Ninesigma US

On April 26 & 27, 2016, global innovation leaders convened to share ideas/best practices and network at the NineSigma Innovation Leadership Summit 2016 in Atlanta, GA. With nearly 100 innovation leaders from over 50 different companies the opportunities to interact and learn from the best of the best were boundless. Take a look at the activities that took place over those content-packed two days.

Pre-Conference Workshop: Open Design Thinking^TM

This year's pre-conference workshop taught participants how combining Design Thinking and Open Innovation can be key to accelerating innovation and growth. With over 30 participants, the workshop drew interest from a large group of our Summit registrants helping to provide a fully interactive session with incredible cross-industry input. Take a look at the photos below for a glimpse at the session and feel free to contact us should you want more information on how to apply Open Design Thinking^TM to your innovation plan. 

With our theme "Open Innovation Exposed", we delved into the gritty details to help educate our attendees on the potential pitfalls or keys to success when practicing open innovation in their companies. Our agenda was created to allow for strong interaction where questions could be asked and key information shared from our expert speakers. We explored the topics of organizational change necessary for open innovation success, cross-industry collaboration to solve the challenges of IoT, solution provider/solution seeker relationship building and more. We had amazing speakers from The Weather Company | An IBM Company, NASA, Johnson & Johnson, BASF, Haier, Parker Hannifin, Pfizer, BP, Lockheed Martin, Eaton, Zappos and more. Each speaker brought a unique perspective and were happy to answer the tough questions to provide the insight each attendee looked to gain.

NineSigma awarded individuals and programs alike at this year's OI Awards Ceremony held at the High Museum. A wonderful event where attendees, speakers and award winners can socialize and network while enjoying great food, drink and entertainment, this year's ceremony was capped off by celebrating the following awardees:

• Dyan Finkhousen, Director, Open Innovation & Advanced Manufacturing, GE 
• Jennifer Sherer, Vice President, Innovation & Entrepreneurship, Metro Atlanta Chamber
• OI Program: Yoong Kim, Manager, Open Innovation, North America; Christian Beil, Senior (Open) - Innovation Manager; Dominique Moulin, Head, Incubation Unit, Process Research & Chemical Engineering, BASF Energy Contest Team, BASF (Bolded individual was the recipient present at the OI Awards Ceremony)
• OI Program: Tao Xie, Managing Director, Innovation Partnership Program, Haier America, on behalf of the HOPE (Haier Open Partnership Ecosystem) program
• OI Program: Mr. Norimasa Onishi, Associate General Manager, Ajinomoto Co., Inc., on behalf of the Ajinomoto open innovation program