Theme: Social & Sustainable Innovation

Social & Sustainable Innovation
ideas take root...

We are curating speakers, partners and attendees to bring together dreamers & doers. Symbolically handing out 100 saplings to all guests, so that they can plant at least one idea for improving our region.

1 DAY
16 TALKS
100 SEEDS

"ideas, like seeds, are nothing until they are planted, nurtured and shared..."

One Summit Square
101 East Washington Boulevard
Fort Wayne
Fort Wayne, Indiana, 46802
United States

Daniel Epstein

Daniel fundamentally believes that entrepreneurship is the answer to nearly all the issues we face today and has dedicated his life accordingly. By the time he received his BA in philosophy he had already started three ventures. Daniel is the co-founder of two Boulder-based companies: Tuition Specialists, focused on making quality education more affordable and SWAE sports, dedicated to conservation & development through eco-tourism. Furthermore, in the summer of 2008, he co-developed and directed a 5-week institute that brought 17 young, aspiring social entrepreneurs from 14 countries together in Boulder to focus on understanding the global context of the issues we face and to study the skill sets needed to address them. For Daniel, business is not business, business is people. He believes in militant transparency and truthfulness in the projects he is a part of and in his everyday life. And if you can’t find Daniel working in a local coffee shop he’s likely running along the foothills with the love of his life (his dog Kaya).

Anthony Juliano

Anthony is a seasoned speaker, having presented to a wide variety of groups. A complete list of his past and upcoming presentations is available at http://visualcv.com/ajuliano. In addition, Anthony is a frequent speaker and trainer on social media topics. He has developed and taught social media classes for IPFW, including Intro to Social Media, Social Media for Business and LinkedIn for Professional Development. He also serves as a social media consultant for a wide variety of clients, and writes a monthly column about social media for the Greater Fort Wayne Business Weekly.

William Upchurch

I am a public speaking instructor at IPFW as well as a graduate student who studies persuasion and identity in digital environments (i.e., the World Wide Web). I have won my department's Outstanding Graduate Student award two years in a row, and was a top recruit at four of the top doctoral programs in my field. I have written about global economics and information flow to shed light on the ways in which ideas spread. My professional experience includes Web development in Silicon Valley during the first dotcom boom, award-winning game design, and writing and editing in the publishing industry during the transition from paper to electonic delivery. This eclectic background has seen me involved in three periods of transition in different industries, and my current work focuses on innovation from yet another angle--human community and communication. And the reason I'm including Air Hockey in my speech? I am a two-time United States Air-Table-Hockey Association (USAA) World Champion. There's always room for fun at a TEDx talk. :)

Andrew Hoffman

I'm the Executive Director of NeighborLink Fort Wayne and the NeighborLink Network. I'm also the co-founder of The Intentionals, a founding member of NextGen Fort Wayne, 2010 Huntington University Alumnus of the Year, one of the 2011 Greater Fort Wayne Business Weekly's Top 40 Under 40, and I'm an adjunct instructor in the Huntington University Communication Department.

Lanah Hake

Lanah K. Hake has a decade of strategic project and grant management experience in the non-profit and public sector in both the United States and New Zealand. Having graduated from Indiana University School of Public and Environmental Affairs (SPEA) with a Bachelor of Public Health Administration in 1999, Lanah recently returned to her academic studies in 2008 to complete a Master of International Relations at Victoria University of Wellington. Following her first degree, Lanah immediately went on to work at a number of non-profit and public sector entities over the following decade. All of her work has focused on facilitating social change through strategic education, engagement and collaborative solutions. Her projects have ranged from health policy, rural health, child health insurance, debt strategy, social policy research and evaluation, as well as a broad range of closely affiliated social issues. Throughout her career, Lanah has taken on often complex convoluted projects requiring intense cross sector collaboration and effective group facilitation. Additionally, all of her work has demanded exceptional interpersonal communication, relationship management and conflict resolution in often highly emotional and politically charged environments. Having recently completed her Master of International Relations (MIR) degree at Victoria University of Wellington, Lanah focused on the link between individuals within this much larger force of global relations. After traveling to over 20 countries across the globe, Lanah decided to formalize her personal passion for intercultural understanding and ongoing learning through her studies centered on the following: (publications can be found here) broad range of Eastern and Western approaches and theories of international relations inequalities of identity from a cultural and social anthropological perspective role of global governance, including the institutions and frameworks of the United Nations psychology of political leadership, including a focus women using the path of non-profits as a key step for becoming president Additionally, her thesis combined these coursework studies with an anthropological perspective of the cosmopolitan ideal (i.e. sense of global responsibility beyond ourself) by examining the largest industry in the world, global tourism. Employing more than 1 out of every 11 human beings across the globe, Lanah delved into a previously untapped consideration of whether it is time for international relations, an often abstracted area of study, to seriously engage with the tourism industrial complex - particularly as it affects the poorest of the world, the Global South. Her thesis titled "Cosmo-tourism: Exploring the latent cosmopolitanism of 21st century tourism" took a pioneering and courageous step towards fusing these two areas of study that have thus far gone relatively ignored. It is this rare blend of professional competence, personal commitment and academically rigorous critical thinking and analysis that makes LanahLink Strategic Solutions strategically smarter.

Rebecca Hession

Consultant, Organizational Development and Sales Guru for FranklinCovey for over 10 years. My career has allowed me to study effectiveness from all angles. My real expertise in this topic comes from living with and loving ADHD Husband and Son for more than 141,322 hours of my life. I dig public speaking and having a voice in a topic I'm passionate about. Give me a stage and a flipchart and all is right with the world.

Nick Arnett

-Founder and Executive Director of Fort Wayne Urban Gardening -Board member of the Northeast Indiana Food Alliance -Created the beautification department of the Fort Wayne Downtown Improvement District (DID); currently holds the position of Clean & Green Coordinator -Member of YLNI Barr Street Market Committee -Member of City of Fort Wayne's Public Market Working Group -Background in community / economic development - currently working with another local economic development organization (LEDO) to launch sustainable, healthy community development programming that ties in gardening and urban connectivity

Marshall White

UPAF Founder and CEO Marshall White is the Voices of Unity Youth Choir Music Director. He is the former Director of the Black Voices of Inspiration at Purdue University in West Lafayette, IN, where he successfully led the choir on their first international singing tour of the South Pacific in 1999 along with the Varsity Glee Club of Purdue University. White has extensive performing and conducting credits, including performances with well-know artists such as Heather Headley, Barry Manilow, Michael Bolton, Josh Groban, and Roberta Flack. In addition to his work with UPAF, he also provides consulting services to churches and schools, and offers choral workshops on teaching the soulful style of choral singing. In 2003, he received the Margaret Ann Keegan Award for Program Development and Excellence, presented by Arts United of Greater Fort Wayne. In 2005, he was awarded an honorary doctorate in ministry from Fort Wayne Theological Seminary and Bible college of Fort Wayne. In 2008, Indiana University-Purdue University of Fort Wayne, Office of Diversity and Multicultural Affairs named him as one of the year’s “Great Men, Great Women” honorees for his outstanding commitment to diversity.

Justin Sharpe

-CEO of NanoLayer Technologies (Exclusive Licensing Contract with Indiana University, Extensive Intellectual Property in Nano-particle manufacturing, solar energy, and nano-materials) -Co_founder of Incentive Studio (software company receiving funding from NIIC to build and design a new online marketing & advertising platform) MBA (*2011) Bachelor of Arts (Spanish) A.S. Business International Studies Certificate

Aaron Makin

8 years of building Rube Goldberg Machines Many connections in the Rube Goldberg "industry" Process Engineer for a Fortune 500 company Taught and Demonstrated Rube Goldberg Machines to many diverse audiences

Mark Bly

1997-2001: Graduates 4/243 at BDHS (moved to Fort Wayne in 1997), President of National Honors Society, Captain of baseball & cross country teams, Assistant editor of yearbook/newspaper, etc. 2001: Awarded Alumni Distinguished Scholarship from Michigan State University (tuition, room & board, books, and stipend) for demonstrated leadership, academic achievement, and ability to cause a positive impact on peers (awarded to 12 of ~12,000 incoming freshman). 2001-2005: Played varsity baseball at MSU while a member of the Honors College. 2006-Present: Dean of Academics and head math/science instructor at New American Youth Ballet & Conservatory in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Founding member with sister (Dean of Ballet). Focus on designing programs to be inherently & self-sufficiently productive. Significant public speaking experience (graduation, orientation, annual meetings, news interviews, etc). 2010-2012: Studying for MS in Mathematics (in progress, current GPA 4.0)...expected to begin PhD elsewhere in Fall 2012.

Jay Bissontz

The Future of Green Vehicle Technology -- Patents Include: 1. 20110024209 MOTOR VEHICLE WITH SYSTEM FOR CONDITIONING POWER TAKE-OFF ENABLEMENT ON AN ENGINE COMPARTMENT BEING CLOSED 02-03-2011 2. 20110017533 HYBRID TRACTION MOTOR INITIATED REMOTE START-STOP SYSTEM 01-27-2011 3. 20100117594 STRATEGY FOR MAINTAINING STATE OF CHARGE OF A LOW-VOLTAGE BATTERY BANK IN A HYBRID ELECTRIC VEHICLE HAVING A HIGH-VOLTAGE TRACTION BATTERY BANK 05-13-2010 4. 20100078234 Hybrid Electric Vehicle Traction Motor Driven Power Take-Off Control System 04-01-2010 5. 20090044993 CONTROL STRATEGY FOR DC EMERGENCY DIRECT CURRENT MOTOR FOR AN EMERGENCY HYDRAULIC PUMP 02-19-2009