Innovation-Encouraging Environments

In her entrepreneur keynote, Dr. Mary Walshok shares several examples of inventive innovators and describes environments where they flourish. The San Diego-based speaker explains how the the entrepreneurs in her community want to change the world, and don't just want to be successful in a financial sense. In order to describe the reality of who and what entrepreneurs are today, she tells many anecdotes.

Ultimately, the entrepreneur keynote defines innovators as value-driven men and women who want to solve vexing problems. It is essential they are in an environment which nurtures this, a place where ideas matter. For example, the culture of research and discovery in San Diego encourages trial and error, enables failure and success and motivates experimentation and discovery. In addition to nurturing good ideas, other key characteristics of environments inventors gravitate towards and thrive in are access to capital, business know-how, boundary-spanning and fun places to live and work.