Sarasota Academy Celebrates Successful Education Summit

Sarasota Military Academy (SMA) hosted the first annual SMA Inspire Education Summit, in partnership with SMA outreach director Todd Brown, PhD., at the SMA Prep middle school campus in Sarasota. The event, open to teachers, administrators and students, featured renowned speakers presenting on the topics of health, Earth and equality.

More than 100 administrators, teachers and students attended the first annual summit, at no cost to themselves or their schools and organizations, and learned from featured speakers including Dr. Pardis Sabeti, Time Most Influential People and People of the Year, Ridhi Tariyal: Co-founder of NextGen Jane; Dr. Christian Brechot: President of the Global Virus Network and Dr. Todd Brown: Teacher SMA Prep.

Several local administrators and guests attended the event, including Superintendent of Schools for Sarasota County Dr. Todd Bowden, SMA Board Members Ms. Linda Long and Ms. Carter Donovan, Florida Gulf Coast University’s Dr. Sharon Isern and Dr. Scott Michael and ATLARGE and DreamLarge founder, and PINC Experience Executive Director Anand Pallegar and PINC Experience’s Julia Groom.

“We are overwhelmed with the positive response to the first annual SMA Inspire Education Summit as we hear from attendees and the speakers who held discussions about vital topics,” said Dr. Todd Brown, PhD., creator of the SMA “Inspire Project and Sarasota Military Academy Outreach Director. “The underpinning of the summit aims to flip a traditional models fostering an atmosphere of learning based on relationships and discussion to provide organic, grassroots content that creates content.”

With a goal of increasing collaboration with schools, clubs, teachers, and students throughout the county, and increasing community outreach for SMA, upcoming summits and programs will aim to spread the Inspire Project discussion and mentor series and initiatives with other schools around the world. The Academy plans to continue expanding the Inspire Project with the second annual Education Summit planned for 2020.

The event also featured Dr. Esther Ngumbi: Post-Doctoral Researcher, One World 1 of 100 women changing the World, 2018 SEB + President’s Medal Winner; Dr. Tracy Fanara: MythBusters, Environmental Civil Engineer, National EPA Rainworks Challenge Teams Winner, Mote Marine hydrologist; and Deb Walker: Teacher SMA Prep, during the “Earth” section of the summit, and the “Equality” sector featured Aradia: Singer/SongWriter from NYC and LA; Abdi Nor Iftin: Somali refugee and author of the acclaimed book, “Call Me American” and Lynore Fontecha: Teacher SMA Prep.

To learn more about the SMA Inspire Education Summit, or to arrange an interview with Dr. Brown or any of the event speakers, please contact Dr. Todd Brown at todd.brown@oursma.org or 941-587-0236.