All the nuts and bolts of a full production timeline: recording interviews, editing audio, and publishing and promoting our podcast. Anyone who doesn't know how to do this stuff can learn on the committee!

We lead by listening. Our goal is to arrive at a meeting with a vision, articulating that vision to our Committee, and then sitting back and listening to the feedback. We believe it will improve our ability to innovate together. We'll create the overarching goals of the committee, but our committee members will choose the path we take to the goal.

I should add that we just want to have fun. At the end of the day, we are just some friends making great content. Of course, quality is important, but we want everyone to be engaged and excited to work.

1000 Pitches is a semester-long pitch competition where we literally collect a thousand pitches from USC students and community members. (It's a lot of syllables, so we mostly call it 1KP.) We usually do a lot of tabling on campus and asking people to pitch to us, and at the end of the semester, we'll award a winner with prize money—we actually record and watch all thousand pitches. We hope that our initiative will reignite students’ energy to change the world around us. At a baseline, our goal is to get people to realize that their ideas matter.

We want to be able to provide resources and pathways to the different pitches students give us and give them a platform to share their ideas. Since USC still has some pandemic restrictions, success for us does not necessarily look like an extremely large campus event, though we hope for it to be! Ultimately, 1000 Pitches will be an open, collaborative place that nurtures entrepreneurship and problem-solving.

Spark is about spreading entrepreneurial thought and action—1KP allows students to do so by sharing their ideas and solutions.

Although we’re still working on concretely what 1KP will look like in person, a lot of work will go into making it happen this semester. We'll be in communication with past leads and committee members, doing our best to approach challenges creatively, and doing the work of coordinating the larger event: food, sponsorship, actually getting a thousand pitches... and we'll of course need the support of others in Spark (especially for the logistics of a larger event).

As sophomores who have yet to experience campus at full capacity, we wanted to be a part of hosting a large, exciting event for students to connect with one another and express their passions to the rest of the student body. We'll be learning a lot of what this initiative entails along with the rest of our committee, so we're not looking for any qualifications—we're looking for people who are ambitious, adaptable problem-solvers. (Bonus points if you're funny.)

Our leadership style focuses on inclusivity and collaboration; we embrace the idea that everyone has an equal voice (and there’s no hierarchy). Success in our team will be that everyone has had the opportunity to act as a leader. As co-leads, we enjoy transparent communication and creative thinking.

AGF is a festival that champions an appreciation for all types of art forms and just as importantly, community.

Let me break it down real quick: The A of AGF would be a showcase of student art, the G would be live music, and the F would be food options available at the event. I love the idea of supporting locally owned businesses by allowing them to sell food at the event.

The event is also an opportunity to raise money for charity, with 100% of proceeds supporting a charity of the committee’s choosing!

AGF's goal is to highlight the amazing artists and USC and beyond—and to attract more arts-minded USC students into the Spark ecosystem.

Art takes initiative, creativity, optimism, and all the other things we look for when we recruit. By throwing an art-focused event, we can draw arts students' interest in Spark's mission and vision for community. I want ACF to show them that their ideas and interests can find a home in Spark, too, and lead them to apply.

Spark's Board lacks representation from the arts, and I want to help grow Spark's diversity of thought. Although we've had over 50 majors and minors, most of our Board members have a background in Marshall, Viterbi, CSBA, and IYA.

At the end of the day, AGF should be an event where people meet each other, learn more about art, eat some really good food, and have a lot of fun.

This initiative is going to take serious teamwork, resources, and scrappiness! We'll need people with initiative. People who are not afraid to call and email artists that they admire. People who have an appreciation for the arts. People who are willing to learn how to plan events and market them. People who like getting into the details without losing sight of the big picture.

I’m all about getting my hands dirty with committee work, while still maintaining the flow of the overall initiative. As a leader, I'm more of a moderator than anything else! I love hearing ideas from all members of our org, whether Sparklets or Core members.

In Spring 2022, Reprogram will assemble a small cohort of USC student artists—dancers, musicians, poets, etc., and student entrepreneurs/techies. We'll pair each artist with an entrepreneur and challenge them to collaborate on an art piece (medium of choice) that tells the entrepreneur's story. Reprogram is still in development—including the name! Fall 2021's Reprogram committee will coordinate the Spring 2022 program.

We're still developing the program itinerary, which will include things like activities to facilitate discussions, opportunities to learn from artists and entrepreneurs, and opportunities to learn hard skills. The program will end with a final performance to show the arts and entrepreneurship colliding beautifully.

50% of this initiative is focused on promoting entrepreneurial thinking to the pure arts community, which directly serves Spark’s mission. The other 50% is dedicated to understanding that the status quo of entrepreneurship culture might not be perfect.

Rather than constantly pushing our way of thinking outwards to other communities, there may be an opportunity for us to grow by learning from the communities that feel disconnected from us, particularly that of pure arts.

There's a significant potential for impact when we push artists and entrepreneurs to work together directly. And there's a lot to learn about how to catalyze the mindsets of both worlds to evolve into more empathetic, healthy, and authentic versions of themselves.

Any new from-scratch initiative invites many question marks. This semester will be research-, ideation-, and planning-heavy, with time dedicated to speaking with students, brainstorming and discussing as a team, and fleshing out the logistics of the program so we are ready to pilot it next semester!

I value open-mindedness in every team—towards each other and our ideas without judgment. I believe in establishing systems proactively for clear communication, and prioritizing mutual trust between teammates. Acknowledging each teammate’s “why” behind being on the team is incredibly important to me, to develop individual and shared north stars that allow us to explore varying questions without straying from our mission.

You should join this committee if you share the following:

• An ambitious mindset.
• A commitment to seeing this idea through despite the inevitable question marks we will encounter.
• Care for high-quality work.
• A willingness to open your mind to the mission of this committee.
• Comfort with the uncertainty that comes with experimenting with something new!