How does a region increase its capacity for innovation -- a critical force for economic vitality that many believe will define the competitive position of companies, regions, and nations in the 21st Century?
One way is to build a business climate conducive to such activity, a quest that Louisville started more than a decade ago. Another is to build the culture that nurtures that sort of thing – unleashing the energy and risk taking that go along with it.
It’s not the stuff of staid business conferences or didactic workshops, but it is the sort of light bulb moments that can strike at events like the IdeaFestival, which will take over the Kentucky Center for the Arts for four days next week, from Wednesday through next Saturday, Sept. 23-26.
On Thursday at lunch, Wired Magazine senior writer Daniel Roth will talk about how serious economic downturns (such as now) often provide a strategic opening and fertile ground for new ideas and breakthroughs – and are the time to go “Back to the Garage” in search of innovation.
On Saturday in the same time slot, entrepreneur Po Chi Wu, now director of the new Innovation Research Center at Peking University in Beijing, will talk about, “The Global Innovation Imperative” and the global competition for talent.
Those are just a couple of the entries most obviously related to the quest for innovation in a schedule that’s all focused on cutting-edge ideas in many fields. Look over the full schedule at www.ideafestival.com, pick out the most intriguing and head to the box office or call 1-866-966-4607 for tickets for paid and free events.