What is Innovate Oregon + Construct?
Innovate Oregon is a bold and inclusive initiative to ignite and amplify a culture of creative problem solving and empower the next generation of innovators to tackle some of the biggest challenges facing our state. Together with our partner, Construct, we are aligning leadership with grassroots efforts in our civic, industry, and talent development communities in powerful new ways. By operating from a new standpoint of collaboration, we can take risks, create, invent, and re-imagine our collective definition of what is possible. We can catalyze community engagement around students and schools, bring in Construct’s professional development programs for educators, and enlist industry mentors to partner with teachers – all to provide a 21st century path of transformation for Oregon’s students.
The best part? It’s not an idea. It’s already happening. Join us!
Reimagining the possible. Creating it now.
Ag-Tech: Continuing Our Legacy
Precision agriculture and viticulture, cross-laminated timber, harvesting the bounty of our seas, including energy… all are at the heart of our Oregon economy. New, 21st century technologies are shaping these sectors as never before, letting us be smarter and faster in order to reduce costs and improve results. Our future natural resource stewards need to be at the forefront of these advances.
Advanced Manufacturing
Our manufacturing sectors employ more people than any others. Rapidly advancing manufacturing technologies, reliant upon precision equipment and robotics, have created a career of “precision maintenance” – mechatronics.. Our Mechatronics will service & maintain the “smartest machines” on the planet. To do so, they’ll need both head & hands – the smarts and skills to keep industry running.
Career & Technical Education
As precision agriculture & advanced manufacturing industries spin-up, all of Oregon & the U.S. suffer from an aging workforce without replacements. Plumbers, electricians, welders, millwrights, auto mechanics – all are in great demand. These jobs & others like them offer great salaries, benefits & careers. It will be decades before the robots fix our plumbing…
Hi-Tech: Software & Hardware
Oregon’s hi-tech sectors employ more people than any others. The hi-tech innovation curve is like no other & in the 21st century, drives every industry and household. Advances like the Internet of Things impact how we grow food, manage our household, park our cars in garages… We don’t have the skilled workforce we need for our local hi-tech companies. Great jobs and benefits wait for that workforce.
Creative
In our innovation economy, the creative sector is a critical component to fuel long-term economic growth – think TED: Technology, Entertainment & Design. We prefer a different TED: Technology, Education & Design. The creative sector brings together designers, coders and makers to continually develop new solutions that drive business opportunities. That’s why bringing techniques like design-thinking and agile process management into the classroom matters.
Food & Beverage-Tech
There’s a reason James Beard set the culinary pace in the U.S. He grew up in Oregon. The state that has defined locavore & farm-to-table, scaled microbreweries & small-batch distilleries to the rest of the world, and produces wines equal to the old world’s best, Oregon has the perfect mix for perfecting the next generations of food & beverage, creating traded-sector companies from which the world will purchase. Blending hi-tech, with Oregon’s foodies, creates food-tech.
Who We Are
Industry Professionals
Local businesses impacting big change.
Offering expertise and mentor-ship to help solve our complex problems.
Students
Challenging young minds to discover tomorrow’s solutions.
Learning to see ourselves as creative innovators, beyond the limits of the classroom.
Educators
Improving the way we teach, communicate, learn.
Providing the tools for students to unlock their potential as creative problem solvers and innovators.
People
We are everyday people… Like you and I.
Supporting our students and community, developing ideas, and enacting change.
Our Stories & Experiences
Putting kids at the forefront of their learning!
On January 15, 2019, LaCreole Middle School held its first STEAM Exhibition Night of the year. These events are designed to allow students to act as ambassadors of their learning. This event revolved around student projects and activities generally considered to be...
Dayton Leads in High School Graduation
Dayton High School's graduation rate was the highest in the Yamhill County at 96.8 percent — 18 points above the state average of 78.7 percent — and one of the best in the state. Dayton had the sixth-highest graduation rate among Oregon schools with 100 more students,...
Emma Monteith’s Community Garden
For every type of person, there is an area of study that makes them feel the most authentic and inspired. At Dayton, there is no shortage of courses and independent learning opportunities for students with vastly different interests. But the question is:...
Under Construction: the Agile Learning Lab
There are a couple of fantastic projects that are happening at Newberg High School. One is the creation of a mental wellness center. The other is the building of an Agile Learning Lab. For the first project, we found a few motivated, smart community partners and gave...
Dayton’s i3 Center Renovatons
"Learning to do, doing to learn, earning to live, living to serve." Mural by Morelia Abrego Students at Dayton are reinventing their own educational experiences with exciting new resources from the i3 Center. Because of these upgrades, the building...
Newberg HS Tiger Trades 2018
Student organized and led, Newberg High School hosted Tiger Trades Day on Friday, October 5th. Led by the CEO of Tiger Manufacturing, a student-run, for profit, on campus manufacturing business, the entire day was organized to showcase the various career and technical...
Working Together to Create Tomorrow
Who
Educators, students, businesses, civic, and community leaders
What
We are working together to create an inclusive innovation-based economy
Why
We are committed to creating new opportunities for our communities
News & Events
The Future of Health & Wellness Student Design Challenge
Construct, in partnership with the Portland I/Q and College Possible, will launch the 6th annual Breaker student design challenge: The Future of Health and Wellness. The challenge tackles how might we: reduce the rate of diabetes across segments of our population,...
Dayton Leads in High School Graduation
Dayton High School's graduation rate was the highest in the Yamhill County at 96.8 percent — 18 points above the state average of 78.7 percent — and one of the best in the state. Dayton had the sixth-highest graduation rate among Oregon schools with 100 more students,...
Emma Monteith’s Community Garden
For every type of person, there is an area of study that makes them feel the most authentic and inspired. At Dayton, there is no shortage of courses and independent learning opportunities for students with vastly different interests. But the question is:...
Partners
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Local Changes Can Have Global Impacts
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