Collab Lab 11: Creating a Culture of Innovation

How do you support the teachers at your school(s) that want to do great things?

There’s a recurring theme we’ve heard in our Collab Lab series this year — the innovative ideas teachers have to engage students in collaborative, authentic learning experiences are hard to get off the ground without support from school and district leadership.

So what are you doing to ensure that teachers at your school(s):

• have the time, autonomy, and resources to experiment,
• permission to fail and learn,
• the flexibility to seize opportunities as they arise?

Come share ideas with your colleagues at public, private, and charter schools from across greater Milwaukee, as well as some folks outside of K12 who offer an interesting perspective on the topic.

Collab Lab 11 is aimed at school and district leadership who are wondering how to support the efforts of their teaching staff to best serve students.  We’ll bring along folks from the wider community that understand what it takes to build a culture of innovation and welcome back the strong voices of educators we’ve heard over the past several months.

Agenda

5:30 – 6:00 Grab something to eat and drink, say hello

6:00 – 8:30 Let’s learn from each other

Food and beverage will be provided. There is no charge for participation but space is limited!

Featured Participants

Among others, you’ll have a chance to talk with:

Jane Barr – Regional Vice President, North America Sales, Services & Solutions, Rockwell Automation

Jane provides leadership and strategic direction for the sales force in the North America Eastern region. She is responsible for developing and executing the business strategy positioning Rockwell Automation products and services to best support Rockwell’s customers in achieving their business objectives.

Jan Haven – Director, Department of Innovation, Milwaukee Public Schools
The Innovation Office directs the research, promotion, development and implementation of innovative educational programs and practices and manages the interface of the innovation function with other central service offices and schools. The office also works to build capacity of district and school staff through strategic partnerships.

Jason Montague – Senior Vice President, Baird
Jason is Senior Vice President for Baird, a privately held, employee-owned financial services firm (currently #4 on Fortune’s 100 Best Places to Work list!). Jason is responsible for multiple functions at Baird, including software development, architecture, and data management. Before joining Baird, he held leadership positions at Wells Fargo; MacDonald, Dettwiler & Associates; and US Bank. Jason is on the board of a number of community groups, and helped found Milwaukee Agile, an industry group dedicated to growth in technology leadership. He has also been a very active proponent of Innovation in many forms, including Systems Thinking and Lean Startup.

Dave Neuman – Global Product Manager, Software Identification Solutions, Brady Corporation
For the past 20 years, Dave has been developing and promoting new technology solutions & services, building world-class software engineering & IT organizations, and coaching the next generation of technical leaders & agile practitioners.

Today, Dave is leading global product engineering teams at Brady Corporation in the development of new cloud products and mobile apps, driving commercialization and growth of software and solutions as a global product manager, and scouting emerging technologies that could help customers better identify and protect people, products, and places.

Tim Poppert – Assistant Director of Digital Innovation – Northwestern Mutual
Tim Poppert is a Wisconsin native and has spent over 15 years at Northwestern Mutual working in Application Development & Support, IT Architecture and Digital Innovation. In 2014, Tim was asked to help create and lead the strategy of digital innovation at Northwestern Mutual, which includes the implementation of the Digital Innovation team. In this role, Tim oversees, creates and maintains the vision for Digital Innovation and how to continuously foster a dynamic culture of innovation. He works to develop and maintain self-empowered teams to drive innovation, from design thinking to ideation to the execution of digital solution prototype’s and MVP’s.

And others to be announced…

Location

The Collab Lab will be held in the innovation space at Ward 4, 333 North Plankinton Avenue, Milwaukee, WI.  Space provided courtesy of The Commons.