Developing times calls for new ideas, and the City of Long Beach has turned out to play a critical role in society’s creativity at this year’s Innovation Weeks.
A relatively new event known as the Innovation Weeks, lead by the Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation is happening now through Oct. 22. It was started up last year as a small event to celebrate the diversity of creativity throughout the Los Angeles County. This year the event has managed to draw a lot more attention from the community, which is surprising to the Long Beach Innovation team behind it.
“This year Long Beach made up over 10 percent of all the innovation week events in the country,” project manager Alma Castro said. “We have really become the superstars of the events.”
Chris Reco, the new innovations director at LAEDC who initially contacted the team, had a big commitment to highlight entrepreneurship and economic development in the region. According to the team’s director John Keisler, they did not host any entrepreneurial events in the city last year. But with the marketing help from Reco, they were able to schedule 20 events this year, out of 130 events across the county.
“We have so many great local partners, entrepreneurs and innovative creative people in Long Beach across all sectors,” Keisler said. “We wanted to get people involved, and there is so much good stuff going on right now that we think there could easily be 20 or 30 more events next year.”
Keisler said that he believes that the fast-developing technology helped spread the team’s spirit of innovation, and will be an opportunity for future entrepreneurs in all different sectors. It has contributed to decreased costs of manufacturing prototypes because of new opportunities to publish worldwide.
“Because of technology a lot more people are able to be self-employed, like creatives in the arts are able to publish on a smaller scale,” Keisler said. “The technology has popularized the market in a lot of our different sectors. Now entrepreneurs do not need to be part of a big organization to get a small business going. Small businesses are now able to do a lot more across the different sectors than ever before.”
The innovation team wants to encourage people of all ages in the community of Long Beach to share their ideas, Castro said. On Monday, they will be hosting Happathon in the Long Beach Public Library where middle-school students will be introduced to basic high-technological training. They believe that economic opportunity should be for everyone, Castro said.
“What is great about entrepreneurship is that it really doesn’t have an age,” Castro said. “Anywhere from the young entrepreneur, to someone in their 50’s or 60’s, there are people starting up something new.”
The innovations team also wants to reach out and assist the students of California State University, Long Beach to get their ideas to the market. On October 22, they are going to host an open-house event in the Immerse Design Research Lab on campus, Keisler said.
“We want graduates to stay here, because we want them to know that there are centers for innovation, small businesses, and entrepreneurs,” Keisler said. “We want them to know about the tools that we are building, and to make available for them. If they have an idea or see an opportunity, we can help them bring their idea to the market in Long Beach.”