Visitors and innovators guide

Because we’re looking to flip public finance on its head. Don’t get us wrong - we love public finance! We’re passionate about public finance’s ability to make a difference in the lives of Hoosiers by funding their communities, schools and libraries. But public finance, especially in our government space, may not be what you call entrepreneurial when it comes to solving new challenges. We wondered what might happen if we paired fresh-eyed innovators from outside the public finance sector with communities seeking new ideas to old challenges. And the Flipping Finance Challenge was born.

FFC has a Code of Conduct that we are sticklers for. Check it out here.  We’ve never had an issue and honestly I’m always amazed at the caliber and quality of humans that come to FFC. But just in case, we ask everyone upon registration If you’re registering a team, you’ll be responsible for ensuring they understand and adhere to the Code. We’ve created a collaborative, kid-friendly, family-friendly event designed to do good in the world. If you engage in behavior or actions or interactions that run counter to that, we’ll ask you to leave. It’s kind of that simple. We hold ourselves to the same standards, as well as our volunteers, sponsors, partners, innovators, vendors, etc.

Registration can be completed here!

You can register as a team or individual. If you are registering as an individual but would like to work with a team, let us know!

Solutions Due by Friday, April 15th at 11:59PM (form link below)

Your presentation method and style are totally up to you - but will include a video presentation and 1-2 page written abstract and all submissions will be sent in virtually. It can be one of your team or all of your team. It can be fun or serious. Each challenge owner will have their own scoring rubric on how they will distribute points. More information on the judging criteria to come

Please make sure that your videos are uploaded to some platform (youtube, dropbox, google drive, etc.) and can be linked to before submission. You will not be able to upload a video directly to us, only submit a link. If you need a space to upload your video to, please contact [email protected].

Click Here to Access the Solution Submission Form

Kickoff | Saturday | April 9th 10AM-2PM | Indianapolis Arts Center

• 10AM: Networking, Registration, Swag Retrieval
• 11AM: Welcome, Community Speeches, FFC Innovator Panel
• 12:30PM: Lunch & Community Interviews
• Opportunity to meet with the communities 1-1

April 10th - 15th

• Work on your own time - ideation and prototyping
• Communicate with communities via Slack channels
• Solutions due by 11:59PM on Friday, April 15th

April 16th - 22nd

• Communities Review Solutions
• Virtual Workshops Mon-Friday 12PM-1PM
• More on workshops below

Saturday | April 23rd |10AM

• Virtual Awards Ceremony

Nameless Catering will be providing lunch and beverages at the FFC Kickoff Event!

Otherwise, whatever you can find in your fridge. Unfortunately one thing that we’ve not mastered is how to replicate the awesome food and snacks virtually.😔.

While we wouldn’t encourage it, you can. Previous participants have found the timeframe is a tight but fair opportunity to fact-find, ideate, iterate, refine, mock-up a solution and create a presentation for the community. If you’re done with all that with enough time to tackle another challenge for the community, check that you’ve not missed a step.

The Flipping Finance Challenge is providing digital workspace chatrooms to encourage collaboration among attendees through the free online platform Slack. Each challenge has its own workspace provided at the link below, so if you know that you want to work on a specific challenge, click the link below, create a Slack account (download app if using a mobile device), and type a message into the chatroom to others who are interested in creating a team! Slack is a great digital way to work in teams, share files, links, updates etc. beyond what we have provided, so feel free to use your new account to create and organize your own teams outside of the larger challenge channel! If that is not working for you, contact Brian Carman in Slack or at [email protected] (mailto:[email protected]) and he will get you connected!

FFC2022 will be using a Slack Workspace as the primary means of communication between innovators, challenge track owners, and the Indiana Bond Bank team. To join our Slack Workspace, please click here!

If you are unfamiliar with Slack, here is a link to a tutorial video on how to use the Slack Workspace before, during, and after the event. I cannot stress how beneficial this space is for the event! It's the best way to connect with other innovators, the challenge track owners, and the IBB team. We will also provide most of our updates, announcements, and importnt links after Saturday through Slack rather than email. Once joined, introduce yourself!

No. No, no, no. No. You’re perfect just the way you are. For one, you may have noticed there are plenty of non-finance challenges to work on. From health & environment to data geeks, to design thinkers, to tech experts, you are exactly who we are looking for. A jack of all trades and master of none – you just might be the glue needed to bring a team’s solution together. Even if you wanted to geek out about a finance challenge, you’ll have content experts on site to assist. And three, remember that the reason that some of these issues are still issues is that pure finance challenges haven’t worked. Maybe you’re the one missing piece they’ve needed this whole time. Destiny baby.

Free. It’s free to our innovators, and free to our communities to participate. Thanks to our gracious sponsors who believe in the mission of FFC, we are able to offset our costs while offering unparalleled swag and prizes. This is our mission. Facilitating this event is our way of giving back to Indiana.

Yup! It doesn’t matter what the ____ is. You are an “innovator”. We’ve had the director of building security for our office building co-lead a team, and we’ve had the head of innovation for a major local company participate. We’ve had high school students and retirees. Innovators all. The common thread is a civic spirit – a desire to make a difference in the local units of governments here in Indiana. We are looking for entrepreneurs, origami artists, story tellers, finance majors, professionals, public management majors, business majors, health and environmental subject matter experts and you.

Nope. 90%+ of our innovators have no prior connection to the community whose challenge they work on. Most teams select a challenge that speaks to them on a personal or civic level. Or, they select one where their skillsets will lend themselves to creating a great solution.

Over an the two-week design sprint, you will have the opportunity to work independently or with a team on a real challenge presented by a unit of government. All teams and individuals will submit a presentation on their solutions to the units of government and the winning solutions will receive a prize.

1. By Monday, April 11th at 11:59PM, you need to confirm the members of your team (or individual team) and which challenge you are working on. The form to do this can be accessed here!
2. By Friday, April 15th at 11:59PM, you must submit your solutions using this online form.