The REALNEO team and the Excellence Roundtable are supporting Peter Whitehouse PhD/MD, the Intergenerational School, Case University, their Center for Regional Economic Innovation (REI), and enlightened area leaders to organize a series of forums in July to make NEO the world's most empowering learning community.

These four learning community forums, to be held consecutive Tuesdays, July 5, 12, 19 and 26, will focus on the economic impact of effective education and the catastrophic consequences of poor scholastic outcomes, which is one of the most significant issues in NEO and America today. Planning for these forums will be the primary purpose of the weekly NEO Excellence Roundtables at the City Club, 11:30 AM - 1:30 PM, on Tuesdays, June 14, 21 and 28 - join us and help plan the July Learning Community forums and the region's solutions.

These Learning Community forums precede an August 2nd levy for the Cleveland Metropolitan School District and other regional education levies ahead, and come at a time when people of this region and nation-wide have realized America has lost competitive advantages to other parts of the world and that better strategies for education are needed.

The July Learning Community forums will pursue innovations in education that will transform our regional quality of life and economy and our global competitiveness. The forum will follow the Open Source Economic Development framework of REI Executive Director
Ed Morrison, who will help facilitate the series. The forums will draw together panels of experts and luminaries, including educators and students, to explore three core considerations driving education-related outcomes - 1) brainpower, 2) quality connected places, and 3) innovation networks. The series will culminate with a major symposium on the relationship between economic development and quality education in our region.

The Learning Community forums are the brainchild of Dr. Peter Whitehouse, who is Director, Integrative Studies, Department of Neurology, Case Western Reserve University, and Professor of Neurology, Cognitive Science, Psychiatry, Neuroscience, Psychology, Nursing, Organizational Behavior and History, University Memory and Aging Center, University Hospitals of Cleveland and co-founder of the Intergenerational School, which is exceptional. You may expect remarkable outcomes from this initiative, and a remarkable experience helping make it a reality.

We hope to see you at the Roundtable.

About the NEO Excellence Roundtable: People who care about Northeast Ohio are openly
strategizing on how our region may achieve world-class status -
we are establishing benchmarks for success and taking action in pursuit
of measurable outcomes. Current pursuits include bridging the
digital divide in East Cleveland, deploying the optimal social
network for Northeast Ohio, exploring innovative approaches to funding regional economic development and entrepreneurship, and exploring innovative approaches to improve education in NEO.We're nurturing face to face visioning and so have
revived a
storied tradition of roundtable lunches at the City Club, each
Tuesday between 11:30 AM - 1:30 PM, where non-hierarchical area innovation champions are
breaking bread and brainstorming.
The NEO Excellence Roundtable format is casual
and conversational - to join us for lunch, please contact coordinator Norm Roulet at
norm [at] realinks [dot] org. Each attendee
is expected to pay for their own buffet lunch, which is $13 and always
excellent - if that is a barrier to you attending, please join us
regardless and we'll cover the difference.

In the interest of supporting this open collaboration, we've also established a
virtual Community Of Interest Link (COIL) called NEO Excellence -
please visit at http://neoexcellence.realinks.us. To participate in the community, please
"create an account" using the link found at the home page - or, if you
have an account at another REALinks site... like at REALNEO... you may log-in with your
username followed by @ that site's URL (e.g. your username [at] realneo [dot] us), and then enter your password from that site.