There is a very true axiom – the more tech-connected we get, the more we crave real-life human contact.
For a number of years, we took this principle to heart and organized LOK events of leading new thinkers, doers and makers in Toronto, Vancouver and Ottawa. Although we called it the LOK – it was really short for “The League of Kickass” (and it was).
In total, Sean Moffitt helped lead 50+ of these events ranging from 8 to 150 people with a network of over 5,000 champions.
The idea: Connect the innovative minds and champions of a city’s creative, technology, media, cultural and business sectors that might now ever get together … and let sparks fly.
The takeaway: “Interesting enough to attend. Awesome enough to engage. Quiet enough to talk. Diverse enough to learn. Open enough to argue.”
The conspirators: Invite brilliant people, doing brilliant things in up close and intimate environments. We had over 75 of Canada’s top movers and shakers grace us with their presence.
The diversity: We handpicked specific people to be part of our network, in the following 30 categories:
The Potential Topics:
- Technology – Is faster really better?
- The Internet of Things – Having Your World Speak and Make Sense.
- Starting Movements – what gets people to jump on?
- Social Media – Crowd Hero or Individualistic Villain?
- The Reinvention of Work – What does the Next Evolution of Work Look Like?
- How to Disrupt Education?
- How to Disrupt Health Care?
- Amazon vs. Facebook vs. Apple vs. Google vs. Microsoft – which ecosystem will win?
- Betting on the Future – Will these things be Mainstream by 2020?
- If you were government, how would you foster innovation in Canada?
- Youth unemployment/underemployment – what is the solution?
- Data and privacy – What should be private and what should be public?
- Canada – Can we build and sustain an $500 billion technology company?
- 2017 Canada – What do we do to celebrate 150 years Canada?
The Formats for our events:
- Speed networking
- Live performance
- Debates
- Teamwork collaboration
- Innovation Games
- Expert Panels
- Innovation/Technology Demonstrations.
- TED-styled talk/argument
- The Coolest Thing – Top 10 List of What We Learned
- Hacking of Ideas
- Sponsor Showcase
- Young LOK – people
- Innovator Chat Panels
- Author chats on new books
- Live polling of group
- Film/documentary showings
The venues:
Non-typcial event spaces that amplified the theme of the events. On one of our more successful ones we hosted a debate from the confines of a boxing ring.
Perhaps we’ll kickstart the idea again in the future.