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The Global Entrepreneurship Congress, which is bringing an international group of founders, policy makers, investors and others to Indianapolis this week, kicked off its annual gathering Monday with a message of bold optimism amid uncertain times.
“When governments and societies shift the rules, like they have done recently, entrepreneurs are the first to spot the cracks where the new opportunities emerge,” said Jonathan Ortmans, founder of the Global Entrepreneurship Network, the Arlington, Virginia-based nonprofit that organizes the event.
Without referring to any specific government or administration, Ortmans spoke of a trend in which governments are disrupting their own ways of operating and turning away from globalization.
Speaking at the official opening event Monday afternoon at the Indiana Convention Center, Ortmans said he views entrepreneurs as “the new diplomats of our era,” whose values of collaboration, creating and problem-solving can help society move past disruption and into something new.
Monday’s opening event also included a discussion in which Indiana Gov. Mike Braun moderated a panel of executives from four Indiana-based companies: Beck’s Hybrids, Cummins Inc., Eli Lilly and Co. and Zimmer Biomet Holdings Inc.
Braun led a conversation that touched on a number of entrepreneurship-related topics.
In response to a question from Braun about why the companies choose to operate here and what the state could do better, the Lilly executive emphasized the importance of education and quality-of-life issues.
“I think there is nothing more important than, wherever we are, to really foster business- and people-friendly communities that are leaning in on high-quality education,” said Patrik Jonsson, president of Lilly International. “For us to be able to fill our very technical jobs with people from Indiana, across the U.S. … I think that’s really the most important factor.”
Another question focused on how the companies—some of them more than 100 years old—maintain a culture of innovation.
Zimmer CEO Ivan Tornos said the Warsaw-based orthopedics-products manufacturer has a culture of continuously examining its own policies and procedures, targeting “stupid rules” that might need to be amended or discarded.
Cummins CEO Jennifer Rumsey said the manufacturer, which built its name on its diesel engines, makes ongoing investments in its workforce and empowers them to “innovate and disrupt what we did yesterday, and do something better and different tomorrow.”
Beck’s CEO Sonny Beck said his company values “responsible risk-taking,” or taking risks while also looking ahead at what might go wrong and how to avoid it.
Projected attendance is 3,000 to 4,000 for the four-day event, which includes workshops, speakers, tours of Indiana’s entrepreneurial resources and more. The gathering takes place in a different city around the world each year, and this is the first year it has been hosted in the U.S. since its inaugural year in 2009.
In addition to the official Global Entrepreneurship Congress events, numerous associated evening events are taking place at venues around Indianapolis this week.
Among those events was a Monday evening gathering at Indianapolis venture studio High Alpha, featuring a fireside chat between High Alpha Managing Partner Scott Dorsey and Brad Feld, a partner in Boulder, Colorado-based venture firm Foundry. (Foundry is an investor in High Alpha.)
Feld is also a co-founder of New York City-based Techstars, which runs startup accelerator programs in countries around the world. He has also written nine books. Feld’s latest book, “Give First: The Power of Mentorship,” launches June 24.
Feld’s conversation with Dorsey ranged from mentorship to the role that innovation plays in keeping a community vital.
“We have plenty of examples over time of very fantastic cities that, over time, evolved and they weren’t wonderful anymore,” Feld said. “And then there are great examples of cities that have rebuilt and renewed themselves. And one of the canonical factors is, in those cities that have really been rejuvenated, there’s always innovation.”
Feld ended on a philosophical note, urging the audience to figure out what matters to them and to make the most of their finite lives.
“This is it. This is the moment. This is what we get,” Feld told the group. “Don’t miss the moment, because this is it.”
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