Ignite Waterloo sparks imagination

Twenty slides. Fifteen seconds. Five minutes.
 
Stripped down to the basics, those are the numbers that pretty much define Ignite, a volunteer organization of people dedicated to setting up a stage and handing a microphone to local guest speakers allowing them to share their ideas and stream that passion and information to the world.
 
Ann Arbor, Dublin, Medellin, Bucharest, and Mumbai—Ignite has taken place in dozens of cities, including here in Waterloo Region, where the fifth local Ignite was held in early February in a room in downtown Kitchener’s Tannery Building packed to its 250-person fire-code limit.
 
“I’m consistently impressed with the range and commitment of the people who get involved, and who attend,” says Melanie Baker, an Ignite Waterloo organizer. “And, of course, as events get more established and grow, they change, and their feel and culture changes.”
 
The Ignite idea was born in Seattle in 2006. Since then there have been dozens of Ignites around the world and each is independently organized.
 
Ignite Waterloo has held five events, delivering several each year. Earlier this month, Global Ignite Week 2011 saw more than 60 cities participating and connecting through a worldwide network.
 
The Ignite premise is a straightforward one: a couple of weeks before the event, speakers submit 20 PowerPoint slides on a topic and Ignite organizers load them into a display that advances the slides every 15 seconds.
 
When speakers take the stage and are handed the microphone, their slides appear on large screens in the venue while the speaker discourses, prattles, expatiates, and maybe even waxes poetical on the subject matter.
 
“The intent has always been kind of geeky in the larger sense of people who are passionate about particular topics, projects, and organizations,” according to Baker. “But it’s not just tech geeks, though many participants and speakers certainly fall into that category. Beyond that, the point has been to have fun, network, learn, and get inspired.”
 
Over Ignite’s 11-year history around the world, there has been a gallimaufry of entrepreneurs, tech-buffs, professionals, do-it-yourselfers, and just plain folks who congregate to share an idea—full-blown or incipient—with other enthusiastic participants and information-seekers.
 
The use of notes is frowned upon, and there’s a Twitter wall displaying audience comments and observations. To some, it’s geek culture on display, but for everyone the Ignite mantra is “Enlighten us, but make it quick.”
 
Ignite 5 Waterloo featured presentations on slam poetry, a phrenological treatise for the cranially well-endowed, a steampunk-inspired session on making monsters, social entrepreneurship, congruent software testing, and something called “Project Macfrica,” which ships used Apple computers to Eldoret Town, Kenya.
 
The first Ignite Waterloo was held at The Museum in September 2009. The venue for Ignite 6 is yet to be determined, says Baker, but they will be looking for room for 300 people. “Fundamentally, Ignite is all about the experience of the people who are coming. And we try to balance making it both casual but also polished.”
 
Aside from its entertainment value, there’s a core element of meeting and connecting among the community at play with Ignite Waterloo but what is sparked out of that speaks to the very composition that makes Waterloo Region unique, according to Baker.
 
“I think Waterloo Region is a great place to have Ignite, since we’re a bit of a mini-Silicon Valley here with lots of tech companies, lots of entrepreneurship, and, by extension, lots of people who aren’t afraid to break the mold and ask, ‘What if?’ and just try different things.”