The Innovation School
Events
The Innovation School
12 June 2022 – 16 June 2022 Optica Global Headquarters, Washington, District of Columbia United States
Become an Innovator!
The school's focus is on acclimating those with an intrapreneurial/entrepreneurial drive to the language, culture and methodology of business. Teams work on launching a business or product using the lean canvas model, while exploring product/business concepts from a customer vantage point.
In 4 days, you will learn about the key methodologies for discovering, developing and launching innovative solutions and products.
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Identify high potential ideas
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Validate Key Tactics
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Innovation Experimentation
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Develop pitches for new solutions
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Design thinking
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Leadership
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Collaboration and teamwork
Innovate. Change. Build Your Future
During this 4-day immersive experience, you will discover how to identify high potential ideas, validate them using key tactics of customer discovery and evidence, vet them through innovation experimentation and develop pitches on new solutions, products or ventures.
Become an Innovator!
The school's focus is on acclimating those with an intrapreneurial/entrepreneurial drive to the language, culture and methodology of business. Teams work on launching a business or product using the lean canvas model, while exploring product/business concepts from a customer vantage point.
In 4 days, you will learn about the key methodologies for discovering, developing and launching innovative solutions and products.
- Identify high potential ideas
- Validate Key Tactics
- Innovation Experimentation
- Develop pitches for new solutions
- Design thinking
- Leadership
- Collaboration and teamwork
Quick Links
Schedule
The thought leaders featured on our agenda are all leaders in their profession and field.
Sunday, 12 June
17:00 - Dinner + Welcome Remarks
Speaker: Sujatha Ramanujan, Managing Director, Luminate Accelerator
Monday, 13 June
During the first day, you will come together with other attendees and focus on product/service concepts. You'll learn how to use the lean canvas model to quickly formulate and guide your concept. Through this process, you'll be placed on teams and begin exploring if your idea actually solves a potential customers problem. (All meals and coffee breaks will be included throughout the day.)
09:00 -- Meet the Mentors
10:00 -- The Art of Recognizing Original Ideas
12:00 -- Industry Leader Keynote
- Speaker: Jennifer Cable, President, Thorlabs
13:30 -- Team Formation -- The Start of a Company
15:30 -- How to Conduct Customer Discovery
17:00 -- How to Hypothesize & Build a Strategy (lean canvas model)
18:30 -- Industry Leader Keynote
- Speaker: Chris Monroe, CEO and Founder, IonQ Inc.
Tuesday, 14 June
Today -- You will continue your customer discovery and pivoting your product/service to better align with potential customer service expectations and needs. Teams will start pitching their progress and receiving critical feedback to hone concepts for greater success. (All meals and coffee breaks will be included throughout the day.)
10:00 -- Customer and Evidence Gathering
12:30 -- Industry Leader Keynote
- Speaker: Brandon Collings, Chief Technology Office, Lumentum
13:30 -- Pivoting Tour Concept to Better Align with the Market and Your Customer
15:00 -- Team Pitches and Critiques
18:30 -- Industry Leader Keynote
- Spaeker: Yasaman Soudagar, Co-founder & CEO, Neurescence, Inc
Wednesday, 15 June
Today -- Your team's main challenges will be honing in on a minimum viable product (MVP) and prototypes. You will be working on your key messages, tightening your understanding of the market, competition and your products/service potential. Time will be spent crafting your team's concept to determine potential. (All meals and coffee breaks will be included throughout the day.)
10:00 -- How to Create MVP's and Prototypes (Part 1)
12:00 -- Industry Leader Keynote
- Speaker: Magnus Bengtsson, Sr. VP, Industrial Lasers,
Coherent
13:30 -- How to Create MVP's and Prototypes (Part 2)
14:30 -- Team Pitched and Critiques (Round 2)
15:30 -- Teamwork: More Research and Concept Refinement
17:30 -- Happy with Venture Capitalist
Thursday, 16 June
Final Day -- The morning is spent putting the final touches on your pitch, tightening up your data, understanding who your customer is and your unique value proposition, your market and your competition. Teams will pitch their concepts to a panel of judges with the best presentations announced at end of program. (All meals and coffee breaks will be included throughout the day.)
09:00 -- Best Practices for the Perfect Pitch
10:00 -- Final Team Preparation and Rehearsal
12:00 -- Industry Leader Keynote
- Speaker: Vijay Vusirikala, Google
13:00 -- Final Pitches and Judging
15:30 -- Judges Feedback and Results
16:00 -- Celebration Reception
Speakers
Facilitator
The Innovation School will be facilitated by Eric Koester, serial entrepreneur and “entrepreneur-in-residence” at Georgetown University, USA. Eric will lead attendees through a series of lectures focused on the lean canvas business model, key tools for innovation exploration, customer discovery, experimentation with minimum viable products (MVP’s) and prototypes, and applying the methodologies of innovation as an entrepreneur or intrapreneur.
Eric Koester
Georgetown University
He has spent much of his career building companies, working with entrepreneurs and writing and teaching around topics of customer discovery, lean, entrepreneurship and innovation. Eric is currently the founder of Main Street Genome, a new technology startup developing tools for the small business economy. Previously, Eric was a co-founder of Zaarly, a marketplace to locate local small businesses and service providers, named by Fast Company as one of the Fifty Most Innovative Companies in the World. He was also an executive at Appature Inc., a cloud-based relationship marketing software company acquired by IMS in 2013; a founder of Learn that Name, acquired by Blackberry in 2010; and a founder/manager of other companies in the environmental consultancy and web development sectors. Eric was recently named one of Washington DC’s “40 under 40” and has written several books on startups and technology, including The Green Entrepreneur Handbook (CRC Press 2011) and Starting a High Tech Business Venture (Taylor & Francis 2010). Eric also devotes considerable time to building the startup community, including as a board member of UP Global and Startup Weekend and the DC co-chair of Enstitute. Eric began his entrepreneurial career as a corporate securities attorney at Cooley LLP, focusing on high-growth startups, venture funds, private equity and technology companies.
Keynote Presentation and Guest Mentors
Top industry leaders will support the program by offering lectures on their experiences as innovators and entrepreneurs. Additionally, they will be on-hand to help hone concepts, validate assumptions, question conclusions and guide you toward a successful pitch.
Magnus Bengtsson
Senior Vice President, Industrial Lasers, Coherent
Brandon Collings
Chief Technology Officer, Lumentum
Brandon is CTO for Lumentum and is responsible for defining and driving the product and technology roadmaps and strategies. He held this same role for JDSU’s Communication and Commercial Optical Products business unit which separated to become Lumentum in August 2015. Prior to JDSU, he held optical network design and development positions at Ciena and Internet Photonics, and was a Member of the Technical Staff at Bell Labs performing research on advanced optical communication network designs and non-linear performance impairments. He holds a Ph.D. from Princeton University in Electrical Engineering.
Jennifer Cable
President, Thorlabs
Sujatha Ramanujan
Managing Director, Luminate Accelerator
Christopher Monroe
CEO and Founder, IonQ Inc.
Yasaman Soudagar
Co-Founder & CEO, Neurescence, Inc
Vijay Vusirikala
Sr. Director, Network Technologies and Architecture, Google Network Technologies
Mentors
Throughout the program, you will have access to mentors who will help guide you as you explore an innovation/product, validate the concept with potential customers, develop and refine a pitch and begin thinking about next steps in terms of actual market value/impact.
Shawn Abid
Account Executive, Oracle NetSuite
Shawn Abid is a Sales Engineer with experience selling for Zeiss Gmbh. He specializes in selling quality systems and SaaS. Shawn is most proud of how he virtualizes the sales process in which he sells $1 million+ systems through online demos at Zeiss. While working full-time, Shawn also studies full-time and has acquired his MsC in IT Project Management. When Shawn is not traveling and is back home in Southern California he enjoys doing jiu-jitsu/muay thai.
Mitch Cox
Lecturer and Optical Communications Researcher, University of Witwatersrand
Mitch is a lecturer and researcher at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa in the School of Electrical and Information Engineering. His PhD was focused on Structured Light in Turbulence and he now spends his time (and taxpayers money) investigating possible solutions to bridging the digital divide using wireless optical communications. Mitch attended the Innovation School in 2018, subsequently used what he learnt to achieve first place at a local innovation challenge and is a hands-on problem solver who enjoys almost any technical challenge.
Sarah Lukes
Founder, CEO at Agile Focus Designs
Sarah Lukes received an electrical engineering PhD from Montana State University as an NSF Graduate Research fellow. Her diverse background includes working in orthopedics/radiology, cardiovascular stents, and cryogenics at the Mayo Clinic, Boston Scientific, and S2 Corporation, respectively. Sarah started Agile Focus Designs to forge connections across disciplines for the advancement of miniature imaging, science, and healthcare. She served as a 2020 Optica Ambassador.
Lynn Yu
Research Fellow, Biomedical/Systems Engineer, Harvard Medical School and Mass General Hospital
Judges
Magnus Bengtsson
Senior Vice President, Industrial Lasers, Coherent, USA
Gisele Bennett
Co-Founder MEPSS LLC | Editor-in-Chief, Applied Optics, USA
Simin Cai
President & CEO, Go!Foton, USA
Scott Carney
Chief Scientist, Optica, USA
Liz Rogan
CEO, Optica, USA
