February 9th at the 20th Century! (Food and drink notes at the bottom)

Ignite Cincinnati is an information exchange for fostering and inspiring our community. In one evening, you hear 16 passionate speakers from our creative, technical, and business communities talking about their current projects or favorite ideas for just five minutes. Presentations will educate and inspire you, and maybe make you laugh in the process. It is an event for thoughtful and mature people, language and alcohol will both be served.

If you had five minutes on stage what would you say? What if you only got 20 slides and they rotated automatically after 15 seconds? Around the world artists, geeks, entrepreneurs and activists have been putting together Ignite nights to show their answers. It is a worldwide movement and it is here in Cincinnati.

The Presentations

Up to 20 slides and 5 minutes is all you get. Not a second more. The presenters need to get to the point quickly, and make it exciting and engaging.

We welcome topics about anything that other people will find interesting. That’s a wide criteria and that’s just fine. If the most interesting submissions end up being technical, then Ignite will have a technical feel. There is a wide mix of topics. If you’re not interested in the current topic, all you have to do is wait for 5 minutes and a new one starts.

The Event Schedule

The general schedule for the event:

5:30pm – Bar and Theater open
6:30pm – First half of the presenters go, back to back to back 
7:15pm – Intermission. Talk to the first half presenters, ask them questions, mingle, enjoy the bar
8:00pm – Second half of the presenters go, just as action-packed as the first half
9:00pm – After party begins
10:30pm - Goodnight! 

During it all we expect a lot of audience interaction, back-channel Twittering, and maybe some giveaways. The Twitter hashtag is #IC5.

The Point Of It All

If Ignite Cincinnati succeeds, then participants have:

• Learned something new about what’s going on in and around Cincinnati.
• Met new people and made new personal or professional connections.
• Had fun!