States Department of the Interior Leavenworth Fish Hatchery. He is active in his regional USY leadership group. He enjoys cooking, memes, computer games, D&D, traveling and immersing himself in historical and current events. He also has two Leonberger Service Dogs. When he was nine, Jacob inspired the founding of the World's First Overnight Camp Half-Blood, motivated by Rick Riordan’s novel series Percy Jackson, and Jacob’s passion of Greek history, language, culture, innovations and mythology. This DIGIVATIONS’ Camp encompasses other literary themes with a significant STEM+ARTS+MOVEMENT backdrop. This has provided Jacob with the opportunity to develop friendships from all around the world and gifted him the ability to empathize with other cultures. At age 14, he inspired the creation of the DIGIVATIONS XGENS Global College Preparatory, Model United Nations Academies, Delegation and Cascade Conferences (DXCIMUN 2019), a non-profit North American affiliate of DIGIVATIONS.
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Emily Grunert (Orville, WA: INTERESTS IN LEADERSHIP, INNOVATION/SCIENCE, AI & ROBOTICS) has been a camper at Camp Demigod since her love of Percy Jackson led her to the discovery of the camp the first year it was established. Summer of 2017 was her first year as a C.I.T. "I've had so many great experiences at camp and they're something I'll always carry close to my heart." She feels like Camp Demigod has had a big part in her life and helping her be more confident, open minded, and independent. Emily attends Oroville High School and is part of National Junior Honor Society, Girl Scouts, Upward Bound, and is a passionate clarinet player among many other things. She's always looking for new experiences and loves learning new things. Emily loves reading, science, music, helping younger campers, and making people smile. She hopes that she can make the Camp Demigod experience just as magical for the campers as it was when she first stepped onto camp grounds.
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Adam Boyd (Tsawwassen, BC: INTERESTED IN INNOVATION/ENTREPRENEURSHIP, AI, VOICE-OVER ACTING & 3-D PRINTING) has been a DIGIVATOR since he was 9. This will be his 6th summer at Camp Demigod. Adam is a student at the SelfDesign Learning Community, a distance/distributed learning school located in Vancouver, BC. Adam is a born innovator, he creates new inventions for 3D printing. He is a voice actor for games and animations. He also has an extensive nurf gun collection which he amplifies with devices he designs and makes using his 3D printer.
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Cassidy Keutzer (Chetwynd, BC: INTERESTED IN HUMAN RIGHTS, LEADERSHIP, MYTHOLOGY, GAME DESIGN, ART, CREATIVE WRITING, COSPLAY, CULINARY ARTS & THEATRE) Attended the very first session of Camp Demigod when she was 10 years old in 2013, and again in 2014. She has been addicted to the summer camp experience ever since then! Cassidy attends Ascend Online, a private distributed learning high school and is very involved in her extra-curricular activities, such as her youth groups, kickboxing, playing her guitar and piano, and she currently holds her bronze award with The Duke of Edinburgh Award. She is a very passionate young writer, and is excitedly working on her first novel!. Cassidy is deeply involved in her community, and since there are no programs like it, she has plans to start up a from-youth-for-youth theatre group in the near future. She has one goal for this summer, and that goal is to fully immerse campers into the stories they love. Just as it was done for her when she attended.
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Ari Turbiner (Calabasis, CA: INTERESTS IN THEATER, ART, AND DIGITAL EDITING) Hi I’m Ari! I’m very excited for my first summer at Camp Half-Blood. I have loved Greek Mythology ever since I was very little and am a huge Percy Jackson fan. I have 3 younger siblings and have a lot of experience working with younger children. I have known the Berman family for 10 years and I’m very excited to spend my summer with them! I love acting and music. I play the Alto Sax and the guitar. I love Golf, Swimming, and Camp! I have spent 6 summers at a Jewish sleep away camp in Malibu, CA and 2 summers at a Performing Arts camp in upstate New York where I was in my last year as a camper and was about to head into a CIT program. I have performed in West Side Story, Auntie Mame, Urinetown, and Jekyll and Hyde. I attend a selective program at my high school called the Academy of Media and Entertainment. I love how it combines my academic interests and my passions for the arts. I will be teaching digital editing using DaVinci Resolve 15.
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Tomas Portillo (Mexico City, Mexico) has loved his Digivations Camp experiences. I come to camp from Mexico and enjoy learning about other campers' culture as well as sharing my own. I also enjoy reading, drawing, photography, video games, snakes, the sciences- especially physics- memes and puns. When I'm not at camp, I practice Okinawa karate and am currently 4th kyu (orange belt). I also routinely care for the ten snakes I keep as pets (two rat snakes, a rainbow boa, a ball python, tiger rat snake, a milk snake, a California king snake, two corn snakes and a Mexican garter snake ). I look forward to helping other campers have a wonderful time at Digivations, and making great memories and new friends.
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Morgan Wadsworth-McCoy (Tacoma, WA) has been attending CAMP DEMIGOD since 2017. He is a jack of all trades and is willing to lend a hand whenever possible. He enjoys music, reading, working, and doing his best to grow as a kinder and stronger person.
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Virginia Lester, RN, MSN, ARNP, (Point Roberts, WA: DIGIVATIONS Camp Demigod Nurse Practitioner (2013-present) INTERESTS IN MENTORSHIP, ENTREPRENEURSHIP, MUSIC & MEDICINE) has more than 35 years experience as a Nurse Practitioner and director of clinics in both California and most recently developed and managed the Point Roberts Clinic. She developed and managed the Nurse Practitioner program at California State University Fresno. She was on several different national committees helping to develop the health care plan under the Clinton Administration, the precursor to Obama Care.
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Marco Aurileo, EMT, Lieutenant/Fire Fighter, Demigod Lodge Property Manager (2015-present, Leavenworth, WA), is an inventor/entreprenure and consultant in the Natural Products Industry. His experience includes Pharmaceutical extractions from plants, functional beverage and food formulation, Novel Functional ingredient identification and development , regulatory assistance, Scientific literature research and support, broad scale technical support. He is a HAZMAT Instructor at the Wenatchee Valley College.
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Larry Tuch, DIGIVATIONS Camp Demigod Creative Writing & Scripted Spaces Faculty (2013-present). Larry (Los Angeles, CA)
is a writer and creative consultant working in the areas of
traditional, interactive and themed entertainment. He has written for
prime time network television series and worked as a freelance writer
and interactive designer for Paramount Pictures and Walt Disney
Imagineering. Read more...
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