Day 1

Wednesday, April 7th

12:00 – 4:00pm Pre-conference Tours
Toyota Innovation – Tour of the Georgetown, Kentucky Toyota plant

Go behind the scenes of Toyota’s largest North American production facility to learn how the Toyota way has translated into innovation and market share.

Bourbon Tour – Visit to the regions bourbon distilleries

Kentucky is bourbon country and this tour will showcase some of the region’s finest distilleries, both large and small. Don’t worry, we’re driving.

Tour of Horse Farms and the Horse Park

The horse symbolizes KY’s culture and represents a huge aspect of the regional economy. In the fall of 2010, the World Equestrian Games — the Equestrian equivalent of the Olympics — come to Lexington. This tour will take you to the scenic and working horse farms and the horse park, the host venue of the WEG.

12:00 – 2:00pm Young Professionals Summit @ Lexington Center

Young professionals take center stage with a half-day gathering at the Lexington Center. This event will discuss best practices in developing, attracting, and retaining young talent to a region.

Join young professionals, community and business leaders as they  come together in an open learning environment to discuss how to bridge generational and community issues affecting today’s young professionals. Attendees will have the opportunity to grow personally and professionally, build their networking skills and discover ways to get involved in the community.

Detailed agenda click here.

5:00 – 6:00pm Happy Hour @ Lexington Center

Sponsored by Alltech, please join us for a drink after your tour and before the evening commences.

March Madness Marching Band

6:00 – 8:00pm Creative Cities Summit Opens @ Lexington Center

Welcome – Peter Kageyama, founder & producer, Creative Cities Summit

Interlude: Bianca Spriggs, poet

Opening Remarks – Gov. Steve Beshear

Keynote: Ben Self, Co-Founder, Blue State Digital

Blue State Digital (BSD) gained world-wide attention in 2008 when then-Senator Barack Obama retained BSD to manage the online aspects of his 2008 Presidential primary campaign. The campaign utilized BSD’s tools to mobilize over 3 million individual donors to contribute over $500 million online and promote more than 200,000 offline events across the country.

Self, a Lexington native, will speak about the experience of growing a high tech firm, how to create an entrepreneurial culture and what cities need to do to attract and retain their best and brightest entrepreneurs.

Keynote: Dr. Richard Florida
Director of the Martin Prosperity Institute and Professor of Business and Creativity the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto; author The Rise of the Creative Class

Richard Florida joins us at the CCS to discuss his forthcoming book, The Great Reset. In The Great Reset, Florida provides an engaging and sweeping examination of previous economic “resets,” and looks toward the future and identifies the patterns that will drive the next Great Reset and simultaneously reshape virtually every aspect of our lives—from how and where we live to how we work to how we invest in individuals and infrastructure, and how we shape our cities and regions.

Florida presents a, positive and counterintuitive vision of our future, one that calls into question long-held beliefs about the nature of economic progress and that forces us to reassess our very way of life. He argues convincingly that it’s time to turn our efforts, as individuals, as governments, as a society, to putting the necessary pieces in place for a vibrant, prosperous future.

8:00pm Amalgamation Fire Nations performs in Triangle Park

8:30pm Dine Around Begins

The Dine Around is an opportunity for you to meet your fellow attendees and to sample some of the great restaurants have to offer. At the registration desk you will have the opportunity to sign up for dinner at various restaurants around the downtown area. There will be tables reserved at the restaurants with a designated “host” from the area who will answer questions and make connections for you. You show up, meet other delegates and pay only for your own meal!