“Eisenhower Fellowships engages emerging leaders from around the world to enhance their professional capabilities, broaden their contacts, deepen their perspectives, and unite them in a diverse, global community – a network where dialogue, understanding, and collaboration lead to a more prosperous, just, and peaceful world.”

The Eisenhower Fellowship sends approximately eight to ten high-achieving mid-career (aged 32-45) U.S. citizens abroad for an intensive, individually designed program in the country of their choice.  Fellows are selected by blue ribbon steering committees and are currently recruited from Philadelphia, Research Triangle North Carolina, New England (Boston), and St. Louis.

Aly was chosen to represent the Research Triangle of North Carolina in recognition of his contributions in community and design leadership through his creation of SPARKcon (a Raleigh creativity showcase in it’s 6th year in 2011), Designbox (a collaborative group of creative professionals in Raleigh, NC) his leading roles in design thinking for the City of Raleigh, the Raleigh Convention Center, IDSA and Universities  and non-profits around  the world. The Program also chose Aly to support his stated fellowship goal to study the relationships between Chinese and US manufacturers, designers and brands and to explore new opportunities for those relationships to be more creative, collaborative and,ultimately profitable for all.

Aly will travel to Asia for 5 weeks in 2012 to meet with international business and political leaders, as well as other Eisenhower Fellows. Stay tuned, and congrats to Aly!

Here’s a great article from New Raleigh: designbox’s Aly Khalifa awarded Eisenhower Award

Producing CAM-A-DADA allowed us to work with favorite local people – and for our favorite project in town! Send any pics to our Flickr photo stream here.

Facebook photos here.

Acroentertainment and talent coordination by Katie Bouterse and Kaci Torres

Ringmasters, Emoticon Protest Grand Marshalls, and stunning inspiration: Thunder and Junebug

Theramin and live looping provided by Billy Sugarfix

LED hoop performance by Mindy

LED Sword and Poi by Phoenix and GUMMYLUV

Bubble Art by Caroleeena

Technical coordination by Joey Fralin

Stage Management by Britt Hayes

Creative Direction by Aly Khalifa

Special thanks to Renay Aumiller and her wonderful dance troupe!

Check out our Portfolio Post

Candidate must have the following skills
• industrial design degree and some engineering coursework
• 2 years of experience in product development
• great drawing and concepting abilities
• works expertly in illustrator and excel
• full familiarity in 3D CAD (Solidworks preferred)
• manufacturing experience in a variety of materials
• comfortable in both mac and PC environments.

Ideal candidate also has the following skills
• able to create production-ready bill of materials
• creating and reading 2D technical drawings with an understanding of tolerances
• great communication skills
• basic understanding of plastic moldmaking
• works well with local and distant team members
• sourcing materials
• understanding of quality control procedures
• community minded
• outdoors-oriented lifestyle

Gamil is a design consultancy focused on launching inventive products, brands and events for clients worldwide. Gamil has garnered international recognition for its creative projects, including work that has been nominated for a Grammy, featured by ID magazine, and recognized by local press for community activism. Our office resides within the dynamic work space of Designbox, a collective in downtown Raleigh which Gamil founded and is home to many other leading creative professionals.

Relocation fees are not included in this position.

Submit letter, resume, and portfolio in a single PDF. Files larger than 5 MB will be bounced.

Beth Khalifa quoted saying “RICA can do a number of things: increase awareness of local talent and expertise, increase public understanding of contemporary art, showcase Raleigh as an artistic force on a national scale, increase both the pool of artistic talent and the pool of enthusiasts, and continue to nurture the arts as an element of why Raleigh is a great place to live.”

Read the full article: New art institute hope to stoek Raleigh’s creative fire, Teaching the cutting edge by Rebekah L. Cowell

Near the beginning, there was the Cobbler. This one-stop shop combined customization, ergonomics, just-in-time manufacturing and customer service to create good products that were integral to local cultures. The problem was that it took 3-4 hours to make a shoe.

Utilizing mass production techniques, net assembly time of shoemaking was reduced to about an hour and fifteen minutes. However this division of labor has created a race to the bottom that neglects our economy and disrupts our environment.

There are now a myriad of digital technologies that have allowed us to completely rethink the way we make shoes – combining the best of cobbler and mass production techniques.

We have now created a proprietary technology that can make shoes in less than 15 minutes, opening up better customization, service, and more interesting jobs. Bringing on-demand assembly shops to downtowns across NC allows us to reestablish manufacturing into local culture. With pioneering Design for Disassembly (D4D), we will drive a new supply chain that will help make NC landfill-free.

Having invested years of research and lots of resources into intellectual property development and prototypes, we are currently looking for partners to help us commercialize this project.