Eight months after MDC Partners rolled out its “Million Dollar Challenge,” the holding company announced that its winner, Kip Voytek, will head up a new, New York-based non-profit focused on digital arts and science education called the Digital Works Institute. What was Voytek’s winning idea, which beat out 200 others? To expand digital arts and education, and to realize his vision via DWI, he will leave his post as SVP, communications planning at digital shop Rapp.
The exec is no stranger to digital education programs as he’s served as an advisor to Boulder Digital Works, which was co-founded by CP+B and the University of Colorado, since its inception. Crispin chairman and MDC chief strategist, Chuck Porter, says in a statement, “The vision of The Digital Works Institute is to be a powerful resource for learning and innovation. Our expectation was that the Million Dollar Challenge would go to a new business start up, but this not-for-profit initiative was the most compelling idea we saw. Hopefully, it will help to enlarge the pool of digital talent and enhance the quality of digital innovation across a broad array of businesses. It’s not really a business investment for MDC, it’s more of an investment in the future of the industry.”