Microsoft Innovation Challenger Unconference
About Innovation Unconference
Corporate Innovation & Corporate Venture have long lived in separate camps inside enterprise corporations around the world, and we ask you – Should they?
The Innovation Unconference gets a group of like-minded professionals from Corporate Innovation, Corporate Venture, Venture Capital and Angel Investment to a session about practical problem-solving. We challenge the status quo while discussing innovation challenges that we are facing today in our enterprises. Rather than ask you to sit through presentations, the Innovation Unconference is designed for participants to talk to each other about their own experiences and work together to solve specific issues.
What is the Innovation Unconference?
An Unconference is a collaborative experience with small groups of participants sharing experiences and solving problems. Our event is focused on problems and experiences related to corporate and collaborative innovation.
We gather a group of smart, engaged professionals; provide a loose framework, and some food. All of the content and value of the event comes from the participants
Unconference VS Traditional Conference
You already know what a typical conference is like: you sit in a room and listen while presenters talk to you. In an Unconference, the content comes from you. You must be prepared to participate!
We will also have a lunch panel of experts who will talk about a topical subject and interact with the audience as a whole.
Unconference Agenda
We determine three to five topical areas prior to the event and send them to all attendees. We ask attendees to think ahead of time about their questions/challenges in these areas.
After kick-off, people form groups around each topic area. Everyone is welcome to change groups at any time, though the conversations are always compelling and involved so we don’t see people moving around very much.
Within every group, each attendee presents one or more of their proposed challenges; discussion ensues in order to determine what specific challenge the group will focus on. Once the challenge is chosen, all attendees provide their plans, successes, failures and other experience related to the chosen challenge, resulting in group discussion and ultimately conclusions.
Finally, each group will have 15 minutes to present their findings to the full audience.
During lunchtime, a panel discussion takes place that we have secured prior to the event.
Mike Kremer
Mike is a 20-year Microsoft veteran and a data scientist, relentlessly blogging about AI, Machine Learning and related topics at mikekremer.com
John-Michael
John-Michael is a demonstrated innovator, change agent & outlier, bringing creativity and capability to every situation.
Brandon Apparcel
A creative serial entrepreneur who advises entrepreneurs focusing on companies for IPO Strategy, Innovation, Strategic Business Development, Management Development, Product Development, and M&A.
Our Sponsors
Safari Guides
Stay Tuned For Our Next Event!
Join us in a 6-hour session where we challenge the status quo through discussing the issues we face in innovation within our industries and tackle them from new perspectives among senior talent.