Innovation is a keyword at Incubate. Therefore Incubate and BKKC will organize the Incubate Innovation Lecture 2010, which will take place in De NWE Vorst on September 12. We’re very honored that Charles Leadbeater will hold this year’s lecture.

Charles Leadbeater is a leading authority on innovation and creativity. He is Tony Blair’s favorite corporate thinker. He has advised companies, cities and governments on innovation strategy and drew on that experience in writing his latest book We-think: the power of mass creativity. This book charts the rise of mass, participative approaches to innovation from science and open source software, to computer games and political campaigning.

In 2005 Charles was ranked by management consultancy Accenture as one of the top management thinkers in the world. He advised a wide range of organizations including the BBC, Vodafone, Microsoft, Ericsson, Channel Four Television and the Royal Shakespeare Company. As an associate editor of the Independent he helped Helen Fielding devise Bridget Jones’s Diary. He wrote the first British report on the rise of social entrepreneurship, which has since become a global movement. His report on the potential for the web to generate social change led to the creation of the Social Innovation Camp movement.

Brabant Stad has the ambition to become cultural capital in 2018. To become cultural capital, cities also have to invest in innovation. Whereas, for instance, the Eindhoven region emphasizes technological innovations, Tilburg wants to invest more in social innovation as part of this ambition.

The web is creating a more open, participative and collaborative approach to culture. In his keynote, Mr. Leadbeater will focus on the role the arts can play in this social innovation process. What’s the role of a changing arts practice in a changing society?

After Charles’ keynote lecture, a panel of experts from the fields of arts, economy and politics will take place. The panelists in the discussion are Wim van de Donk, Dick Rijken, Bas van Heur and Wout Withagen.

Professor Wim van de Donk is the Queen’s Commissioner for the Province of Noord-Brabant. He has been Chairman of the Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR) since September 2004 and has been Professor of Public Administration at Tilburg University since 2002. From 2001 to 2003 he was a member of the Council for Public Administration.

Dick Rijken is director of STEIM and professor at The Hague University of Applied Sciences. He also works as an independent consultant in the field of digital culture and new media and is a policy advisor for the Dutch government and for the EU. His primary interest is the changing role of culture in western society. He looks at information systems as cultural products and investigates how traditional cultural players, such as broadcasters and museums, can redefine their role in our emerging network society.

Bas van Heur is a post-doctoral researcher at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Maastricht University. His main research interest is in the politics of urban development and the role of research in engaging with and analyzing urban development strategies and their effects.

Wout Withagen is the CEO of Freshheads. In 2009 Microsoft named Freshheads one of the top 10 Dutch web developers. Freshheads is a partner in the digital development of Incubate. They support the arts because it gives them an inspiring environment to work in. The arts on their hand benefit from the climate of the city they work in.

Presale for the Incubate festival and for this event has begun. Day tickets for Charles Leadbeater are 10 euros. Passepartout tickets for the festival also give access to this event. Tickets are for sale through the Incubate website.

The Incubate Innovation Lecture is organized in cooperation with BKKC, and is part of the ambition of Brabant to become European Capital of Culture in 2018.

Incubate is the annual celebration of independent culture in Tilburg, The Netherlands. It is a festival exhibiting a diverse view on indie culture as a whole, including music, contemporary dance, film and visual arts. It brings more than 200 cutting edge artists in an intimate context to an international audience. Black metal next to free jazz. Refreshing art next to inspiring debate.

BKKC (Brabants Kenniscentrum Kunst en Cultuur) has been the provincial support institution for contemporary art in Brabant for 25 years. The foundation aims to stimulate the interest for and the development of professional arts. It functions as a mediator between artists, art institutions, governments, companies and the public.