The Northern Utah installment of the twice-a-year One Utah Summit takes place May 1-2 in Layton, with activities including a startup pitch event, keynote presentations, plenary sessions and breakout panel discussions.
Organized by the Governor’s Office of Economic Opportunity (Go Utah), the event takes place at the Davis Conference Center. The cost for the startup pitch event May 1 is $25. The cost for the May 1-2 activities is $399. Details are at https://oneutahsummit.com/.
The startup pitch competition May 1 at 7 p.m. is powered by Kinect Capital, in partnership with Weber State University’s Hall Global Entrepreneurship Center and the Utah Innovation Center. The speed pitch challenge includes cash prizes totaling $80,000, where judges rank the best ideas and the audience selects a people’s choice award recipient.
Pre-competition activities start at 5:30 p.m. and include displays from high school students, university students and entrepreneurial groups, Salt Lake City professionals, and competition finalists, as well as vendor booths, appetizers and drinks. Vinay Cardwell of Cre8tiv Consulting will discuss “How to Support and Retain Utah Talent,” and Kirk Ouimet, founder of Stack, will discuss his journey of selling his company to Snapchat and assembling an elite engineering team in Utah.
May 2 activities begin with an 8 a.m. check-in and a 9 a.m. plenary. Activities include a “couch conversation” with some of Utah’s leaders discussing the state’s historical boom and share their thoughts on Utah’s future, a presentation about Utah economic insights and outlook, and presentations titled “Building World-Class Teams Through Diversity” and “Embrace the Process: Discovery, Creativity and Cultivation.”
Breakout sessions during the day include “Telling Utah’s Global Story”; “Energy Makeover”; “Building the World’s Premier Ecosystem for Aerospace, Defense and Security Companies”; “One Utah Strategies for a Thriving Workforce”; “The Science of Success”; and “Utah’s Growth: Today’s Actions Create Tomorrow’s Future.”
Other activities May 2 are the presentation of the Governor’s Awards, a presentation titled “Growing Together for Decades To Come” and Gov. Spencer Cox’s keynote address.
Summit attendees also can participate in two service projects that are part of First Lady Abby Cox’s “Show Up” initiative. They can help Utah students by assembling hygiene kits for teens in need, and by signing up to shop with the first lady immediately after the summit as part of “The KIND Fund,” which provides clothes and essential items for youngsters in need.
The first One Utah Summit took place virtually in the fall of 2020 as a combination of the Utah Economic Summit and Utah Energy Summit. The fall events the past two years have taken place at Southern Utah University.