Building a Better Future with Emil Ekiyor

In this episode of See Yourself IN, host Casey Harrison interviews Emil Ekiyor, founder and CEO of InnoPower. Emil shares his inspiring journey from a professional football player to a driving force in Indiana's innovation economy. We dive into the importance of regional competitiveness, the power of inclusive communities, and practical steps individuals can take to get involved. Emil's passion for creating opportunities and empowering others is contagious as he shares valuable insights and actionable advice with listeners.

Key Takeaways:

The power of purpose: Finding a purpose beyond personal gain is essential for a fulfilling life and career. Emil emphasizes the importance of being part of something bigger than oneself.

The importance of inclusive communities: Creating spaces where people from diverse backgrounds can come together and share ideas is crucial for innovation and progress.

The role of energy and passion: Bringing positive energy and enthusiasm to your work is essential for success and attracting others to your vision.

The value of lifelong learning: Continuously seek out opportunities to learn and grow, both personally and professionally.

Building social capital: Invest time in building relationships with people from different backgrounds and industries to expand your network and opportunities.

For more resources on the jobs, companies, and opportunities in Indiana, visit
https://www.cicpindiana.com/syi/  

Transcript

Casey: Welcome to today's episode of See Yourself IN, where you'll learn about cool jobs, people, and companies in Indiana. You'll also hear about skills that will help you find success, and most importantly, we hope they inspire you to dream big. I'm Casey Harrison, your host. On today's show, we're going to dive into Indiana's advanced industries and why they're important.

We'll talk about the skills that are transferable across jobs and industries, and determine some of the best ways to begin exploring these great opportunities. This episode of See Yourself IN features Emil Ekiyor, founder and CEO of InnoPower. Emil's career started on the football field, but today he's on a quest to help Indiana embrace the innovation economy. And in doing so, he believes that we'll become a global leader in inclusion, entrepreneurship, and tech. Tune in to hear how Emil leveraged a life pivot to soar into a new purposeful career path. 

Emil, good morning. Thank you for joining us at See Yourself IN. 

Emil: Thank you for having me, Casey. This is awesome.

Casey: I'm really excited. I knew Emil outside of the podcast. So I know you are all in for a treat today, but we're going to dive right in. We're going to go back in time and start at the beginning. Share with our listeners when and how you arrived in Indiana. 

Emil: I'm a big believer that people's experiences shape them. Everyone has a lived experience that's unique. My lived experience is unique as well. I was born in Lagos, Nigeria. Left my family when I was 15 to come to the U. S. to stay with a family and pursue education opportunities. So I came to Daytona Beach, Florida. Was immersed in the black community in Daytona Beach.

Ended up being exposed to sports. Never played football. Played soccer growing up. Got a scholarship to the University of Central Florida in Orlando. Played high school football one year and got a scholarship. Went to the UCF for four years. Ended up Getting into the NFL, I tell people I stole six years in the league, retired.

My wife is actually from Indianapolis, was born and raised. When I retired we wanted to settle here. 

So I jumped into coaching at Warren Central High School on the east side. Pretty much, I think one of the best decisions I've made in life. Being immersed in the community, unbelievable talent in those schools, but still seeing. A community that, , most people didn't believe that opportunity exists.

People worked so hard and the poverty level on the far East side, we all know, but what we saw was just some amazing young people who were searching, looking for a way to make it, and just needed a blueprint, a roadmap on how to do it. So interestingly, we won three state championships at Warren. You know, helping people find their purpose, helping develop talent, preparing people to compete for good paying jobs or starting a business. So my lived experience coming to the U. S., staying with a family, Having people support me along the way, and then just growing in life. I wanted to do that to other people. I just felt one of the reasons I was successful was I just had people, great people in my life. And I think everybody needs that. Everybody needs a great person in their life. And I wanted to be someone that was looked at as being great in other people's lives. 

Casey: I love that for so many reasons, but mostly because I can remember when Warren Central was in the state championship playing Hamilton Southeastern. That's where I graduated. They beat us, but that was okay. 

Emil: I actually coached that game. I remember. 

Casey: Warren has incredible football talent. I mean, has for many years. So I love that. I love that our stories connect there and we didn't even know, but let's go back because you covered a lot in that first opening, if you will. And I think it's fascinating. You didn't just move to a new country. You moved to a new country. You started at a new school. It's at a time in your life where everyone around you is asking, what do you want to be when you grow up? What do you want to do with your life? So for people listening who are at that juncture now, take us back to when you went through it. Were you thinking about life after graduation and career trajectory and things like that? 

Emil: What I've learned as I look back at my life was the sports industry does probably one of the best jobs of the talent development progression. The process is defined. And the whole thing is designed to take the talent, Cultivate the talent, prepare the talent, and that industry has built and feed a pipeline that's predicated in some cases on getting the best talent from the poorest black communities.

What if we took the sports industry, and we did it in other industries? Where you have energy in those communities, where people really believe they can make it, where they understand where they plug in, where the development process is set, the criteria is set on how you make it, you see people that look like you that have been successful in it, so you know it can happen.

So we take that same concept and say, how do we do that in technology? How do we do that in advanced manufacturing? How do we do that in the legal field or healthcare field? How do we get young people to see people who look like them? How do we create energy in those communities? And how do we define where you plug in and what the process looks like?

I think that's one of the biggest opportunities we have in a growing city. That's going to have so many opportunities for young people in the next 10 years. The industries are growing, lots of investments are being made here in Indianapolis, around the state, and we just need to be more deliberate in how do we make sure that everybody gets a chance to participate, and we define the process.

Casey: I think that is a perfect segue into talking about InnoPower and really your mission and what you're working to do there. So for those who aren't familiar, maybe introduce InnoPower. I know we have just finished up Rally and Indiana Minority Business Week, but tell us a little bit about all of these things that you're leading in the community.

Emil: My lived experience shaped what we want to do with InnoPower, which is how do we create opportunities and communities that we call it the hidden talent, right? A lot of these talented people in the schools and these communities need to participate in our innovation economy. So as a region, as a state, we become more competitive when everybody gets a chance to get in the game.

So with InnoPower, we focus on, we bet on Indiana, we say. We bet on the innovation economy in this state.We feel like the next 10 years, there's going to be a lot of wealth created in this state around the innovation economy. So much has been done and so many investments have been made in the innovation economy. TechPoint announced Mission 41K. We have to create 41, 000 net new tech jobs by 2030. So all of these things are happening. And we need to make sure while they're happening, while they're being designed, that everyone has a chance to participate. And we create the energy on the ground in those communities and we create access.

Casey: Yeah, that's right. 

Emil: So you get a chance to design that with people. And as you do it, you create energy on the ground with people. So our conference. We started six years ago, the Minority Business Week, and as we grew, we wanted to make sure. So this year we partnered with Elevate Ventures around Rally. Unbelievable turnout, amazing atmosphere. Just the energy around it was just, we're so glad we did it.

Casey: What I think I love I mean, there are lots of that that I love, but one piece that really comes to the forefront for me is you're creating the physical space for connections and their connections that really, because everybody's in the room together, they supersede where people are working or physical geography, because this was an international conference that we've put together right here. So people can relationship build from central Indiana. 

Emil: So just the environment that we deliberately created has led to so much success for our business owners, but really it's helped put the region on the map for people who normally wouldn't think about doing business here. 

Casey: Let's pull the thread on that a little bit, because having the region on the map is important today, but we usually see the long term importance of that a decade from now.

So maybe talk a little bit just about why regional competitiveness is so important for Indiana's future. 

Emil: It's very important, right, the way we project our region, the way we tell the story about our region, and doing it with an inclusive mindset attracts so many people. What I'm proud about is When you have things like business equity for Indy and other initiatives that were deliberately created to, to make sure everybody wins. Right? When we share those stories, people can't believe that locally we've done those things. So create an environment that invites people into the space where they get to see how connected we are as a city.

There's so much happening, but one of the things about this city is. You're a phone call away, you're a coffee shop away from seeing somebody, meeting somebody, and things just happen fast. So when people get a chance to witness that, they want to be part of that ecosystem. 

Casey: Oh, of course. Yeah. Well, and if anybody is hearing about Business for Equity for Indy the first time, go back and check out Kristen Lampkin's episode because we had her on See Yourself IN and she shared all of the work that BEI is doing and really how our listeners can get plugged in.

And I want to segue into that now for people listening that are thinking, gosh, these investments sound fantastic. And yet they seem so far away from where I'm sitting today. How can people start plugging into InnoPower and being more participatory in the things happening in Indiana. 

Emil: So one of the things we do is we leverage the conference to do things year round. So what we try to do is help you as a professional build your social capital, connect you with people. Two years ago, we did the Indie Biz Pass and a community design challenge. And we came up with that. And now today we have a digital platform that, that idea came from the conference. So to us, the biggest thing in community, the biggest opportunity we have is how do we leverage our diverse talent?

So many wonderful people in our city. How do we create an environment for them to come together? And for the last six years, this year included, we were just able to add to our network where people trust what we say, because we value what they have to say. And we just keep building that trust and following. 

Casey: You can hear when you listen. I mean, Emil, you're you're quite passionate about what you do. Where does that passion come from? 

Emil: , My sports experience really shapes so much of what I do in life today. And what I learned playing sports is one is it's hard, right?

Casey: I can imagine. 

Emil: Training and when you play sports every day is about getting better, right? Everything you do every day, you wake up getting better because it's competitive. But the energy you bring to your work on a day to day basis, the energy you bring to your locker room around your teammates, it's amazing. The energy you show up with really is key to how you make it, how you differentiate yourself as a professional. If you're a kid that's trying to get a scholarship to college and the energy you bring, the way you approach your work daily, differentiates you so you can get that scholarship to college.

If the people most affected are not energized by the work, if they're not energized by the opportunity and what and how to plug in and how to pursue opportunity, it really doesn't matter.

Casey: Oh, that's right. Yep. 

Emil: So we just want to make sure that everything we communicate, we communicate with positive energy, we communicate with, , a great spirit about what we want to do. But we also communicate with a mindset that we want everybody. And we want to exhibit that on a daily basis. 

Casey: We are running out of time today, but before we leave, it's really important that people listening can take , this episode can take your wisdom and really put it into action in their lives. So you shared a lot of wisdom already, but I'll ask you as our closeout, what are three things that have really stood out to you as lessons learned on your career journey that you think could help those listening who are just starting theirs today? 

Emil: One of the main things, life is hard, right, , and things happen. And it's not really about what happens, it's how you deal with what happens. So having a purpose in life, what are you about, what do you stand for, who are you as a person? If everything you do is just uber transactional, life is harder. 

Casey: Yes, it is. 

Emil: But when you have a purpose in life, when you wake up every morning energized about something special, a gift that you have, and it's bigger than yourself, the things you do. So you could work a nine to five. But then your five to nine has to be about something that's bigger than you. When I plug into something like that, the energy I have for life is just so much better. So I tell young people, there's nothing wrong with pursuing a job or getting a check, you should. But what else are you a part of? Pursue your career vehemently, go after it. But, simultaneously, pursue something that is not just about you.

Casey: I love it. Emil, thank you so much for joining us today. 

Emil: Thank you for having me. 

Casey: We're so glad that you were able to join us today to learn about Indiana's advanced industries and how you can start or enhance your career journey. Until next time, we hope that you'll be able to see yourself and the unlimited opportunities in Indiana.