Nearly 3,000 attendees from more than 37 countries around the world logged on, live-streamed and zoomed their way through Northumbrian Water's Innovation Festival 14-17 September.
The first-of-its-kind event brought people together virtually for four action-packed days, to help tackle big societal and environmental challenges.
People up and down the country, and as far as Europe, Australia, Asia, and North and South America joined more than 40 different online sprints and workshops, as well as a series of live presentations, celebrity talks, wellbeing sessions and panel events.
The theme of this year's festival, which was held online for the first time due to COVID-19, was ‘Build Back Better', with some of the workshops focused on ways in which the world can adapt and recover in response to the virus.
People from more than 900 organisations helped to complete the equivalent of over two years' worth of work in a week, with exciting ideas already starting to come together hot on the heels of finishing.
Nigel Watson, Information Services Director at Northumbrian Water, said: "I'm absolutely blown away by the success of our first ever, online Innovation Festival.
"To keep people safe during these uncertain times, we had to adapt and be innovative with the festival and while we always had high hopes for it, we weren't really sure what to expect. However, the response from our attendees and the support from our partners has just been incredible.
"It's been a fantastic week and we've heard about some really clever and brilliant ideas that are now going to be worked up and progressed. I can't wait to see what happens next."
Watch the best bits of IF2020 below!
You can find out how the ideas from the Innovation Festival are progressing from the links below.
'Design Sprints' are a structured process for moving from a significant problem / challenge to a tested prototype solution in 5 stages.
Find out moreBringing together Data Science and Subject Matter Expertise to tackle some of our biggest challenges we face in our industry.
Find out moreA Northumbrian Water Group expression for a rapid sprint-style workshop that runs through all five stages in just one day.
Find out moreA sprint-style workshop that focuses on accelerating delivery of an idea or initiative identified previously.
Find out moreSTEAM + young people - try approaching your career with design thinking!
Find out morePromoting positive mental health, physical health and social health throughout the week.
Find out moreView our lineup of lightning talks from a wide variety of speakers and businesses involved in IF 2020!
Find out moreYou can watch all videos from the Innovation Festival 2020 via our YouTube playlist!
Watch now!Creating projects and ideas that make a real difference to our customers, processes, services, and employees.
Find out moreThis year our Innovation Festival generated more than 4,000 ideas and 100 BIG ideas!
Find out more