The 2026 Celebrating Innovation Summit isn’t just another conference date on the calendar — it’s the one day Arizona’s top decision-makers across aerospace, semiconductors and advanced manufacturing are engineered to collide in a single room.
Arizona’s innovation economy grows when its leaders share the same room, and this summit was built to make that happen at scale”— Mike Madsen, Board Member, Partnership for Economic InnovationMESA, AZ, UNITED STATES, October 9, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ — The Partnership for Economic Innovation (PEI), a coalition of business and community leaders working to accelerate Arizona’s economic growth, is set to bring its 2026 Celebrating Innovation Summit to Arizona State University’s Media and Immersive Experience (MIX) Center in Mesa on Friday, Oct. 30, 2026. The full-day gathering is designed to put the state’s priority industries — and the people steering them — in direct conversation with one another.
The summit’s premise is straightforward: Arizona’s key sectors are deeply interconnected, and their progress depends on collaboration. “Aerospace, semiconductors, medtech, clean tech, software and advanced manufacturing draw from the same talent pipeline and the same research institutions, so they move faster when they move together,” said John Graham, Board Chair, Partnership for Economic Innovation. “This summit is where those connections happen in a single day, in a single room.”
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The timing is notable given the state’s recent economic momentum. Arizona currently leads the nation in bioscience job growth and ranks first for international investment, with projections showing 454,000 new jobs by 2034 across semiconductors, aerospace, medtech and advanced manufacturing. These industries share more than just ambition — they draw from the same talent pool, energy grid and water supply. The summit brings together the executives, investors and policymakers navigating those shared challenges, with attendees moving between candid infrastructure and workforce discussions and hands-on demonstrations of working prototypes along the MIX Center’s first-floor corridor.
“Arizona’s innovation economy grows when its leaders share the same room, and this summit was built to make that happen at scale,” said Mike Madsen, Board Member, Partnership for Economic Innovation. “The Valley does not just attract innovation. It produces it, and the 2026 program puts that case in front of the people who can act on it.”
The event will feature more than 15 live technology demonstrations from companies building the future of Arizona’s priority industries. Beyond the demos, the agenda includes keynote presentations, Fireside Chats, industry panels and innovator spotlights tailored for Phoenix-area executives, investors, policymakers and innovators. Programming runs from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., with a networking reception following until 4:30 p.m.
The morning session opens with a keynote from Bob Smith, former Blue Origin CEO, on “Arizona’s Role is Space Exploration.” That’s followed by a Fireside Chat on Aerospace & Defense featuring Jim Currier, current CEO of Honeywell Aerospace, alongside Mike Madsen, former CEO of Honeywell Aerospace.
“Every state in America wants a piece of the emerging trillion-dollar space economy, but few start with a hand as strong as Arizona’s,” said Bob Smith, former CEO of Blue Origin. “We have world-class scientists and engineers, deep manufacturing talent and room to test and build. What wins now is speed: leaders who are willing to move fast, back their innovators and learn by doing. I’m confident Arizona will rise to that challenge and extend its decades-long legacy as a leader in aerospace.”
The afternoon shifts focus to the “Future of Neuroscience in Arizona,” featuring a keynote from Dr. Brandon Fox, Chief Resident in Neurosurgery at Barrow Neurological Institute. Additional sessions tackle the power and water questions that Arizona’s advanced manufacturing, data center and semiconductor growth cannot afford to ignore.
“The Thurston Innovation Center at Barrow gave me the resources to take a problem I witnessed in the ICU every day and build a solution now heading into clinical trials,” said Dr. Brandon Fox, Neurosurgery Resident, Barrow Neurological Institute. “That pipeline from resident idea to real-world impact is what makes Arizona’s medtech and neuroscience ecosystem worth paying close attention to.”
Registration, agenda updates and speaker announcements are available at https://azpei.org/celebratinginnovation2026.
ABOUT THE PARTNERSHIP FOR ECONOMIC INNOVATION
Partnership for Economic Innovation is a passionate collective of business and community leaders dedicated to accelerating Arizona’s economic opportunities. We believe innovators are problem solvers who come from anywhere, if they have access to pathways to do so — which is why PEI is investing in community-building technology and R&D designed to make Arizona more resilient and empower innovators to bring world-changing ideas to market. PEI initiatives include:
● Applied Research Centers initiative is accelerating the development of emerging technology products in biomedical, semiconductor adjacent, and climate/clean technologies with the potential to radically transform healthcare, and keep us safer and more secure.
● The Connective, Greater Phoenix’s internationally acclaimed Smart Region collaborative, convening cities, industries and entrepreneurs to lay the open innovation groundwork to solve regional challenges.
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Why it matters: As Arizona’s economy barrels toward a projected 454,000 new jobs by 2034, events like this summit serve as the connective tissue between the state’s innovation sectors and the infrastructure decisions that will sustain them. The convergence of industry leaders, investors and policymakers in one room signals that Arizona’s growth story depends as much on coordination as it does on technology breakthroughs.
