What's New

Community Works

Dive Kulture

In keeping with Interlock Media, Inc.'s work with inner-city youth, we've launched an original project Dive Kulture founded and directed by Laura Medrano, who is a clinical social worker and marine biologist.

Select groups of high-risk teens are guided through a full Scuba Diving certification program, immersed in environmental education, and offered behavioral and nutritional counseling and vocational placement.

Orange Innovation Center

Rural Orange

Orange, where Interlock maintains its auxiliary “country studio,” is a historic town in North Central Massachusetts that has all of the social, technical, and resource-based elements to foster a green economy: extensive waterways, productive woodlands, substantial organic farms, and a resilient work force whose machinist roots date back two centuries.

Learn more about Orange's history here: 

http://www.orange-innovation.com/livhist.html

Business Incubator for Economic Revitalization

Interlock came up with the concept of The Orange Innovation Center (OIC) as a business incubator for green manufacturers. Business incubators are engines for robust economic revitalization, as they create new products, fresh jobs, and augmented services for the community while engendering an atmosphere of growth for fledgling companies. The OIC supports initiatives in sustainable industry, artisanship and community service in order to bolster economic revitalization in Orange.

Check out more about the incubator here: 

http://www.orange-innovation.com/incubator.html

Additional Goals

One of the Center’s goals is to provide local artists, artisans and responsible industries affordable space to work in a collaborative, resource rich, and encouraging environment.  The OIC also provides space for social services – many of which are first responders to economic crisis. The artists-in-residence serve as the cultural magnet while manufacturing and tech industries create jobs, mentor start-ups, and draw investment.

Read about current tenants here:

http://www.orange-innovation.com/tenant.html

Interlock Supports Transition to Green Economy

The future for the OIC is in jobs creation within the green economy and Interlock has taken on the role of assisting and coordinating its green development plans.  We recently helped the town of Orange secure a 2009 Sustainable Design Assessment Team (SDAT) grant, awarded by the Center for Communities by Design of the American Institute of Architects (AIA). 

Learn More Here: 

http://www.orange-innovation.com/regplaninit.html

Regional Planning for the Sustainable Economy

The SDAT program is a community assistance program that brings teams of volunteer professionals assembled from across the country (such as architects, urban designers, planners, hydrologists, economists, foresters, and others) to work with community decision-makers and stakeholders to help them develop a road map for a sustainable and equitable future. 

Visit the website here: 

http://www.orange-innovation.com/sdat.html

A Model for the Future

Town officials have chosen to pursue environmentally informed development in the face of shuttered factories, chronically underserved youth and elderly, and a badly tattered urban infrastructure.  Now, with the SPED grant, the OIC, and Interlock’s green development consulting, Orange is on its way becoming a leading example of eco-friendly economic revitalization in the United States. 

See more plans for Orange here: 

http://www.orange-innovation.com/regplan.html

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