Having new or innovative ideas is essential to pushing the world forward and so we asked the community to share stories of the most innovative things they’ve done in their career. Our hope is to inspire folks who think only scientists or tech-wizards can innovate – innovation is possible for everyone, regardless of job title or function, industry or geography.

Hudson River

“This show is for Ben,” Hudson River told a packed house on a cold February night. “For my ancestors, for the angels above and for everything above.” To kick off her 2024 residency at Chris’s Jazz Café, she honored a departed young classmate by gathering a band of friends who played alongside him in the Upper Darby High School drumline, where she learned to cherish music herself. The eleven locals filled the room with familial love and candor, braiding vibraphone melodies together with horns and voices, on original tunes and covers of hit songs from a surprising array of styles. Read more>>

Ambar Martinez Palacios

In 2019, I noticed the shift towards Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) in vehicles, and I saw it as an opportunity for innovation in the auto glass industry. While many of my peers in the field were reluctant to take it on, I knew we had to step up. I became the only woman in the class, investing in the equipment and learning how to recalibrate ADAS after windshield replacements. It wasn’t easy—my husband, a fellow auto glass technician, was hesitant, and others made fun of me. But I was driven by the vision of growing our business, setting us apart, and ultimately working smarter, not harder. Read more>>

Andrea Knowles

Toward the end of COVID, I realized that my residential design/build practice wasn’t bringing the same joy as it had in the past, so I put together my work and my passion for horses and created Equine Residences. The marriage of the two became a global disruptor in the equestrian and architecture/design spaces. So many people realized that my vision of high-end, luxury finishes and innovation had been missing from their own stables and a brand was born. Read more>>

Colette Shade

My book, Y2K: How the 2000’s Became Everything (Essays on the Future That Never Was), blends three different writing genres: memoir, cultural criticism, and history. Most publishers I talked to wanted me to stick to a single genre: straight memoir, or straight history. But I wanted to create a new genre, one that puts personal history in a cultural and historical context. I wanted to write the book I always wanted to read. My agent, Erik Hane, saw my vision as well. He helped link me up with Stuart Roberts at Dey Street, who took a chance on that vision, and helped guide me through making it a reality. Now that my book is out, I have been reviewed by the New York Times, the Washington Post, Harper’s, and more, and I have appeared on Bloomberg and NPR’s All Things considered. Read more>>