What is Innovate High Desert?
The Innovate High Desert initiative brings our schools, community and businesses together to learn the skills and mindsets of innovation that are needed to drive economic growth in our region. Here are some things we’re doing:
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Hammers, saws and dust were present as twenty-four math and Career Technical Education (CTE) teachers worked together at Redmond High School. The goal was how to teach high school students geometry while building a play house. Participants were from Bend-La Pine, Redmond, Crook County, Mitchell, Jefferson, Salem-Keizer, Dayville, West Valley, and Walport school districts.
- Over 550 high school students attended the Central Oregon Skilled Trades Fair in Redmond with over 100 industry partners and community volunteers representing construction, engineering, hospitality, public works, and manufacturing to name a few.
Connecting people to possibilities.

Adventure & Recreation
Central Oregon is the place for outdoor and indoor recreation. With properties like Mt. Bachelor Ski Resort & Sunriver, a thriving hospitality industry partners with craft businesses to create a once-in-a-lifetime experience. From mountains to the high desert to the Deschutes river, a world-class microbrewery tour, the home of Breedlove guitars – Central Oregon offers the best in hospitality with a view.

Advanced Manufacturing
Central Oregon’s advanced manufacturing sector employs a range of high-tech, aerospace & specialty manufacturing – along with traditional building products manufacturing. The investment by local businesses to build the talent & workforce to keep up with power curve of technological innovation is having a direct impact on the schools in the High Desert ESD – with a focus on STEM education.

Healthcare & Bioscience
Central Oregon is home to world-class healthcare facilities and professionals including the St. Charles Medical Center & Health System & the Bend Medical Center. And as a technology & innovation center, companies like Medline ReNewal are making bioscience technology a new industry in the region.

Local businesses make big changes
Offering expertise and mentorship to help solve our complex problems.

Young minds bring tomorrow's solutions
Learning to see ourselves as creative innovators, beyond the limits of the classroom.

Educators rising to the challenge
Providing the tools for students to unlock their potential as creative problem solvers and innovators.

Our community serving itself & others
Supporting each other, developing ideas, and enacting change.
Skills Trade Fair 2018
With over 550 students in attendance and 120 industry partners, the Central Oregon Skilled Trades Fair was a success again this year. This was the 3rd Annual Skilled Trades Fair organized by the Central Oregon STEM Hub. It takes place on the Redmond Tech Campus of...
read moreMiddle School Make-a-thon
Sixty middle school students gathered in an Oregon State University-Cascades classroom Tuesday morning, learning how to use coding programs and sensory technology to find solutions for space colonists 80 years in the future. These students and many computer science...
read moreInnovate Oregon Initiatives
Working together to create tomorrow
Who
Educators, students, businesses, government and community leaders
What
We are working together to create an inclusive innovation-based economy
Why
We are committed to creating new opportunities for our communities


Partners
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Local changes can have global impacts
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