The AZ SciTech Fest won the Gold Award in the Merchandise category for an original event specific shirt. This shirt, featuring the "famous" colorful Gecko, is a symbol of art fused with science. Scientific symbols such as DNA, chromosomes, atoms, sensors, super cells, and more are woven within the colorful Gecko framework from head to tail. The shirt with its iconic Gecko is used by the Festival as a fun way to learn about scientific symbols and their meanings, while at the same time adopting these symbols within a popular and modern art symbol. The Festival team is working towards making the Gecko a household symbol to promote the “coolness” and importance of embracing science, technology, engineering, mathematics, innovation, and even art, as an educational notion and priority.
Additionally, Cox Communications, for support of the AZ SciTech Fest, won the Outstanding Media Partner Award, which is available for a print, radio, TV, or web partner who, through advertising, on-site presence, and additional attractions, added value to the overall event. Cox Communications Arizona, a Platinum Sponsor of the Arizona SciTech Festival, is committed to providing life's most important connections within the community and that commitment was present from the SciTech Fest’s inception and throughout the more than 250 scheduled events during the Festival’s run.
The Arizona SciTech COX Youth Reporters, a program that engaged Arizona high school students to help capture some of the Festival’s most memorable moments, was launched for the Festival. Six students in schools around the state collaborated with the Cox Creative Services team to cover 15 Festival events. This newly formed Festival segment will soon be part of a 24-episode television series called “The STEM Journals”. With AZ SciTech Fest sponsors like Cox Communications helping to promote Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM), Festival leaders are striving for Arizona be one of the most competitive states in science and technology in the nation, if not the world.
Festival Director, Jeremy Babendure, is excited at the incomparable partnerships forged with companies like Cox and the professional acknowledgment from organizations like the APS AzTEC Awards the SciTech Fest has achieved thus far. “It is good we are already starting to be recognized as a known and respected event in the community,” Babendure states, looking forward to an even bigger and better Festival this upcoming spring. With planning meetings, conferences, and workshops already occurring, the 2nd Annual AZ SciTech Fest is already on its way towards surpassing the milestones of its inaugural year.
