Nine speakers, five minutes, 62 audience members, 124 ears, and countless ounces of beer, wine, and coffee. The inaugural Ignite South Dakota was an instant classic.

There was a great buzz and electricity in the Cottonwood Bistro in Brookings throughout the entire evening. It was a combination of excitement and curiosity as no one knew exactly what to expect from this Ignite event. In fact, with a quick polling of the crowd not one person had ever attended an Ignite event, so the collective feeling of a new experience was shared by all.

Topics ranged from Astronomy to Democracy, Tea to Journalism, Northern Norway to Officiating Weddings, and more. In the next few weeks we will be releasing all the videos from last night’s event so if you missed out you see what Ignite SD #1 was all about and if you were in attendance, you can recapture your favorite talks. We were very proud of all our brave and talented speakers!

I want to give a big thanks to all of our sponsors for the evening. The Cottonwood Bistro was a perfect venue. 9 Clouds, Inc. and The Post SD did a fantastic job of promoting the event and getting the word out. Big Omaha was a great partnership offering a discount code (BigIgniteSD) to anyone interested in attending their conference in May.

Also, the generous crowd raised $52.89 to donate to Big Omaha’s partnership with charity:water and their efforts to build a water well. The $52.89 will be matched by 9 Clouds, Inc. so we’re happy to be donating $105.78 to the charity:water cause.

Other thank you’s go out to Feed The Dolphin for filming the event (videos to come) and First Lutheran Church for supplying the projector and screen.

My last thank you goes out to everyone in attendance. Thank you for showing up to an event that you had no idea what is was going to be about. You are the ones that make Ignite possible and will be the future speakers and promoters of Ignite SD in the future.

Cheers with beers – John T. Meyer