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Greenville News: Mobility conference to bring automakers, researchers, entrepreneurs together

Note: An InnoMobility planning meeting will be held December 10, 2010 in Greenville. To participate contact John Warner at JohnWarner@InnoVentureSoutheast.com for more information.

By Rudolph Bell Staff Writer dbell@greenvillenews.com
October 31, 2010
This article was originally published in The Greenville News.

Businessman John Warner, founder of Greenville's annual InnoVenture conference, is planning a similar event for the "mobility" industry with the help of Michelin North America's research organization.

Warner said the first InnoMobility conference would focus on "game-changing new business models in mobility wherever they are in the world" and be similar to InnoVenture, which he launched in 2004 as a forum for matching entrepreneurs with investors.

The first InnoMobility is tentatively set to take place at the Carolina First Center next fall, he said.

Warner said he hopes the conference will give Greenville the reputation in the mobility industry that it got in the textile industry as the result of the textile exposition it used to host.

"It can be the thing that draws global attention to what we're doing here," he said.

Michelin spokesman Tate Hoxworth confirmed that Michelin Americas Research Corp., the tiremaker's Greenville-based research organization, has agreed to be the first corporate sponsor of the planned conference.

Warner said he hopes to tap the global relationships of Michelin and other companies and organizations such as BMW Manufacturing Co. and Clemson University's International Center for Automotive Research to draw interest from entrepreneurs, executives and researchers.

Among those interested, he said, is a university in Sweden that is exploring the idea of energizing roads with electrical current as a way of supplying power to electric cars.

Warner said various companies and organizations sent representatives to the first planning meeting two weeks ago, including Michelin, Sage Automotive, ICAR, BMW, CT&T Korea Ltd., the South Carolina Research Authority, the Greenville Area Development Corp. and the Upstate Alliance.

The five-day conference would include two days for entertainment events that might include driving at the BMW Performance Center in Greer, playing golf at one of the Cliffs luxury real estate communities, attending a Clemson football game or hearing music at the Peace Center downtown, Warner said.

It wasn't clear how InnoMobility would relate to AutoVenture, a conference focused on entrepreneurship in the automotive industry that was organized by Clemson Professor David Bodde.

The first AutoVenture, held in Detroit earlier this year, featured 20 start-up companies making 15-minute presentations to high-level executives from major auto companies as well as investors.

Bodde has said he'd like to see AutoVenture continue and be held in Greenville at some point.

"We're going to have to obviously get together and figure out how we can make these things hum together," said Bodde, a senior fellow at Clemson's Spiro Institute for Entrepreneurial Leadership with a doctorate in business from Harvard University. [Note from John Warner: Dave Bodde and I are on the same page and working to make both AutoVenture and InnoMobility successful.]

Bob Geolas, ICAR's executive director, said the research park supports the concept of InnoMobility and will "certainly be partnering to see if we can make that successful."