People at The Mill demonstrated just how much Delaware cares about innovation. On June 16, we hosted our first-ever Help Plan Delaware Innovation Week event and about 50 community leaders showed up to offer their ideas for the weeklong celebration of technology in the First State.
For the first planning session of its kind, it was pretty impressive.

Great brainstorming session with @technicallyDE at @TheMillDE! #DIW16 is off to a good start. 👍 pic.twitter.com/REi6LhNjCa

— First Ascent (@firstascentDE) June 17, 2016

Attendees split into groups based on the week’s seven tracks (Creative, Dev, Civic, Access, Business, Media and Sciences) to discuss what they believe should be included in the second year of DIW. If you haven’t already saved the dates for #DIW16, it’s happening Nov. 11-19, 2016.
Here are some of the big ideas that came from each breakout group:

1. Creative

• An event to encourage creativity for startup founders, featuring info on website design, logo design, etc.
• Interactive workshops
• Live coding to produce something artistic

2. Dev

• Introduce skill levels for developer workshops (and an online assessment) so that people end up in the appropriate sessions
• A maker conference
• A coding competition

3. Civic

• Get the youth involved by offering DIW internships
• Workshops that incorporate police/firefighter/EMT data to predict crime
• A “How to build a civic tech app” event
• Partner with Delware Center for Health Innovation

4. Access

• Access-focused presentation by public libraries
• Involve local schools in coding education and digital lieracy classes

5. Business

• High-profile panels
• High-profile founders to educate on multiple topics: How/when to raise, pitch deck tips, how to align with a VC, etc.

6. Media

• Startup Crawl of local digital agencies
• An “Escape the room” challenge where participants have to code their way out
• DIW ads via Carvertise

7. Science

• A patent talk on building businesses around intellectual propety: What the process looks like, what should and shouldn’t be patent-protected, etc.
• Virtual reality demonstrations
• A showcase of UD’s STAR Campus

Hopefully one of these ideas catches your eye, that way you can start planning. The Technical.ly events team will encourage collaborations and help connect resources. Regardless, it takes the force of the community to get this done. So let’s do this.
What’s next?
The #DIW16 Event Organizer Twitter Chat is scheduled for Thursday, July 21, from 2-4 p.m. Find that, other important deadlines and all you need to know to plan an event in the official DIW16 Event Organizer Guide. Note: The Delaware Innovation site will be live early July 2016.
Feel free to reach out to alexandria@technical.ly with any questions. We’re pumped that we get another year to enhance Delaware’s community of technologists and entrepreneurs. Cheers!

We had a great turnout to @technicallyDE's #DIW16 brainstorming session. Mark your calendars for Nov 11-19, #netDE! pic.twitter.com/vRlUHytNci

— The Mill Space (@TheMillDE) June 17, 2016