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One Spark Kicks Off With Speaker Summit

Peter Haden
/
WJCT News

The third annual One Spark is off and running.

'The World's Largest Crowdfunding Festival' got off to a slow and thoughtful start Tuesday with a day-long speaker summit.

One Spark Communications Director Meredith O'Malley Johnson says the talks covered topics helpful to creators, such as "how to be innovative, entrepreneurship, and how to be successful starting a business."

O'Malley said the talks were full of "really great advice, especially for creators in the audience."

The list of summit speakers included Jeff Hoffman, founder of Priceline.com.

To be a successful entrepreneur, Hoffman says you have to listen to your customers, and he illustrated his point with a story:

"So I said to this man, 'What did you do?' And he said, 'Jeff, I would schedule time like every other Friday and I would change into jeans and a John Deere hat and I would drive across town, over the railroad tracks, to the diner and I would sit and buy people apple pie all day.' He said, 'Those people told me how to build this company.' By the way, in case you're wondering, this is the man I spent the day with and his company's called Walmart. That was Sam Walton teaching me that lesson."

The more than 500 creators at this year's One Spark Festival will be showcasing their ideas from 11 a.m. until 9 p.m. today through Saturday and until 3 p.m. Sunday.

The easiest way to vote for your favorites is to download the One Spark app for your android or iPhone.

More than a 250,000 people attended One Spark last year.

Cyd Hoskinson began working at WJCT on Valentine’s Day 2011.
Peter Haden is an award-winning investigative reporter and photographer currently working with The Center for Investigative Reporting. His stories are featured in media outlets around the world including NPR, CNN en Español, ECTV Ukraine, USA Today, Qatar Gulf Times, and the Malaysia Star.