Inductive Automation Blog

We have decided that due to the number of exemplary applications we received, we need to change the rules of our own game! What’s a Build-a-Thon without a little spontaneity?

We’re celebrating 10 years of sharing ideas, inspiration, and technology at the Ignition Community Conference and you can join us live or in person.

For the 2022 Build-a-Thon, we’re doubling down on the community involvement by opening up the field to include all Premier Integrators. With over 80(!) potential candidates, we’re also expanding the Build-a-Thon’s scope to make finding the final two a whole lot more fun.

It’s an understatement to say that integrators take great pride in their work. In much the same way, we at Inductive Automation take great pride in the enthusiasm and creativity of the Ignition community. It’s the reason we started the monthly Top-Selling Integrators list back in 2019. In fact, just this past year we expanded the leaderboard from 50 to 100 to better highlight the growing community within our Integrator Program.

It’s an oft-recounted part of Inductive Automation’s history, but it’s worth repeating: IA Founder and CEO Steve Hechtman worked as an integrator for 25 years before developing our signature platform, Ignition, to help with his own business. In that spirit, we make a point to help facilitate success for integrators in any way we can. One of those ways is our Integrator Program.

In a challenging year like 2021, when in-person events were rare, and remote work and virtual interaction became more common, our content program was a vital link between the Inductive Automation team and the Ignition community. In the midst of all of the disruption, we saw the community rise to new challenges, seize opportunities, feed its hunger for knowledge, and leverage the Ignition platform in new ways. This year’s content reflects what the community was doing with Ignition and what they were most passionate about, so let’s look at the content pieces that captured the most attention.

The 2021 Ignition Community Conference marked Inductive Automation’s second foray into the world of virtual conferencing and once again proved that no matter the physical distance between us, ICC will always bring the global Ignition community together. This year’s conference, held on September 21st and 22nd, was our ninth ICC and largest ever by far. Building on last year's success, we evolved ICC by incorporating two online platforms and offering new twists on a few fan-favorite sessions.

The Build-a-Thon was absent from ICC 2020, and those in attendance took notice: it was the #1 most requested addition for this year. However, we knew that if we brought the Build-a-Thon back, it would have to be something really special. Suffice it to say, that’s a lot of pressure for our Build-a-Thon veterans and Co-Directors of Sales Engineering Travis Cox and Kevin McClusky. So we decided to turn to the Ignition community, asking Vertech and Flexware Innovation — our 2019 and 2020 top-selling integrators respectively — to help us out.