Leveraging his experience as a venture capitalist, Jean-Jacques Degroof is a philanthropist focusing on improving the quality of life for older adults and encouraging young entrepreneurs. Born in Belgium, Jean-Jacques Degroof earned graduate degrees in management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He has also served as a juror for MIT’s Creative Arts Competition, in which students create business plans for sustainable arts initiatives that promote the social good.
Each team in the competition must have at least one student. Non-students may participate, but the team must include at least 50 percent MIT students or those from other schools. Successful teams will produce work that engages both producers and consumers through an art form that can be scaled up or down. Their projects must also be financially sound. The top team receives $15,000.
A wide variety of ideas have won recognition in this competition. A recent first-place winner, Roots Studio, organized a network of visual artists in rural India, many of whom have to work non-creative jobs. The team digitally converted thousands of works of art and and licenses them to the fashion industry and other sectors. Roots studio shares 50% of the profit with the original artists. In doing so, it contributes to slow down the rural exode, by providing a source of income for those artists in remote areas.
Another winner was PicFic, which brought artists and writers together to create serial-form fiction for a new mobile phone audience. Yet another team designed an app called Cherry Stems, which enabled users to record sounds in their environment and create loops that could be layered over other sounds and rhythms.
Each team in the competition must have at least one student. Non-students may participate, but the team must include at least 50 percent MIT students or those from other schools. Successful teams will produce work that engages both producers and consumers through an art form that can be scaled up or down. Their projects must also be financially sound. The top team receives $15,000.
A wide variety of ideas have won recognition in this competition. A recent first-place winner, Roots Studio, organized a network of visual artists in rural India, many of whom have to work non-creative jobs. The team digitally converted thousands of works of art and and licenses them to the fashion industry and other sectors. Roots studio shares 50% of the profit with the original artists. In doing so, it contributes to slow down the rural exode, by providing a source of income for those artists in remote areas.
Another winner was PicFic, which brought artists and writers together to create serial-form fiction for a new mobile phone audience. Yet another team designed an app called Cherry Stems, which enabled users to record sounds in their environment and create loops that could be layered over other sounds and rhythms.
