There is no bigger dreamer than Walter Elias Disney. Through the melding of imagination and engineering, Walt brought to life a mouse who matured into a global goliath. Classic animated films, Star Wars, Marvel, and Avatar are just a few of the heavy-hitting intellectual properties residing under the Disney banner. When it comes to mass media and entertainment, a mouse shall rule them all.
But if Mickey is the face of the Walt Disney Company, in many ways, its parks and resorts are the heart. It’s here that worlds, created through big ideas, technological acumen, and creative solutions, are experienced in three dimensions, lifting wonders off television and movie screens and into the real world for people of all ages to see, touch, and hear. The driving force behind such wizardry is Disney’s Imagineers (a melding of the terms imagination and engineering), who operate in more than 140 varying disciplines across 12 theme parks, four cruise ships, and a vast array of consumer products.
Earlier this year, Walt Disney Imagineering (WDI) hosted IEEE Potentials for a weeklong visit to learn more about how creativity and technology come together to produce the wonder housed within Disney parks and resorts. With a tour of WDI’s Glendale, California, headquarters, access to more than two dozen Imagineers, and a guided walk-through of Disneyland with a WDI site team member, this exclusive view inside a global entertainment juggernaut is evidence that innovation requires a combination of technical know-how, big ideas, teamwork, and even a little bit of magic.
If these walls could talk
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