Congratulations to the BIF-5 Contest Winner

Voting is now closed, and we have a winner for my ticket to the Business Innovation Factory (BIF-5) conference October 7-8, 2009 in Providence, RI. Here again were the Three Finalists:

1. Creating a Bachelor of Innovation by Dr. Terrance E. Boult, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs


2. Breaking Innovation Barriers by Looking Beyond by Vyoma Kapur, Colspark LLC


3. A Nightmare on Innovation Street by Brad Barbera, KAB Business Research

And the winner is...


Vyoma Kapur of Colspark LLC!

• Colspark seeks to foster greater collaboration between academia and businesses. They believe in creating a dynamic knowledge and information flow between colleges and companies. They do this by giving college students a platform to solve companies' sales, marketing and business problems. By bringing students and companies closer together, they create an environment where the best and the brightest are rewarded. Using the principles of open innovation, effective ideas and solutions are generated for companies. Colspark endorses open communication and open innovation while operating in a secure environment. Companies have rights to confidentiality, while participating students can be rest assured that their intellectual property is protected.

Vyoma wins my ticket to the Business Innovation Factory conference after her article "Break Innovation Barriers by Looking Beyond" received the most comment votes and @reply votes on Twitter.

(NOTE: Travel expenses are NOT included and are the responsibility of the winner)

For those who would still like to go to the conference before it sells out, as a special bonus for my loyal readers I've negotiated a special $50 discount when you enter "BK110" in the payment code field on the payment options page during registration - this will get you in for $1,150. Groups of five or more can get extra discounts.

New storytellers are added each week, but so far they include:

• Don Tapscott, "Wikinomics"


• Jeff Jarvis, "What Would Google Do?", buzzmachine.com


• John Maeda, President, Rhode Island School of Design


• Jonah Lehrer, "How We Decide"


• Keith Wilmot, Global Director Insights, Ideas & Creativity, Coca Cola

If you'd like to explore and discuss innovation issues further, please join our Continuous Innovation group on LinkedIn.

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Braden Kelley is the editor of Blogging Innovation and founder of Business Strategy Innovation, a consultancy focusing on innovation and marketing strategy. Braden is also @innovate on Twitter.