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The Road to Reinventing Delaware
The Pete du Pont Freedom Award will host its 8th Annual Reinventing Delaware Dinner on Thursday, November 10, 2022, at the DuPont Country Club in Wilmington, Delaware. The dinner kicks off the year-long Reinventing Delaware Program that serves as a catalyst for bold, innovative ideas that will create jobs, add to the economy, and ultimately make Delaware a better place to live, work, and raise a family.
The dinner gathers 100 thought leaders, innovators, and entrepreneurs of all backgrounds for a shared purpose. All guests are required to come with an idea and be ready tocollaborate with a likeminded audience. Guests will share their ideas over a meal and then vote for their favorites. Despite popularity within the evening, a committee will be tasked with reviewing all 100 ideas presented during the dinner and identify the most viable ideas to participate in a development process. During this six-month process, the champion of the idea will receive business coaching and connections to valuable resources to help formalize their concept and develop their idea into a business. At the end of this process, one idea will be named the 2023 Reinventing Delaware winner and will receive $15,000 to help propel their business forward.
The Reinventing Delaware Dinner is one of the most exciting evenings of the year. Anyone—despite your background or experience—can submit an idea for the opportunity to join a dynamic group of doers discuss advancing Delaware. It is a unique experience filled with creativity and diversity, and the successes of past winners are a testament to the Pete du Pont Freedom Foundation’s proven process.
Successful ideas in the past include Zip Code Wilmington, OpenBracket, Pay for Success, Wilmington Green Box, NERDiT NOW, WilmInvest, Intern Delaware, and The Warehouse.
Logan Herring, founder of The Warehouse, shares his experience in the Reinventing Delaware Program: “It all started with taking that first step with Reinventing Delaware, and we have just blossomed from there. Now we receive calls from across the U.S. from others who are trying to open a space like The Warehouse and asking us how to make it all work. It’s incredible and very rewarding to be able to offer this for the community.”
This year’s ReinventingDelaware Dinner is presented by Discover Bank and Barclays US Consumer Bank. While the idea submission window has closed, there are still ways to get involved.
Stephanie Johnnie is the executive director of the Pete du Pont Freedom Foundation. To learn more, contact her at stephanie@ petedupontfreedomfoundation.org.
