The Shipyard talent incubator returns Sept. 4-6 at Ringling College of Art + Design, bringing together creatively and technologically engaged people from across the community to turn ideas into something real.

It's built around a simple premise: put talented people in a room, give them meaningful problems to solve and see what they can build.

The three-day talent incubator returns Sept. 4-6 at Ringling College of Art + Design, bringing together people from across Sarasota who are creatively or technologically engaged—developers, designers, entrepreneurs, artists, strategists, students, makers, storytellers and others who simply like solving interesting problems.

Participation is intentionally broad. You do not need to be a founder, programmer or student to belong at The Shipyard. If you are curious, collaborative and interested in building, creating or solving, there is a place for you.

Launched earlier this year by a group of local entrepreneurs with support from Bridge Angel Investors and DreamLarge, Sarasota Magazine’s parent company, The Shipyard is designed to identify local talent, encourage experimentation and help turn promising ideas into real ventures.

Cade Bruce and Brian Bellamy, winners of The Shipyard’s inaugural “maiden voyage” in May, offer an early glimpse of what can happen next.

The pair built PoliScope, a civic technology platform designed to make government more understandable and accessible. The free platform organizes information ranging from legislation and public finances to political candidates, campaign funding and policy positions.

“We want to make it really easy to know how much money [candidates and elected officials] are getting, who they’re sponsored by and what type of bills they’re passing,” Bellamy says.

For Bruce, the idea addressed a problem he had experienced firsthand.

“When I went to vote, I didn’t know anyone on the ballot,” he says. “I found the resources were lacking, and I saw the need.”

The two met at a chess club in downtown Bradenton only six months before entering The Shipyard. During the May competition, at Churchwalls in Sarasota’s Rosemary Art & Design District, they worked through the weekend—sometimes sleeping only an hour or two—to turn Bellamy’s longtime idea into a functioning prototype.

Mentors, including Bridge Angel Investors board member Peter Offringa, entrepreneur Sarah Baldwin and Ringling College’s Rick Dakan, helped teams refine their thinking before presenting their work on the final day.

PoliScope won.

“I was ecstatic, because it meant that other people believed in the mission and saw that there’s potential,” Bellamy says.

The momentum continued after the weekend. PoliScope secured $10,000 in early funding and support from DreamLarge and the Ripepi Foundation, while Bruce and Bellamy began conversations with partners and stakeholders across the region.

Other teams’ ideas were impressive as well. Showcasing all the teams’ work at the end of the event through live demos allowed the public to observe and celebrate the work. Several participants made meaningful connections with local business owners, looking to supplement their product offerings and workforce with the ideas and people that they met.

That progression—from idea, to prototype, to opportunity—is exactly what The Shipyard hopes to create.

A New Challenge for September

The September gathering will add another dimension: nonprofits and community organizations are being invited to bring their biggest, hairiest challenges to The Shipyard.

Participants can choose a problem that interests them, assemble a team and spend the weekend developing a potential solution.

The resulting connections could lead anywhere—a new venture, employment, consulting work, investment or simply the beginning of another idea worth pursuing.

Past Shipyard participants and alumni of DreamLarge Weekends are invited to return, but The Shipyard is also actively looking for new participants from throughout the community.

If you work in technology, design, business, the arts, media, education, entrepreneurship or any other field where creativity and problem-solving matter, The Shipyard wants you in the room.

And organizers are asking participants to bring others with them. Interested parties can join a team, serve as a mentor or just cheer for the teams during the final presentations on Sunday afternoon.

The goal is not to assemble a room full of people with the same skills. It is to bring together different kinds of thinkers, makers and problem-solvers and create the conditions for unexpected collaboration.

After all, The Shipyard ultimately depends on the people who show up.

The Shipyard takes place Sept. 4-6 at Ringling College of Art + Design. Learn more, participate, submit a nonprofit challenge or support the program at shipyardsarasota.com.