(Boston, MA) January 19, 2009 - While in the spotlight as emcee of the 2009 LINK-live Presidential Inaugural Gala at The Corcoran Gallery of Art on January 20, 2009, CEO/Founder of FableVision and New York Times Best Selling Author/Illustrator Peter H. Reynolds will announce the launch of a national kid-centric media initiative called the World Problem Solvers Agency (WPSA). "The Gala's theme is "technology serving humanity" - WPSA does exactly that - and supports President-elect Obama's directive to call on all Americans - young and old - to use every creative means to move the country forward." World Problem Solvers Agency invites teachers and students to join a virtual multimedia studio where WPSA "staffers" will create, vet and share 60-second PSAs (public service announcements) designed to bring attention to the world's problems - in their neighborhood or around the globe. Inspired by FDR's WPA (Works Progress Administration), which called upon out-of-work citizens to employ their talents, strength and energy to move America forward, WPSA calls upon millions of young people to create digital media that raises awareness about the "big issues" facing our communities. Reynolds notes, "Our nation's schools are scrambling to foster 21st Century skills and to meet federal mandates for technology literacy - WPSA offers kids an engaging way to plug in, use digital creation and sharing tools and move the world to a better place in the process."
Partners in the initiative include One Laptop Per Child, GenerationYES, National History Day, Cisco Systems, the Constructivist Consortium, and world-renowned educational reformer Dr. Gary Stager. Plans for an annual WPSA Annual Media Awards are also underway to recognize exemplary work.
Peter H. Reynolds has dedicated his life to writing and illustrating stories (Someday, The Dot, Ish, The North Star) that challenge children and "grown up children" around the world to reach their full potential and to leave their "mark on the world." As an advocate for creativity and self-expression, Reynolds has spoken around the world as he champions creative educational reform and innovation. Mr. Reynolds has made his own mark in many ways through his award winning books and by founding Boston-based FableVision, an Emmy-award winning educational media development and publishing company that creates innovative software, animated films and other media for education, with his identical twin brother Paul and a team of artists, writers, producers and developers.
About Linklive: Using high-speed Internet access and a variety of social media tools - Twitter (name: linklive; address: #linklive2009), ScribbleLive, USTREAM and Flickr - each "official" LINK-live city celebration will receive live broadcasts from the Corcoran celebration online via LINK-live.org to create the first, transcontinental presidential inaugural celebration.
LINK-live.org is supported by a broad base of companies and non-profit organizations supportive of Technology Serving Humanity by advancing science, information and communications technologies (ICT) to address education and workforce development skills, e-government services, healthcare and telemedicine, and research and development of Green ICT solutions for energy and environmental challenges. All Americans can blog, twitter, and i-report using multiple web 2.0 tools on LINK-live.org. The LINK-live Presidential Inaugural Gala is a non-partisan event hosted by the LINK AMERICAS Foundation (LAF), The Alliance for Public Technology (APT), The Children's Partnership (TCP), Education Development Center (EDC) and the George Lucas Educational Foundation - Edutopia. More information at LINK-live.org
About Peter H. Reynolds: Peter H. Reynolds is an educational reformer and children's advocate who founded FableVision in 1996 to create media, storytelling and technology to help ALL learners navigate their full potential. With countless awards to his name, Reynolds may be best-known as a globally-acclaimed children's book author/illustrator whose bestselling "stories for all ages" include The Dot, Ish, Judy Moody, Free to Be You and Me, So Few of Me and the storybook Someday, which he illustrated, that spent four months at number one on the New York Times Best-Seller Children's List and was chosen at Amazon's #1 Best Picture Book of 2007 based on customer orders. A tenth anniversary edition of The North Star, Reynolds' classic storybook about life-long learning and following one's dreams, is due out this spring, along with Rose's Garden, an ode to resiliency, faith and civic contributions. Created to celebrate the new Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway urban park in Boston, Reynolds dedicated the book to Rose and met with Senator Ted Kennedy in designing the book, which is also due out Spring 2009.
