Why attend

Big Ideas Fest is unlike any other education conference

Participants Get In on The Action

ISKME's annual event brings together teachers, policy makers, researchers, eduprenuers, students, and funders who are championing the transformation of K-20 education.

This year's theme is Education Innovation for a Small Planet. We are launching a new initiative to seed many of the ideas developed in the Action Collab workshops into a year-round, grassroots movement: BIF Local. 

Dynamic Speakers

Working across traditional silos in education, Big Ideas Fest engages participants from the ballroom stage to outdoor fire pits, from the hallways to the parking lot roof, and from face-to-face networking to inspiring speakers, all infused with activities that inspire and activate new ideas. That's a promise!
 
Watch RapidFire talks and Keynote speakers from previous years.
 

Action-Based Workshops

Action Collabsâ„¢, which anchor the spirit of collaboration at Big Ideas Fest, use a design thinking framework to engage small groups to brainstorm, prototype, and create scalable solutions to specific education challenges. This year, groups will start with a global educational challenge and then apply the processes learned to design a solution to a local challenge. 
 

Launch New Ideas in Beta

Big Ideas in Beta awards funding and year-long support to help refine and launch three prototypes created through Action Collabs at Big Ideas Fest. Each year at the Fest last year's Beta projects will have an opportunity to report their progress, and three new Big Ideas are selected to join the Beta initiative. 
 

Arts Engagement

Art fuels the creative spirit of Big Ideas Fest from performance, to collaborative-art intallations, to experiemental Action Collabsâ„¢ we invite you to activate your big ideas through engagement with the arts