Innovation Week 2012 culminates Thursday, Jan. 26, with the final breakout sessions, keynote address and awards ceremony for Innovation Challenge winners.

The day starts with a breakout session titled “What not to do” from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. in the Memorial Union Prairie Rose room. The speaker is James Carlson, president of JDC Management, a real estate development firm in Fargo. Carlson also is the former CEO of PRACS Institute, a full-service contract research organization that offered pre-clinical, clinical, bioanalytical and statistical research services to serve the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and skin care industries.

“How I moved from concept to marketplace” will be from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. in the Memorial Union Prairie Rose room. Alex Warner, CEO and president of Pedigree Technologies, Dave Batcheller, CEO of Appareo Systems, and Mark Rheault, former CEO of Intelligent InSites, will be the speakers.

The keynote address and Innovation Challenge ’12 awards ceremony will be at 3:30 p.m. in the Memorial Union Great Room. Businessman Tom Walter, CEO of Tasty Catering, will be the speaker. A serial entrepreneur from the Chicago area, Walter has started 29 companies and acquired three more. He is a member of the Chicago Entrepreneurship Hall of Fame.

For more information about Innovation Week, visit www.ndsuresearchpark.com/about/Pages/Events.aspx.