In 2015, Kotek produced the documentary Queen Mimi, about an 89-year-old homeless woman, her years of living in a laundromat and her friendship with The Hangover's Zach Galifianakis.
Supporting storylines follow Sharif El Mekki, a principal at a nearly all Black charter school in West Philadelphia, and young poet activists fighting for criminal justice reform in Chicago.
Voices in the film include executive producer Malcolm Jenkins, NBA All-Star and three-time Olympic gold-medalist Carmelo Anthony, Jemele Hill, Dr. Harry Edwards, former Secretary of Education John King, NFL Hall of Famer Cris Carter, Arne Duncan, Howard Bryant, Chris Broussard, Alan Page and more.
A festival favorite that garnered dozens of awards and nominations, a theatrical release and landed Mimi on the front page of the Los Angeles Times, the documentary was distributed by Netflix and is now available on Amazon and other VOD services.
Developed in conjunction with Sproutel and Carol Cone On Purpose, the My Special Aflac Duck is an innovative, smart robotic companion that features naturalistic movements, joyful play and interactive technology to help comfort children coping with cancer treatment.
With more than a year of child-centered design and research efforts with all stakeholder groups, My Special Aflac Duck received three key awards upon its launch at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) and garnered an astonishing 2.2 billion media impressions in the first four days post-launch.
The campaign has been named one of the best of the decade, won multiple Cannes Lions, SABRE, Stevie, Telly, Hermes, Purpose, Communicator, and numerous other accolades.
The piece was nominated for an Emmy by the New England chapter of the Television Academy, and received dozens of top corporate social responsibility, branded content, and online media awards.
These competitions introduce science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) to children through fun, exciting hands-on learning throughout their school life.
Elliot and a Nation of Artists team that included Matt Celia, Sebastien Hameline, Cody Peterson, Chris Willett, Josh Helfferich, Robert Watts and local camera people and photographers traveled to the 2019 and 2020 FIRST Championships in Colorado and Minnesota, and to the world champion Vitruvian Bots team at the Da Vinci School in El Segundo to generate this 360 experience designed to immerse the viewer in this incredible competition and community.
Highlighting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by world leaders at the United Nations in 2015, the initiative focuses on Goal 9 (Build resilient infrastructure, promote sustainable industrialization and foster innovation), and demonstrates innovative ways mobile technology is being leveraged for social and economic development in underserved communities.
[23] As co-founder and content chief of Not Impossible, Elliot and his team utilize crowd-sourcing to crowd-solve healthcare issues by providing low-cost and DIY tech to people in need all over the world.
The Not Impossible team, led by volunteer engineer Javed Gangjee, utilized its know-how, HP hardware, and SpeakYourMind Foundation software to develop a simple interface that replicated the paper letter board Don had been using to communicate (via blinking) for years.
Elliot's Polaroid photography is also reproduced in the book Still Developing: A Story of Instant Gratification, published by ISM and edited by Kevin Staniec.