Yeah, there’ll be lots of fun stuff. When you hold a conference in the middle of one of the best outdoor playgrounds in the country, people are going to want to get out and run around.
But, at the 2015 Create WV Conference we’ll be bringing tough conversations into the public arena.
This year, we’re challenging the broadband issue: what’s really keeping us from better access? Create WV will host an open conversation with key players in this debate and look at what communities can do to connect.
We’re also looking at the gender gap in West Virginia politics: what’s keeping women from political office?
And, we’ll be tackling head on the “post-coal” conversation that has divided and deadlocked so many communities across the state. How can cutting-edge community development promote creative post-coal land use? And how do the places and people of West Virginia move on when everything they know is crumbling?
Education and the modern classroom is on the bill, too, as is an examination of the West Virginia workforce of the the future.
Some of this discussion will be organic. Some of it will come from the After Coal documentary, which examines how both Wales and Eastern Kentucky have handled these issues. Another great documentary, Most Likely to Succeed, looks at the history of our country’s education system, and how we can innovate within it to offer education that meets our needs.
Two world-class keynote speakers, Pia Mancini and Bill Habicht, will lead our exploration of the new and exciting worlds where democracy, technology, social good and entrepreneurship meet. As always, there’s a heavy entrepreneurship element to our conference. You’ll be able to find out how to go from idea to startup, then from startup to operational business. You’ll also discover ways your town can make its atmosphere more welcoming to entrepreneurs and creatives.
(Plus, our Entrepreneurship Café will see the audience award a $5,000 cash prize to one lucky winner!)
The 2015 Create WV Conference will be the kind of event where you can learn from people in your shoes in a different county. We’ll challenge assumptions, shoot down obstacles, get right to the meat of the issues, and use creativity and collaboration to create the building blocks of a new West Virginia.
Plus, there’ll be zip lining.