Julie Friedman is an American social entrepreneur, public speaker and futurist. She is currently CEO of The MetaSpace, a social enterprise platform. Julie is also the Primary Contributor to Encyclopædia Britannica's "3D Printing: Year in Review 2013".

Biography

The 3D Printer Experience,
Friedman opened The 3D Printer Experience in April 2013. It is the first 3D printing retail outlet of its kind in her hometown of Chicago. Already it has received national, international, and local media coverage for its unprecedented business model and unique, consumer-focused approach. It was nominated for the 2013 Chicago Innovation Awards. The 3D Printer Experience and is focused on introducing 3D printing technology to a mainstream, consumer audience by helping to educate anyone who is interested about the technology and future value involved with printing objects for personal and community-based needs.


Technology & Social Entrepreneurship
Julie Friedman is social entrepreneur and an investor in Real Estate, Restaurants, and Nightclubs in Chicago, through her family's business Friedman Properties, Ltd., "one of the city's most successful real estate development firms, with a River North-based empire that encompasses millions of prime square feet."

In her capacity as a Social Entrepreneur Julie is:


CEO of The Meta Space, a Chicago-based Social Enterprise Platform that owns:
The 3D Printer Experience, a retail store for 3D Printers and professional 3D Printing Services located in Downtown Chicago's River North and a 2013 nominee for The Chicago Innovation Awards,
Writer/Producer/Director, Genesis Award-winning Documentary Best Friend Forgotten, hosted by David Duchovny
Creator of (ACE) Animal Content in Entertainment, the Film & TV division for the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS)
Contributor to ISO/IEC JTC1 SC29 WG11 on developing requirements documents and working drafts.
Entertainment
After graduating from Berklee College of Music, in Boston, Friedman moved to Los Angeles where she spent most of her adult life to physically producing, encouraging, and investing in media to create social change. She won the Genesis Award for her documentary Best Friend Forgotten with David Duchovny on Pet Overpopulation that aired nationally and internationally, which spurred the Pedigree Shelter Dog ad campaign.

Friedman went on to create and develop the Animal Content in Entertainment division for The Humane Society of the United States, which awards grants to filmmakers, encourages mainstream media to incorporate animal story-lines, and garner distribution. It was during this time that Friedman focused heavily on "filmanthropy", while working with MPEG to develop MPEG-M (2010): MPEG eXtensible Middleware (MXM). (ISO/IEC 23006) (e.g., MXM architecture and technologies, API, MPEG extensible middleware (MXM) protocols) an international standard for "coding of audio, picture, multimedia and hypermedia information", where she served as the first Ad Hoc Chair of the JTC 1/SC 29 Working Group 11 for the "Coding of moving pictures and audio" standard, which would change how video search technology worked for factual based content.

Friedman was invited by the CHDI Foundation to present their keynote address, in Cannes, France, to researchers from around the world who specialize in Neurodegenerative diseases.For which, she created, produced and edited videos for and of Huntington's Disease, including working with FOX's TV Series HOUSE.

Recently, Friedman started developing complex, structured, film financing models with debt and equity film companies to help independent filmmakers get into production.


Early entertainment career
Originally from Chicago, Julie became very involved in the entertainment industry from a young age performing with Ben Vereen, Steppenwolf Theatre, Northwestern University Cherubs, and Marlee Matlin's Deaf Theatre Troup to name a few. Julie traded being in front of the camera for writing, producing and directing comedy, drama, and reality show at NBC, Buena Vista, PBS, Animal Planet, and USA Networks. Julie has also had films shown as part of the official selection at the Chicago Film Festival.