The Tribeca Film Festival (TFF), in association with the Disruptor Foundation and Harvard Business School Professor Clay Christensen, father of Disruptive Innovation Theory, today announced it would honor innovators pioneers and game-changers across various disciplines and domains at the fourth annual Tribeca Disruptive Innovation Awards, hosted by NYU Stern School of Business, on April 26. The 12th edition of TFF will run April 17 to 28.
The awards ceremony – co-hosted by journalist and public health advocate Perri Peltz, and TFF co-founder and Tribeca Disruptive Innovation Awards Chief Curator Craig Hatkoff, and supported by Accenture and The Economist – showcases applications of and advancements in disruptive innovation theory that have spread far beyond the original technological and industrial realms. While it is applied to vexing societal problems such as healthcare, education, philanthropy, politics, religion and spirituality, the theory has profound implications in the fields of media, arts and entertainment.
Choreographer Twyla Tharp will be honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award for her approach to choreography, with which she has created her own language and pushed the boundaries of our notions of movement and dance for the past 50 years.
“In our fourth installment we are exploring the ever-increasing gap between the rate of technological change and the bumpier, slower-moving cultural adoption and diffusion,” said Craig Hatkoff. “The dynamics of products and service innovations that are used simply as day-to-day utilities seem to be fundamentally different than products and services that touch stakeholders’ identities and other cultural considerations. We continue to push ourselves further out of our comfort zones which is necessary for serious societal change by highlighting exciting new applications and thinking”
After publishing his best-selling book The Innovators Dilemma in 1997, Christensen moved to center stage as one of the world’s leading experts on innovation; the seminal book presented his startling theory of disruptive innovation, which explains how simpler, cheaper technologies, products, and services can decimate industry leaders. This radical innovation theory has ruled Silicon Valley for more than 15 years.
“I am always exhilarated by the innovations of our honorees that push us towards new frontiers in how we think about disruptive innovation in society’s most important domains. Successful innovation in these areas seems to involve formidable cultural considerations and societal architecture rather than technological change unto itself. We must learn to crawl into the life of what makes people tick,” said Christensen. “The Awards provide a front row seat to witness some of the most exciting and provocative observations of technological progress and the cultural and societal inertia that unexpectedly diminish disruptive innovation theory’s predictive potency. We are always seeking to develop profound theory to better explain these observed anomalies.”
Honorees receive Disruptor Awards known as Maslow’s Silver Hammer, in honor of psychologist Abe Maslow who created the famous hierarchy of human needs. One of Maslow’s most recognizable quotes – “When your only tool is a hammer, every problem starts looking like a nail” – embodies the spirit of the Awards and represents the need for new approaches to old problems.
A luncheon will follow the Awards, with breakout sessions to follow until 3 p.m.
The 2013 Tribeca Disruptive Innovation Award honorees are as follows:
Lifetime Achievement Award – Twyla Tharp, Choreographer, Author and Founder of Twyla Tharp Dance – Since graduating from Barnard College in 1963, Ms. Tharp has choreographed more than one hundred sixty works: one hundred twenty-nine dances, twelve television specials, five Hollywood movies, four full-length ballets, four Broadway shows and two figure skating routines. She has also written three bo
