Technology and Sports Creating An Ultimate Experience for Students(South Florida Caribbean News)North Miami – The Miami Museum of Contemporary Art of the African Diaspora (Miami MoCAAD), Opa-Locka CDC (OLCDC) and Code Fever partnered with the Museum of Contemporary Art Miami (MOCA North Miami) for the second installment of their Youth Museum Hackathon series held at MOCA.This pilot program focuses on student enrichment through technology and innovation to enhance the museum experiences for students.Twenty junior school students from the Arts Academy of Excellence, founded by the OLCDC, participated in the half-day session.The next installment of the series will include Dibia DREAM and Gonzales Sporting Enterprise who will lend a tilt towards sports to provide inspiring ideas while generating excitement about art, technology, and museums.AfriCOBRA is an African American artist-activist group, founded in Chicago, that continues to work today. For Michelle Johnson, member of the Miami MoCAAD Museum Working Group, “It was a wonderful experience to see how the students from the Arts Academy of excellence reacted to, “The Art of AfriCOBRA: Messages to the People.’”The AfriCOBRA show is the 50th Anniversary Celebration of the Black artist collective that helped define the visual aesthetic of the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s.After 50 years of progress, AfriCOBRA gained international recognition with its acceptance in this year’s Venice Biennale.For over 120 years, Italy’s Venice Biennale has been one of the most prestigious cultural institutions in the world.“Watching the students turn from the artists’ fervor for change to the tasks set by Code Fever and learn basics of HTML and create faux product pitches emphasized how museum spaces can become hubs for youth creativity, ingenuity, and entrepreneurship,” says Amanda Covach, Curator of Education at MOCA. Covach conducted a tour of the AfriCOBRA exhibit for the students.Michelle Johnson presented a powerpoint preview of digital images presenting Miami MoCAAD’s vision of possible museum experiences at a vibrant, futuristic museum.In the afternoon the team from Code Fever led students through a session that included an opportunity for the students to pitch their ideas. Students who pitched winning ideas for museum experiences won cash prizes that were provided by Opa-locka CDC.
