The schedule.
This series consists of 8 Learning Labs. Each Learning Lab is a 2-hour workshop, covering one key pillar of corporate innovation, typically with 2 speaker sessions per workshop.
You'll get a detailed agenda and further instructions after registration.
Wednesday 28 August, 16:00-18:00 CEST/10am-12pm EDT/7am-9am PDT
Strategy, Leadership & Organization
16:00 CEST/10am EDT/7am PDT
Introduction & Peer Pod
17:45 CEST/11:45am EDT/8:45am PDT
Capturing Takeaways & Wrap Up
Melody Rolph - Community Lead at Innov8rs
16:15 CEST/10:15am EDT/7:15am PDT
Innovation in the Autonomous Age
AI is changing the way we innovate, operate and grow.
As we navigate this evolution, the goal for executives and innovation leaders is clear: thriving in an increasingly autonomous world is not just about adopting new technologies. It’s about changing how we do business.
Join this session to discover the strategic options for capturing the opportunity of Autonomous Innovation.
Philippe de Ridder
Co-Founder and CEO at Board of Innovation
17:00 CEST/11am EDT/8am PDT
How Companies Can Use Their Capabilities For Scaling Innovation and Generating New Growth
There is an 80% probability that your company aims at generating growth outside of the existing business.
And chances are that you have ideas and concepts to achieve this.
However, scaling innovation by leveraging corporate assets is the greatest challenge for most corporations.
A vast number of excellent ideas and concepts did not make it to success.
They did not survive the ever-present Valley of Death.
The key is to align ""NOW and NEW.""
In his recent book with the same title, Frank and 100+ corporate and academic experts co-created a solution.
In his presentation, Frank will focus on key leadership and organizational aspects.
As a special gift for attendees, Frank will share a free chapter of his brand-new book.
Frank Mattes
Founder and CEO at Lean Scaleup
Thursday 29 August, 16:00-18:00 CEST/10am-12pm EDT/7am-9am PDT
Governance & Portfolio Management
16:00 CEST/10am EDT/7am PDT
Introduction & Peer Pod
17:45 CEST/11:45am EDT/8:45am PDT
Capturing Takeaways & Wrap Up
Melody Rolph - Community Lead at Innov8rs
16:15 CEST/10:15am EDT/7:15am PDT
Portfolio Management as a Driver of Strategy Execution: Lessons from Building Global Innovation Management Capabilities in Consumer Health
Innovation is a strategic growth driver for most global organizations, however successful execution is a complex challenge, particularly in today’s environment where resources are constrained, consumers are becoming more discerning and the competition is constantly changing.
At the heart of successful innovation delivery is a portfolio management ecosystem that aligns with the organization’s strategic roadmap, addressing the challenges between global vs local, structure vs speed, consistency vs autonomy (among others), and providing fit-for-purpose standards, guidance and data-driven capabilities for effective and efficient resource allocation decisions.
Join this interactive session to hear about the four critical success pillars of Clarity, Consistency, Visibility and Accountability in building, implementing and managing a global innovation portfolio in a large consumer goods company, including definitions, metrics, reporting, prioritization and decision making.
Dougal Beard
Former Global Head of Innovation Portfolio Management - GSK Consumer Health (now Haleon) and Kenvue
17:00 CEST/11am EDT/8am PDT
To ISO Or Not To ISO?
It won't be long before the ISO 56000 standards for Innovation Management will be published. Finally, after being in the making for years, there's a codified and unified standard we all can embrace and implement. Or... not?
Many innovation professionals aren't too bothered. There's been quite the debate about whether or not innovation can and should be standardized, and if so, how. In this session, we'll hear from four innovation experts sharing their perspectives about the standards and their practical use, so you can make an informed decision whether you ""ISO"" or not (yet). It's a fishbowl conversation- that means that anyone with relevant experiences can also join the panel, all to bring even more perspectives to the mix.
Dan Toma, Sara Husk, Doug Williams & Magnus Karlsson
Co-Founder at OUTCOME | Principal Consultant at HYPE Innovation | Associate Director, Innovation at SmartOrg, Inc | Partner & Advisor at Amplify AB
Wednesday 4 September, 16:00-18:00 CEST/10am-12pm EDT/7am-9am PDT
Foresight & Business Design
16:00 CEST/10am EDT/7am PDT
Introduction & Peer Pod
17:45 CEST/11:45am EDT/8:45am PDT
Capturing Takeaways & Wrap Up
Melody Rolph - Community Lead at Innov8rs
16:15 CEST/10:15am EDT/7:15am PDT
Driving De-Risked Growth through a Validated Process
This session will provide an in-depth exploration of Disruptive Edge’s innovation process, a proven framework designed to help organizations launch winning ideas.
The session will cover the following key areas of the innovation process:
1. Identify & Define: This initial phase focuses on understanding the target market by studying trends and advancements, identifying market needs or gaps to uncover opportunities.
2. Test & Validate: This phase dives into experimenting with and testing ideas from the Identify & Define phase, using prototypes, customer feedback, and market analysis to ensure the solution is desirable, viable, feasible and adaptable.
3. Launch & Iterate: The final phase involves launching the idea and continuously improving it through customer feedback and market conditions, including scaling and ongoing development.
June Barrage & Sarah Sunderji
Associate Partner at Disruptive Edge | Innovation Analyst at Disruptive Edge
17:00 CEST/11am EDT/8am PDT
How to Find, Test, and Validate 100+ Venture Ideas by Christmas
In this session, we'll guide participants through a comprehensive approach to rapidly ideating, testing, and validating venture ideas.
By joining us, you’ll:
1. Discover rapid ideation techniques to generate a large volume of potential venture concepts in a short timeframe
2. Learn efficient methods for preliminary testing and evaluation of business ideas to quickly identify the most promising opportunities
3. Explore practical strategies for validating venture concepts, including low-cost AI-driven prototyping and customer feedback loops
Jacob Dutton
Co-Founder & CEO at Future Foundry
Thursday 5 September, 16:00-18:00 CEST/10am-12pm EDT/7am-9am PDT
Incubation, Venture Building & Scaling
16:00 CEST/10am EDT/7am PDT
Introduction & Peer Pod
17:45 CEST/11:45am EDT/8:45am PDT
Capturing Takeaways & Wrap Up
Melody Rolph - Community Lead at Innov8rs
16:15 CEST/10:15am EDT/7:15am PDT
Unlocking New Ways to Fund your Innovation Activities
Corporations are better managed than ever but they’re failing to produce the breakthroughs they once were. Everyone is using the same, traditional innovation tools and expecting transformation. In order for corporations to keep up with the pace of change, they need to adopt new tools to help them rapidly address problems and pursue growth, free from the corporate objective of efficiency and optimization.
Venture building has emerged as a new tool that can enable companies to fund experiments from the balance sheet while rapidly capturing new insights from the market. But how does venture building fit into an existing innovation strategy?
In this session, Elliott dives into venture building as a new tool for innovation leaders highlighting real-examples of corporations who’ve unlocked new growth opportunities using this approach.
Elliott Parker
CEO at High Alpha Innovation
17:00 CEST/11am EDT/8am PDT
Hypothesis-Driven Corporate Innovation
Why do teams often stumble in customer discovery, leading to flawed analysis and poor decision-making? This session goes beyond the basics to address the core issues—bias, misinterpretation of customer interviews, and failures in human-centered design.
Designed for seasoned innovators, we’ll explore why even well-intentioned teams struggle to translate customer insights into actionable strategies. Learn advanced techniques to overcome these pitfalls, ensuring your customer discovery drives meaningful innovation.
We’ll introduce tools like the quantified pain histogram to transform granular interview data into precise decision-making inputs, grounding your innovation in real customer needs.
If you’re ready to refine your approach and ensure your team’s discovery efforts lead to sound, human-centered decisions, this session is for you.
Adam Berk & Mike Vladimer
Startup Adviser & Innovation Expert at Startup Program Design Book | Founder at Nascent Startups
Tuesday 10 September, 16:00-18:00 CEST/10am-12pm EDT/7am-9am PDT
Open Innovation
16:00 CEST/10am EDT/7am PDT
Introduction & Peer Pod
17:45 CEST/11:45am EDT/8:45am PDT
Capturing Takeaways & Wrap Up
Sandra Nešić- External Advisor and Senior Innovation Consultant at ICT Hub
16:15 CEST/10:15am EDT/7:15am PDT
New Models of Life Science Innovation Are Emerging: What Can We Learn and How Can We Help Them Grow?
In the last century or two, science has lived in two main homes: the academy and the corporation. But what if your idea is too translational or complex for the academy? What if your idea does not align with commercial timelines or objectives?
In the last few years, we’ve seen a variety of models designed specifically to fund and make a home for research previously seen as unsuited for either the academy or the corporation. This work stands to open new frontiers in science, accelerate commercialization and make compelling scientific solutions available to many more people, as Lara Mangravite, Will Richardson, Jun Axup, Amanda Cashin, PhD and Diana Joseph will reveal.
This highly interactive session is divided into interactive sections, each kicked off with a brief introduction from the team.
- Lara and Will ground us in the historical moment in healthcare funding, and introduce the doer-funder distinction
- Jun shares her experience as COO of e11 Bio, a Focused Research Organization funded by Convergent Research
- Diana and Amanda reflect on why this is happening in healthcare/bioscience in particular, and what it might mean for other industries.
Diana Joseph, Jun Axup, Amanda Cashin, Phd, Lara Mangravite & Will Richardson
CEO at Corporate Accelerator Forum | COO at E11 Bio | Life Science Entrepreneur & Investor | Executive Director at Digitalis Commons | Strategic Finance at August Health
17:00 CEST/11am EDT/8am PDT
Venture Clienting: Old Wine In New Bottles, or...?
"Venture Clienting" made it to the prestigious "Peak of Inflated Expectations" on the 2024 Gartner Hype Cycle.
Despite the buzz, many innovation professionals are puzzled.
Is ""Venture Clienting"" just the good old corporate-startup collaboration rebranded, or is it fundamentally different (and better)?
We'll hear from seasoned open innovation experts, demystifying the approach, suggesting when and how to use it (and when/how not), and exploring how different (and better) it is or could be, compared to other approaches. It's a fishbowl conversation- that means that anyone with relevant experiences can also join the panel, all to bring even more perspectives to the mix.
Christoph Baier, Steffen Knodt & Lars Roessler
Managing Director & Co-Founder at Ambivation | Head of Business Development at the Institute for Marine Energy Systems of the German Space Agency | Head of Corporate Venturing at Bosch-Siemens-Home-Appliances
Wednesday 11 September, 16:00-18:45 CEST/10am-12:45pm EDT/7am-9:45am PDT
Climate/SDG
16:00 CEST/10am EDT/7am PDT
Introduction & Peer Pod
17:15 CEST/11:15am EDT/8:15am PDT
Capturing Takeaways & Wrap Up
Juana-Catalina Rodriguez - Founder at JnC Nova
16:15 CEST/10:15am EDT/7:15am PDT
Decarbonization Scenarios: Building Future Resilience with Strategic Foresight
Developing concrete decarbonization roadmaps is a strategic imperative for any business that aims to stay competitive over the coming years and thrive in (an) uncertain future(s). Few topics are as complex, uncertain, and urgent—the pressure is building to not only set goals, but actually reach them.
Strategic foresight methodology, with its trend analysis, scenario-building, and back-casting, is a valuable way to move from insights to concrete action. In this session we will explore our decarbonization scenarios for 2030 and leverage our proven foresight-driven innovation methodology to tackle this critical topic.
Participants will:
- Gain a deeper understanding of possible future developments
- Derive implications for your business
- Identify concrete innovation opportunities
- Plot next action steps
Elvin Ibishli
Manager at Rohrbeck Heger by Creative Dock
Tuesday 17 September, 16:00-18:00 CEST/10am-12pm EDT/7am-9am PDT
Culture & Capabilities
16:00 CEST/10am EDT/7am PDT
Introduction & Peer Pod
17:45 CEST/11:45am EDT/8:45am PDT
Capturing Takeaways & Wrap Up
Vannett Li - Principal, Brand & Innovation Strategist at Comet Chaser
16:15 CEST/10:15am EDT/7:15am PDT
Unleashing Business Success through the Diversity of Minds and Experiences: Our Global Intrapreneurship Programme
Have you ever considered the inspiring and motivating power of diverse and self-organised teams to solve business challenges? You should!
Join this session to learn about the award-winning 6-month Konica Minolta intrapreneurship programme, or the Transformation Innovation Programme (TIP). This annual initiative is a unique opportunity foremployees to join diverse, cross-functional, and global teams tackling exciting business challenges.
Delphine and Milan will share the participants journey and the skills required to operate as an intrapreneur outside of usual business processes to deliver robust solutions within an international environment. They will also share proven techniques to scale the programme globally, covering stakeholder engagement, co-creation with clients, and go-to-market strategies for innovative products, services, and solutions.
Over the past decade, this programme has delivered impactful results, supporting Konica Minolta’s vision and growth.
Delphine Hertel & Milan S. Lakhani
Senior Specialist Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and EmployerBranding at Konica Minolta Business Solutions Europe | Director of Transformation (DX) and Partner, Environmental,Social, and Governance (ESG) at Konica Minolta Business Solutions Europe
17:00 CEST/11am EDT/8am PDT
Ideation From Outside: A Step-by-Step Guide to Challenge-Driven Innovation
During this session, Bea Schofield, Innovation Lead at Lloyds Banking Group and Advisor on Challenge Driven Innovation will be talking you through how you can best leverage the collective intelligence of people inside and outside your organisation using CDI principles.
This session will explore ways you can get the best possible solutions to any given problem by framing Challenges in a way which is Limited in Scope, Actionable, Specific, Supported and Owned. CDI, a method use by public, private and third sector companies alike results has an 80% success rate and remains one of the premier approaches to crowdsourced innovation.
Bea Schofield
Chief Technology Office Innovation lead at Lloyds Banking Group
Wednesday 18 September, 16:00-18:00 CEST/10am-12pm EDT/7am-9am PDT
Talent & Teams
16:00 CEST/10am EDT/7am PDT
Introduction & Peer Pod
17:45 CEST/11:45am EDT/8:45am PDT
Capturing Takeaways & Wrap Up
Melody Rolph - Community Lead at Innov8rs
16:15 CEST/10:15am EDT/7:15am PDT
Top 10 Generative AI Tools for Innovation Teams to Accelerate the End-to-End Funnel
The AI solution landscape is expanding at an unprecedented rate, making it difficult to distinguish flashy tech from true state-of-the-art solutions. In this session we will cover how the ""AI Innovation Stack"" is evolving, from always-on insights and real-time opportunity strategy, to rapid concept validation and market-ready solution development. We'll make it actionable with our roundup of the top 10 tools innovation teams need to know, and practical tips to navigate the AI landscape over the next 12-18 months.
Why attend
- Top 10 AI solutions to accelerate the end-to-end innovation funnel (not foundation models)
- Perspective on the evolving AI Stack for innovation teams
- Practical guidance to differentiate cutting-edge tech from hype.
- New signals and uncertainties shaping AI developments over the next 18 months
Mary Lague
Partner, Innovation Insights at Pilot44
17:00 CEST/11am EDT/8am PDT
Good Team, Bad Team: And Why it Matters in Innovation
Innovation is a team sport. It requires co-creation, collaboration, and cross functional cooperation. If your R&D, finance, sales, IT, and marketing don’t work together, you’re sunk. But how do you make teams work? And how can you make good teams with the people you have?
Let’s tackle this challenge from a cognitive perspective and explore proven practices to help teams think creatively, work collaboratively, and deliver extraordinary results by tapping the cognitive diversity within and between teams.
Sarah Thurber
Managing Partner at FourSight and Author of Good Team, Bad Team
These are not your typical boring webinars. You’ll get to work with peers and experts in interactive small group sessions, so you actually learn something.
Whatever your challenges are, and regardless of industry and innovation maturity, you'll leave with new, practical insights and an upgraded toolbox, to implement right away.
All Learning Labs follow the same structure:
- 15 min: introduction and speed networking
- 45 min: First speaker session with Q&A
- 45 min: Second speaker session with Q&A
- 15 min: Capturing takeaways and next steps
With each Learning Lab comes access to session recordings plus relevant content and resources from the "Netflix of Corporate Innovation"
Also, you'll be able to engage with other participants through our community platform before, during and after the session.
Bring your team. Boost your impact.
Innovation is a team sport, don't you agree?
Bring your team to focus on one key topic and get to the bottom of it. Or, you can divide and conquer to capture all of what's being discussed..
With our team packages you get a great deal on tickets- but even greater outcomes.
With so many issues to tackle and so much change happening so fast, you will benefit from your team joining too.
You're in great company.
Membership is available only to individuals and teams, working in roles like
• Chief Innovation Officer / VP of Innovation
• Head of Innovation, Innovation Program Director, Innovation Lab/Centre Director, Innovation Team Lead
• Venture Lead, Individual Intrapreneur, Innovation Team Member
• Leader/professional in general business role or other functions like Strategy, IT/Transformation, R&D/Product, Marketing, HR/Change
Connect and collaborate with other corporate innovators from brands like
Trusted by brands. Loved by peers.
"This is my tribe of lifelong learners and do-ers.
Innov8rs is unlike any conference. It’s the only place were corporate innovators and intrapreneurs get vulnerable and real about the challenges facing disruptors today and work together on creating breakthrough opportunities."
"I am blown away with learnings, reflections and new insights. Such an amazing crowd with a true sharing mentality.
I have gathered so many cases for best practice on how to run innovation, how to measure it, how to fuel intrapreneurship etc. Further, most people I have met are really down to earth, pragmatic and no-bulshit kind of people that are creating real impact in the companies they work for."
"I'm amazed by the format, how open, honest and authentic it was.
What a great event! You rarely ever get that with these types of events - well done!"
"This was a refreshing reminder that we're not alone.
Sometimes working at the front-end of innovation can be a lonely place, especially in a large 100-year-old company. Connecting with so many other innovation professionals acted as a shot of adrenaline reigniting my drive to transform our organization."
"I understand how difficult these events are to run in the best of times.
This is hands down the best virtual event I have attended."
"For me, the Innov8rs Unconference is one of the few intrapreneurship conferences that is worth paying for.
The ability to connect with such a high quality speakers, ask questions, and get great insights is just invaluable!"
"I have already used some of the ideas presented. It is also influencing my thoughts on many other areas related to innovation.
The value of the Unconference has far exceeded the cost."
"The conference was great – it was a perfect mixture of networking and practical learning with a group of high-caliber, highly involved and dedicated participants.
It's a rarity to attend an event like this!"
Ready to dive in?
Join Innov8rs Learning Labs to upgrade your skill-, tool- and mindset, and increase your impact as innovation professional.
This series consists of 8 Learning Labs; 2-hour workshops each covering one key pillar of corporate innovation.
As a first step, select your pass and complete registration via the buttons below.
Member Pass
for current members of Innov8rs Community and up to 5 of their colleagues. Not a member yet? More info and apply via the button below.
FREE
Individual Pass
Team Pass
Are you a member of Innov8rs Community already?
As a member, you are automatically enrolled onto every Learning Lab, so no need for you to purchase a pass separately. Want to become a member? As a first step, apply here.
Need some help?
If you'd like to understand better how participating in Innov8rs Learning Labs would support you and your team in achieving your objectives, or if you have questions about registration, email Theo via theo@innov8rs.co