Onadime grew from the desire of President and CEO, Bruce Mitchell, to find a better, more interactive way, for his daughter to learn. Bruce Mitchell's non-profit organization, Frontiers of Perception, and music visual software company, Onadime, grew from the belief that anyone's creativity could be amplified and extended by computers. In 1997, when Mitchell's youngest daughter Emily was diagnosed by her school as "learning disabled" he couldn't believe it. Seeing how quickly she learned a song, and invented a dance to go with it, spoke of intelligence that traditional educational institutions did not recognize. Could one put sensors on her wrists and ankles to send data to a computer and transform her inventiveness into music? Could real-time response help not just Emily, but anyone, express themselves? Although Mitchell's Harvard education and work in the Peace Corps, VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America), and The World Affairs Council of Seattle, certainly prepared him to conceive of a grand vision, Onadime did not take shape until he connected with system architect Geoff Coco and designer Phillip Reay. Coco and Reay had worked together at the Human Interface Technology Lab at the University of Washington and not only possessed the expertise to make Mitchell's vision come to life, but they shared in his belief that technology should enhance, not impede, human capability. Together, the three created the first Onadime Composer and the first Onadime Compositions, i.e., computer-based art responding to sound and movement. Using the power of the Macintosh, these Compositions were dynamic, reacting to artistic stimuli in real time. When beta testers from all walks of life agreed "this is what we've been waiting for!" a company was born. Mitchell, Reay and Coco went on to form Onadime, Inc. They released Onadime Composer, a collection of artist-created Onadime Compositions, and Onadime Player, the free player of Onadime Compositions. Since 1998, schools, universities, teachers, students, artists, musicians, DJ's and producers from around the world have adopted Onadime as a means to teach, learn, create, express, perform and entertain. From Cornell University to MTV, Onadime has clearly instigated a new form of expression and continues to make great strides in realizing it's vision to extend human creativity. |