Your 2-day corporate innovation intensive.

If you have innovation in your title, this is your tribe.

Join a curated group of 250+ corporate innovators from across industries and all over Europe at the buzzing campus of Politecnico di Milano for two full days of in-depth conversations, relevant connections and quality content.

✅ You'll dive into best and next practices on strategy and governance, culture and capabilites, intrapreneurship, venture building and open innovation and much more.

✅ Also, you'll hear from 20+ cross-industry innovation leaders the ins and outs of their approach (and lessons learned along the way). Plus, you'll meet and mingle with local innovators during field trips exploring the local ecosystem.

✅ Most importantly, the program is designed for you to work on any topic or get feedback on any challenge that's on top of your list, guided by experts and supported by peers. You'll have in-depth conversations with a select group of other innovation leaders and do-ers who speak the same language, and establish relevant connections that you actually want to follow up with after the conference.

This is not just another conference, where you'll be forced to listen to talking heads on stage all day long. At Innov8rs conferences, you'll actively engage and actually learn, so you'll leave with actionable insights to implement.

APPLY TO JOIN

Work with the best.

A first overview of innovation leaders and experts confirmed. More coming soon... stay tuned!

The agenda.


Get a glimpse of what your two days will look like... No worries, you'll get a detailed agenda and instructions for RSVPing of the sessions of your choice in due time.

Wednesday 12 June

9:00-10:30 CEST

Opening / Peer Pods


Connect with other participants and talk about relevant trends and topics... A great way to meet others with similar interests.

10:30-12:30 CEST

Trending Topic Talks


Hear from subject matter experts what's working now and what's coming next for corporate innovators across industries.

It Takes A Village To Innovate

It is impossible for a single individual or team to drive an innovation from idea to launch. The task requires collaboration with key functions within the company.

From this talk you will learn how innovators can work collaboratively with important key functions such as finance, human resources, legal and compliance.

The goal is to go beyond working on innovations as one-off projects. We want to co-create an innovation process supported by other key functions.


Tendayi Viki

Associate Partner at Strategyzer / Author of Pirates In The Navy

Open Innovation: the Age of Hybridization and Results

Open innovation doesn’t sound like 2015 anymore.

Since then, corporations have gained substantial experience in working with startups, and best practices have begun to solidify. Open Innovation is no longer a black box.

However, the landscape continues to evolve. New tools are appearing, with Venture Builders emerging as a significant new approach, despite some setbacks, while other models like Corporate Accelerators are on the decline. We're also seeing a trend of hybridization in these models, adding complexity to the Open Innovation landscape.

As Open Innovation matures, the pressure to deliver tangible results increases. CEOs are less swayed by the 'cool' aspect of startups and are demanding real impact. This shift to an 'Age of Results' brings its own challenges, as the benefits of collaborating with startups – like strategic market insights, cultural influence, and branding – are often intangible and hard to measure in the short to medium term.


Alberto Onetti

Chairman & President at Mind the Bridge

12:30 - 13:30 CEST

Networking Lunch


Good food, great conversations... or maybe a short stroll outside?

13:30 - 15:30 CEST

Innovators Insights


Ready for some stories from the trenches? Hear first-hand from cross-industry innovation leaders about their approach and lessons learned, so you can compare notes and benchmark your performance.

Of course, there's ample time for Q&A and discussions so you can understand what you might consider tweaking in your approach.

16:00 - 17:00 CEST

Enlightening Exchanges


Pick from several un-conference style sessions. Prefer an in-depth discussion, more active co-creation session or an inspiring talk? You choose the topic and format for a energizing end of day 1.

Corporate Exploring in the Age of AI: Building New Ventures in Established Companies

Get an insider’s look at how to convert customer insights into thriving, profitable ventures in the age of AI. Strategy advisor and author Andrew Binns will share insights from his latest book “Corporate Explorer Fieldbook” and lead a discussion with the innovators that are making this happen inside corporations today.

You will learn:
• How to develop scalable business ideas that open new areas of growth
• How to overcome internal resistance to build a coalition of support inside the enterprise
• How to navigate the pain points and pitfalls of corporate venturing
• How innovators are building value propositions based on AI


Andrew Binns, Ellie Amirnasr & Timo Muelhausen

Director and Co-Founder of Change Logic and Co-Author of Corporate Explorer | Director, Digital Ventures at MANN+HUMMEL | Director of Data Driven X Factory Automation at Siemens

Setting Goals for Innovation Investment

Setting goals for the innovation investment is critical if your company treats innovation as a business imperative activity and not just a nice to have that happens on the sideline. This said, setting goals for innovation becomes even more critical in times when resources are scarce and the company needs to reshuffle its priorities.

Joining this session will equip you with the know-how needed to become pragmatic about your investment in innovation.


Dan Toma

Co-Author Innovation Accounting & The Corproate Startup, Partner at OUTCOME

From Lean Startup to Lean Scaleup: Upgrading New-Business Building

In this session, Amadeus Nexwave's Steve Kopp and Lean Scaleup's Frank Mattes provide you with a deep-dive on the WHY, WHAT and HOW Nexwave upgraded its new-business building.

Like many companies, Nexwave was not satisfied with the business impact from business model incubation. Steve and Frank designed a step-by-step upgrade program to take new-business building at Amadeus to the next level.

Topics will include:
- assessing your company's new-business building set-up
- getting pre-Scaling right
- an effective business graduation scheme
- assessing "ready to be scaled" for a corporate startup
- feeding the funnel with "meaningful ideas"


Frank Mattes & Steve Kopp

Founder and CEO at Lean Scaleup | Director, Nexwave Incubation Office at Amadeus

GenAI for Innovation Managers

In this session Elisa Farri and Gabriele Rosani will present ManagementGPT, prototypes of “AI co-thinkers”, that engage managers in human-machine conversations on complex managerial issues.

Participants will have the opportunity to test the “AI co-thinkers” applied to innovation cases.

The session will include time for Q&A and feedback sharing on the experiment, as well as tips and pitfalls.


Elisa Farri & Gabriele Rosani

Vice President and Co-lead at Capgemini Invent's Management Lab | Director of Content and Research at Capgemini Invent's Management Lab

Unlocking Peak People Performance For Innovation Teams

As innovation professionals we have endless tools and methodologies for product, process, and business model innovation. Yet the power of these tools is entirely dependent on the performance of the users – emotional, irrational, suspicious, biased, flawed, political, (yet wonderful), human beings.

In this session, innovation culture expert Elvin Turner, will explore the often-hidden human factors that significantly influence the success of innovation projects. Leveraging insights from fields including neuroscience, psychology, and elite sports coaching, this session will introduce practical, human-centric tools that can help you improve the performance of teams and stakeholders through every stage of the innovation process.


Elvin Turner

Innovation Advisor and Author of "Be Less Zombie"

17:00 - 19:00 CEST

Networking Drinks


After the sessions is when the real talk starts typically... Join for drinks and mingle with other participants.

Thursday 13 June

8:00 - 9:00 CEST

Enlightening Exchanges


Pick from several un-conference style sessions. Prefer an in-depth discussion, more active co-creation session or an inspiring talk? You choose the topic and format for a fresh start of day 2.

Oh no... We have a REBEL in our Team!

Rebels make our lives impossible with their endless questions and crazy ideas. But are they really? What if all rebels in your organisation would leave? Would it be as colourful as it is right now?

Rebels are the ones who get the ball rolling. Are you the one to stop them, or will you create the right context so that your rebels will move mountains for you?

In this session, we learn what makes a rebel, discover their superpowers, and explore which existing and non-existing roles would be perfect for rebels. By the end of the session, you have a handful of practical tips to empower the rebels in your team.


Simone van Neerven

Founder at reBella

Artificial Integrity

John McCarthy, a pioneer in computer science, coined the term 'Artificial Intelligence' (AI) in 1955. Although McCarthy's vision was revolutionary, it largely overlooked a crucial aspect without which all intelligence, including that of systems, is an empty shell devoid of meaning: integrity.

The real challenge for leaders in AI development lies not in making AI systems more intelligent, but in recognizing and addressing the inherent places where they would fit in our organizations and our societies to preserve what is core to human values and enhance, not harm, their integrity. At its heart, Artificial Integrity aims to foster a symbiotic relationship between AI and humanity, where technology supports human well-being and societal progress, redefining the interaction between human wit and AI’s capabilities.

The session will offer an exploration into 'Artificial Integrity' as a new AI paradigm, presenting this novel approach in AI development and implementation. You will deepen your understanding of how 'Artificial Integrity' goes beyond traditional AI ethics.

Furthermore, the session will discuss strategies to establish 'Artificial Integrity' to ensure AI system development and deployment serve the broader goal of preserving and enhancing human intelligence.

These insights will allow you to appreciate the relationship between AI advancements and human intelligence, aiming for a more harmonious integration of AI in various societal and organizational contexts while upholding integrity.


Hamilton Mann

Group Vice President Digital at Thales

Innovation Ecosystems Experiences, Obstacles, and Solutions from Practice

Digitalization of healthcare drives opportunities for partnering in ecosystems, both during and after the innovation process. We have applied a number of practices such as Value Blueprints, Value Architectures, Minimal Viable Ecosystems, etc. This had lead to great new insights, but also roadblocks we encountered that needed to be addressed or circumvented.

Join this interactive session to dive into our lessons learned (and share your experiences from the trenches as well).


Rob de Graaf

Internal Innovation & Ecosystems Consultant at Philips

9:00 - 15:00 CEST

Workshops


Roll up your sleeves and get to work in these interactive sessions focused mostly on application and implementation. You pick the sessions covering the topic you're keen to dive into.

Building a Successful B2B Accelerator Program

Many corporate venture building programs install a great journey for innovators from ideation to concept validation. However, the success of these campaigns is often scrutinized by management in tough times due to sub-optimal results.

Resource priorities might shift, idea owners might not be the right profile to lead the development and budgets might not be secured for the full journey.

Discover the building blocks of an ambitious B2B accelerator (case study) to deliver on their promise of value creation.


Stijn Smet

Managing Director at Verhaert Innovation Academy

Human-AI Showdown: Who Is The Better Innovator In The Future?

In this groundbreaking workshop, we delve into the world of ideation like never before. Participants will be divided into groups, pitted against the sophisticated ITONICS AI in a battle of wits and creativity. Based on recent trends, our team will set a series of hot topics as the battleground for this challenge.

All workshop participants, along with AI, will brainstorm and develop ideas in response to these topics, unleashing the full potential of human and artificial intelligence. The twist? All ideas will be judged anonymously. Neither human participants nor AI will know the origin of each idea - was it a product of human or AI's creativity? This adds an important and exciting layer of unbiased evaluation to the process.

As we evaluate each idea based on criteria such as originality, feasibility, and impact, we will find out together: Which ideas will triumph? Will human ingenuity outshine AI's creativity, or will AI set new benchmarks in innovation? Join us for an exploration of the future of innovation, where humans meet AI in a quest to find the ultimate innovator in the future.


Dr. Fabian Reck

Director Go-to-Market at Itonics

European Exclusive: FutureFit 2024 - The Results

In 2023, we began our corporate innovation benchmarking report – FutureFit.

The aim was simple: to conduct the largest-ever study dedicated to understanding what sets the best innovation teams apart from the rest based on insights from diverse geographies, industries and companies and to share the analysis with ambitious changemakers like you.

In this session, we'll give you an in-depth view of how successful innovation teams are run by revealing the latest performance benchmarks, including budget allocation, rewards & compensation, performance metrics and portfolio performance and look at commonalities in the challenges they face, their innovation strategies, top priorities and ways of working.

Join us to be the first to get access to and discuss the results, plus hear from a brilliant lineup of innovation icons taking part in our panel.

By attending, you will find out:
- What percentage of revenues do top-performing companies allocate to their innovation activities?
- How are the world's leading teams recognised and rewarded for their work in building new products and services?
- What significant obstacles have your peers overcome this year, and what do they foresee over the next twelve months?
- What are the key reasons that some companies outperform others when it comes to corporate innovation?
- What KPIs do leading companies use to measure, manage and improve their corporate innovation performance?
- Where are companies focusing their innovation efforts over the next twelve months, and what bets are they making?
- Why do some companies generate higher returns from their innovation investments than others?
- How are companies and teams organizing to drive better outcomes, and what methodologies are they relying on?


Jacob Dutton

Co-Founder & CEO at Future Foundry

What the Rise of Venture Building Means for Innovation Management

Venture Building and Venture Studios are gaining popularity in the innovation and venture capital scene. What’s behind the hype? Is the approach of venture studios effective? What does it mean for corporate innovation management?

In this workshop we will discuss these questions and more, based on insights from our recent study with leading corporate venture building units in Europe. We will discuss and challenge venture building setups and approaches and share practical insights from over a decade of corporate innovation and venture building experience.

We are looking forward to insightful and inspiring discussions with you!


Stefan Peintner

Managing Partner at WhatAVenture

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


Dominik Krabbe

Manager Foresight & Innovation at Rohrbeck Heger

How to Integrate Innovation Training into Successful Innovation Ecosystems

If we could only create the right mindset and skill sets in our teams, we would create the next billion dollar business. Sadly, it doesn’t work like that.

Innovation Teams have relied on workshops and culture change to drive outcomes. But skill and mindset training alone won’t achieve results. We must drive data flow through the entire organization to realize the value of these methods.

This interactive workshop focuses on how to map your innovation ecosystem and identify obstacles that are putting the brakes on innovation.


Manuel Guerrera

Corporate Innovation & Lean Startup Coach at Kromatic

Venture Client Masterclass

Join this session to undertand the strategic value of startups and the need for their cutting-edge solutions to drive and foster corporate innovation and competitiveness, as well as to get an indroduction into the Venture Client Model as the most resource efficient corporate venturing vehicle.

You'll learn:

1) Why startups are relevant for your organization - Make the the relevance of startups as a source for corporate innovation palpable with industry examples and a case study.

2) Venture Client Model 101 - Grasp the opportunities and risks of corporate venturing and understand the benefits that Venture Clienting has to offer.

3) The Ins and Outs of Successful Venture Client Units - Explore how Venture Clienting has aided competitiveness for reference companies and infer how venture clienting can benefit your company.


Felix Bellinger

Venture Clienting Lead at 27Pilots

AI-powered Venture Building

Unpacking powerful lessons and insights that we have learned in the past 14+ years of building and launching 100+ new ventures inside large organizations, while delivering $2B in value for Fortune 2000s.

In today's dynamic market, innovation remains the key to growth and market resilience. However, a staggering 95% of innovations fail. Discover how leading-edge companies leverage AI to unlock a 5x larger venture idea funnel and make 2x more astute choices.

Learn how to tackle the common corporate innovation challenges, starting from identifying ideas with the highest ROI and getting the buy in, all the way to bringing the venture to the market and scaling it.

Discover the crucial need to gather a group of initial customers who not only support your product but also become its biggest fans, speeding up the process of finding the right market. Instead of trying to sell, concentrate on finding early users who believe in your idea, giving you important feedback to make sure it's on the right track.


Alain Bindels

Managing Partner Europe at U+

12:30 - 13:30 CEST

Networking Lunch


Good food, great conversations... or maybe a short stroll outside?

15:00 - 16:00 CEST

Peer Pods


We'll meet again in small groups of peers to reflect on learnings from the conference, identify next steps and align on actions.

16:00-19:00 CEST

Field Trips


Finally, here's your chance to explore the booming Milan ecosystem. Hop on the bus to various innovation hubs and innovative places in and around the city, and meet with local innovators sharing their stories.

Why join?

Gain insights on trending topics and cross-industry best practices from (inter)national thought leaders.

Benchmark your approach and performance with innovators from other companies, sharing their successes, failures and everything in between.

Work on your actual challenges, guided by experts and learning from peers.

Go out and explore the local innovation ecosystem, meeting with movers and shakers and seeing innovation in action.

Leave with an updated toolbox to implement for immediate impact once back in the office.

Feel refreshed and re-energized, having met so many other inspiring innovators, committed to making things happen at your organization.

"What a great event! I learned as much from the attendees as I did from the speakers and hardly ever do speakers stay around to network after their session. I'm amazed by the format, how open, honest and authentic it was. You rarely ever get that with these types of events - well done!"

"This conference was the best in terms of content- carefully curated and very complimentary."

"It was the most useful conference/event that I’ve ever been to. I walked out of every single session having learned something useful."

"What a conference! It's now the 3rd time that I am attending an Innov8rs conference and as usual I have been amazed by the insights, the learning, the energy in the room and the amazing people I have met!"

Everything corporate innovation from A to Z

Regardless of where you are on your innovation journey, and no matter what industry you're in, we've got you covered.

From strategy and governance, to culture and capabilites, and from intrapreneurship and incubation program to venture building and open innovation- you'll dive into the most important themes crucial for innovators across industries.

With more than 30 sessions in different tracks on the agenda, you'll pick the sessions that are most relevant and interesting to you.

Besides the live sessions, you will get access to content and community online before, during and after the conference, to support with implementation once you're back in the office.

Find it hard to choose from all those value-packed sessions on the schedule?

Bring your team to gather insights from all speakers and sessions, and work with experts in dedicated 1:1 sessions to maximize outcomes.

As a team, you can focus on one key topic and get to the bottom of it. Or, you can divide and conquer to catch the best and latest on all key themes and trends. Our team packages get you 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.

APPLY TO JOIN

"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 try to attend as many as possible. This is my tribe of lifelong learners and do-ers."

"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 itrapreneurship 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."

"Connecting with so many other innovation professionals acted as a shot of adrenaline reigniting my drive to transform our organization. Sometimes working at the front-end of innovation can be a lonely place, especially in a large 100-year-old company. Last week was a refreshing reminder that we're not alone."

Loved by participants, trusted by brands.

We're bringing together innovators since 2011. We've hosted more than 25 conferences in global innovation hubs from San Francisco to Stockholm to Shanghai to Singapore to Sydney.

Beyond the high-quality sessions and diversity of speakers, past participants valued most meeting people in jobs like them, for countless and endless conversations. Many stay connected long after the conference, always just a phone call away.

You'll meet cross-industry corporate innovators of all trades, all chasing similar objectives and facing similar challenges, across companies and industries:

  • Chief Innovation Officers, VP's of Innovation, Innovation Leaders
  • Intrapreneurs or Corporate Entrepreneurs
  • Innovation (program) Directors
  • Heads of Labs, Incubators and Accelerators
  • Corporate Venturing, Strategy and Corporate Development Managers
  • R&D and Product Development Professionals
  • HR and Organizational Transformation Leaders

working at companies like

You'll connect, collaborate and co-create with peers. That's how we design the event. That's why we limit the number of participants. And past participants loved it.


Here's what your peers said about their experience.

"That was a terrific event! Thank you for all of your hard work organizing + curating a terrific group of people to attend. I just kept having great conversations over both days."

"All the sessions I participated in were amazing. Honestly, it’s very rare to attend a conference with so much enthusiasm and also the fact that it’s truly peer 2 peer."

"Hands down the best conference I’ve had the luxury of attending. I have so many more great people in my world now and have a brain bursting with new ideas and concepts to explore."

Secure Your Seat

If you have innovation in your title, this is your tribe. Join Innov8rs Milan for in-depth conversations, relevant connections and quality content.

What's included?

• Join 30+ sessions with experts and innovation leaders, covering everything corporate innovation A-Z, as well as field trips to explore the local ecosystem
Access to session recordings and additional resources for three months
Engage with other participants via our online platform before, during and after the conference
Connect and network with other participants during the conference dinner and several social events prior, during and after the conference

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.

€495

for 1 seat

ABOUT INNOV8RS COMMUNITY

Individual Pass

€1995

Fast Movers discount until 24 April 2024

€1695

for 1 seat

APPLY TO JOIN

Team Pass - 3 Seats

€4795

Fast Movers discount until 24 April 2024

€3995

for 3 seats

APPLY TO JOIN

Team Pass - 5 Seats

€6995

Fast Movers discount until 24 April 2024

€5995

for 5 seats

APPLY TO JOIN

The options above are available for corporate innovation leaders and professionals only.

We are not offering seats to consultants, coaches, software firms or otherwise service providers. Only Expert Partners and members of Innov8rs Community with an Expert Pass are eligible to join this Conference. 

Are you a member of Innov8rs Community already?

As a member, you can register for this conference at a members-only discount of €495 per seat. Log in to the community platform or ask our team for further info and instructions.

Need some help?

If you'd like to understand better how participating in Innov8rs Austin would support you and your team in achieving your objectives, or if you have questions about registration, start a chat via the blue button bottom right or email hans@innov8rs.co