TechPoint is the only statewide organization representing Indiana’s technology sector.

Press Release

How do successful innovators take ideas from the back of a cocktail napkin to a successful business opportunity? How can established companies build a culture of innovation that keeps them ahead of their competitors? And how can Indiana create a business climate that encourages innovation and entrepreneurship, paying off in new jobs and investment?

These questions and more will be addressed at the TechPoint Innovation Summit on September 28-29 in Indianapolis. The Summit will feature Harvard Professor and noted innovation thinker Clayton Christensen, author of The Innovator’s Dilemma, The Innovator’s Prescription, The Innovator’s Solution and Disrupting Class.

The Innovation Summit marks a new direction for one of TechPoint’s flagship annual events, the Tech Summit.

“For the past decade, TechPoint’s Summit has served as an important forum for executives, entrepreneurs, policymakers and other thought leaders to discuss the future of our technology community,” said Jim Jay, TechPoint’s President & CEO. “Today our tech sector is thriving, and maintaining this momentum is still a critical part of our mission. But a broader and even more critical issue is our ability to encourage and commercialize innovation.”

Clayton Christensen’s work studies how ‘disruptive innovation’ can redefine issues such as education and healthcare, as well as driving economic growth. Innovation indicators including R&D investment, patent creation, and educational attainment have been shown to have a strong correlation with per capita income and job creation.

“Hoosiers are good at making and moving products, but we need to get better at bringing new ideas to market,” said Mark Hill, TechPoint’s chairman and Managing Partner of Collina Ventures. “We’re making progress – just look at the venture capital and R&D rankings – but true innovators are never satisfied with ‘good enough.’”

In addition to Christensen’s keynote remarks, Innovation Summit will feature workshops on issues such as access to capital. TechPoint’s fellow Central Indiana Corporate Partnership initiatives – BioCrossroads, Conexus Indiana, and Energy Systems Network – are contributing to the Summit by staging panels on innovation within the state’s most dynamic industries: life sciences, advanced manufacturing, logistics and energy (clean technologies).

Learn more about the 2009 Innovation Summit at www.techpoint.org/summit.

About TechPoint
TechPoint is the only statewide organization representing Indiana’s technology sector. TechPoint promotes technology-based enterprise and economic development through lobbying and government advocacy, educational and networking programs, and strategic economic development initiatives. As a part of the Central Indiana Corporate Partnership’s family of initiatives, TechPoint is a catalyst for growth in Indiana’s emerging technology clusters, including advanced manufacturing, logistics, life sciences, energy and information technology. Learn more at www.techpoint.org.

Clayton M. Christensen
Clayton M. Christensen is the Robert and Jane Cizik Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School. He is the architect of and the world’s foremost authority on disruptive innovation, a framework which describes the process by which a product or service takes root initially in simple applications at the bottom of a market and then relentlessly moves ‘up market’, eventually displacing established competitors. His books include The Innovator’s Dilemma, The Innovator’s Prescription, The Innovator’s Solution, Innovation and the General Manager, Seeing What’s Next and Disrupting Class. Learn more at http://www.claytonchristensen.com.

Source: TechPoint