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Rally Innovation Conference will take place in Indianapolis later this month, and if you miss it, you will regret it. Billed as the “largest global cross-sector innovation conference,” Rally will bring together disparate stakeholders with the vision of Indiana’s becoming the innovation capital of the world.
As a business owner, I’m not a reflexive supporter of big conferences. Too often, they become expensive boondoggles that serve for short-term inspiration but yield limited change for team members in attendance.
What’s different about Rally, and why I’m planning to attend, is that, while it has a top-tier list of speakers like Magic Johnson and Guy Raz, careful attention is being paid to building relationships. By curating connections that cross over sector expertise, Rally is helping form the foundations of the innovation it seeks.
In his 2020 book “How Innovation Works,” author and economist Matt Ridley articulated a common misconception about innovation being conflated with invention.
Ridley finds, “Innovation is not an individual phenomenon, but a collective, incremental and messy network phenomenon. For innovation to flourish, it is vital to have an economy that encourages or at least allows outsiders, challengers and disruptors to get a foothold.”
From an organizational standpoint, incubating innovation is incredibly difficult. It requires a tension between structure that fosters collaboration and a sense of shared expectations, with the creative freedom to follow emergent threads that often appear to be short-term failures.
When looking back on Indianapolis’ sports strategy—which is now over 40 years old and led to the Colts moving here, the city hosting over 450 major events and yielding billions in economic impact—it can seem obvious that it was the right move. But in the late 1970s, success was far from guaranteed. It took a bold vision and major investments. I see similarities in the moonshot that Rally represents.
Becoming the “Innovation Capital of the World” is a bold goal. And innovation, much like Hemingway’s line about bankruptcy, happens in two ways: “gradually, then suddenly.” But in spite of its evolutionary nature, it makes sense for Indiana to build off our geographic advantage as the Crossroads of America to foster a generative intersection of cross-sector relationships.
The sectors of focus are:
◗ Software: emerging and existing innovative software technologies, including web 3.0, blockchain, AI, apps and cybersecurity that rethink how to solve B2B, ecosystem, and B2C challenges and create new opportunities.
◗ Health care: companies launching services; digital therapeutics; devices; diagnostics, etc., that enable a better quality of life, increase life expectancy, or reduce the cost of care, for people and animals.
◗ Sportstech: the intersection of traditional sports, esports, training, data and technology, providing better safety, engagement, participation, entertainment and experiences for teams, athletes, broadcasters and fans.
◗ Ag & Food: companies innovating across food, animal health, plant science, agtech and agriculture to create an efficient, sustainable food system while preserving natural resources from the farm gate to the kitchen table.
◗ Hardtech: Companies innovating within manufacturing, industry 4.0 and cleantech, to produce hard goods, soft goods, advanced materials, new processes and sensors.
◗ Entrepreneurship: innovators, influencers, thought leaders, investors and education systems impacting the world through revolutionary ideas.
In year one, with 38 countries represented and 443 pitch applicants competing for the $5 million in available prize money, Hoosiers should be jumping in line to support Rally.•
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Schutt is co-founder of Homesense Heating & Cooling and Refinery46 and an American Enterprise Institute civic renewal fellow. Send comments to ibjedit@ibj.com.
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