NEW: Business Innovation Factory Gears Up for 2011 Summit in September

The Business Innovation Factory is gearing up for its annual Summit in Providence, scheduled for September 20-21.

Recently named one of the “Top 7 Places to Watch Great Minds in Action” by Mashable.com, the BIF summit drew  more than 300 people from over 150 different companies last year, 80% of which were CEO’s and presidents.

In the two-day conference, more than 400 innovators, CEOs, inventors, entrepreneurs, authors, artists, gurus, researchers, scientists, architects, and more will come together to connect, share ideas, inspire and collaborate. It's all, say organizers, about storytelling.

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Networks of innovators and collaborators

"Perhaps what is most powerful about the Summit is that it creates space for random collisions of unusual suspects," says BIF Chief Market Maker Eli Stefanski. "A shoe designer learns innovation process from a car designer. A corporate executive and university professor co-design and deliver a college course. These collisions also lay the groundwork for something significantly bigger then then Summit -- purposeful networks of innovators and collaborators who are taking their connections and their ways of thinking to tackle our most intractable systems -- from education to entrepreneurship to energy."

Speakers from violinists to CEOs

The roster of 30 storytellers for the 2011 conference is diverse and stimulating, with everyone ranging from a professional violinist who founded a community musical education program for disadvantaged youth to the screenwriter for The Polar Express to a Harvard grad who is now the CEO of Health Leeds. This unique mix fosters connections and random collisions of unlikely suspects, and one of the most intriguing events for leaders in all fields.

For more information on BIF-7, go to businessinnovationfactory.com.