Ignite Denver

Overview

Ignite Denver is a community event series that provides a public forum for individuals to share important ideas, stories, and passions in front of a live audience. Three times a year, presenters create five-minute talks accompanied by 20 slides that advance automatically every 15 seconds. This format creates a fast-paced, engaging, and informative evening that connects speakers with a broad, receptive audience in a unique way. The event focuses on bringing together diverse perspectives and ideas that can inspire change at various levels—from personal to global.

Technologies Used

Event planning and management tools
Presentation and slide advancement technology
Venue sound and projection systems
Online community building platforms
Marketing and audience engagement techniques

My Role

As part of the organizing team from January 2008 to June 2014, I was involved in:

Organizing and coordinating the thrice-yearly events
Managing volunteer teams to ensure smooth event execution
Mentoring and coaching presenters on the unique format
Building community partnerships to grow the event
Developing and implementing the event structure and presentation format

Challenges and Solutions

Running a community event series like Ignite Denver came with several challenges:

Ensuring diverse representation of speakers and topics
Managing the strict time format while keeping presentations engaging
Growing the audience while maintaining the community feel
Coordinating volunteers and resources on limited budgets

To address these challenges, we implemented speaker selection processes that emphasized diversity of topics and backgrounds, created presenter workshops to help speakers adapt to the unique format, built strong community partnerships to reach new audiences, and developed efficient volunteer management systems.

Outcomes

During my involvement with Ignite Denver, we achieved significant results:

Established a respected community platform for idea sharing in Denver
Successfully ran multiple events per year with consistently growing attendance
Provided a platform for hundreds of speakers to share their ideas and stories
Created a replicable event format that became part of Denver's cultural landscape
Fostered connections and community that extended beyond the events themselves

Ignite Denver has been a significant contributor to Denver's vibrant community of thinkers, creators, and innovators, providing a unique platform where anyone with passion and ideas can take the stage and share what matters to them.