Almost a decade ago, Brian Ardinger wrapped up his time at NMotion, the Nebraska startup accelerator (before it was powered by gener8tor), impressed by the growth of Nebraska startups and innovation.

Ardinger said, however, that “I talked to a lot of people in my network, outside of Nebraska and outside the coasts, and they, quite frankly, didn’t know that great companies were being built here.”

That helped spark the first IO Summit in 2017, a gathering in Lincoln for the corporate and startup community interested in networking and learning about Midwest innovation. Now held every two years, the summit is an event that Ardinger says convenes the “ties and T-shirts, the untucked and tucked.”

“We wanted this to be like a New York or San Francisco-type of conference (where) everybody’s there,” Ardinger said. “What better way (than) to convene here in Nebraska and show that innovation happens everywhere.”

The IO2026 Summit will take place on April 13 at the Sheldon Museum of Art in Lincoln. Tickets start at $150 for startups and nonprofits and scale up. The venue is deliberate — “the art and science of innovation” is this year’s summit theme.

“I picked that theme primarily because I’ve been seeing a lot of talk about technology, and I think we oftentimes forget that there’s a human element to what we build,” Ardinger said. “How do we bring art back in that conversation about humanity (and) technology?”

New to the summit this year will be a virtual Gallery of Innovation. Anyone can apply to submit their startup, corporate innovation initiative or side hustle to be showcased on the IO2026 website. 

Thirty of the applicants will get a scholarship to attend the summit courtesy of Open Range, the Omaha-based startup backbone organization. And up to 15 of those applicants will be chosen to present onstage to the roughly 300 summit attendees.

Another new initiative: VIP tickets. “We kept getting asked by, mostly, a lot of the corporate folks … ‘It’s great to go to a conference, but how do we continue these conversations?” Ardinger said. 

“So we added a VIP ticket that allows us to host a breakfast the day after the conference, and then we’re going to be hosting two roundtable breakfast discussions in August and November as well,” he said.

Art and science in the age of AI

The IO2026 Summit will include eight keynote speakers talking about innovation and the intersection of art and science. But addressing the issue is impossible without acknowledging the precarious situation many creatives feel art is in with the advent of artificial intelligence.

AI companies have been accused of illegally scraping unlicensed copyrighted work, from writing to graphic design created by humans, to train their models. That has sparked a conversation about ethical AI use.

“You’re already starting to see some of that, not necessarily backlash, but a questioning of like, ‘Hey, what direction are we going in?” Ardinger said. “Are we going in the right direction? Are we moving too fast?”

At the same time, Ardinger sees AI as enabling new tools for innovation. Those tools still live at the intersection of art and science, and to be used well, they need to focus on the end user: real people.

“When you’re building out a new company, building out a new technology, building out even a new creative expression, a lot of the same steps have to go into place,” Ardinger said. 

“Who are you building this for? Why are you building it? What value are you creating in the process?” he said. “Those are the topics that we’ll be discussing, and to remind folks that at the end of the day, whatever you build has got to be valuable for humans in some form or fashion.”

AI is also a reason for the corporate world to learn about entrepreneurship from startups at events like the IO2026 Summit. The business world is changing faster than ever with new technologies — and threats to established ways of operating. 

As a result, corporate leaders need to be more nimble. “The skill sets that are required to explore and adapt are much different than the ones that are built on predictability and execution,” Ardinger said.

For startups, the IO2026 Summit is a great way to connect with potential customers, learn from corporate experience and tell a story of innovation to business leaders who otherwise might not hear it.

“The final piece is, everybody’s looking for talent in today’s world,” Ardinger said. “Regardless of which side of the fence you’re on, talent knows talent, and talent wants to find talent. And so what better way to have those conversations than face to face and seeing what people are building and what they’re doing and how they think.”

Lev Gringauz is a Report for America corps member who writes about corporate innovation and workforce development for Silicon Prairie News.