Opening General Session Keynote
Sunday, February 24, 4:00 - 5:30 PM
Keynote Address
How to Ignite Innovation by Everyone, Everyday
Doug Hall provides ideas and advice on how college teams can use the new field of academic study and leadership science known as Innovation Engineering to help find, filter, and fast track Big Ideas. The presentation is grounded in quantitative data and validated in real-world practice by tens of thousands of academic, nonprofit, and for-profit corporations around the world.
Biography
Doug Hall is an inventor, author, and whiskey maker. He is a chemical engineer by education who rose to the rank of Master Marketing Inventor at Procter & Gamble. At P&G, using the principles that would become Innovation Engineering, his team of three invented and shipped a record nine innovations in just twelve months. Hall has been named one of America’s top innovation experts by A&E Top 10, Inc. magazine, The Wall Street Journal, Dateline NBC, CNBC, CIO Magazine, and the CBC.
In 1986, he founded what is now known as the Eureka! Ranch. The mission of the Eureka! Ranch team is to change the world through systems that enable innovation by everyone, everywhere, every day, resulting in increased innovation speed (up to 6x) and decreased risk (up to 80 percent). In 2009, he founded Innovation Engineering, a new field of academic study that applies the system thinking of Dr. W. Edwards Deming to innovation. Innovation Engineering is taught as an undergraduate minor and graduate certificate on college campuses and off-campus through Blue Belt and Black Belt certifications. In 2016, he founded Brain Brew Custom Whisk(e)y, a craft spirits company that blends craftsmanship with science to create double-gold-medal-winning products.
Hall is the best-selling author of seven books. He has starred in two network television series (ABC’s American Inventor and Backyard Inventors) and a nationally syndicated radio program (Brain Brew Radio). Hall authored and performed a one-man play, North Pole Tenderfoot, on his adventure recreating Admiral Peary’s last dash to the North Pole. For his pioneering work on System Driven Innovation, Hall was awarded an honorary doctorate in engineering from the University of Maine and a Doctor of Laws from the University of Prince Edward Island.
Hall is a citizen of Canada and the U.S.A. He is married to his high school sweetheart and they have three children. They divide their time between Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S.A., and Springbrook, Prince Edward Island, Canada. Hall is passionate about sailing, craft pizza, craft whisk(e)y, cross-country skiing, and bagpiping.
