Building On Purpose: The CoBuild Summit Program

October 20–22, 2026 · University of Montana, Missoula

The CoBuild Summit is for everyone who wants to create what comes next — communities solving big challenges, educators developing our next generation of leaders, and entrepreneurs building new ventures in response to changing economic and social needs. Whether you come with a plan, a big question, or simply the drive to be part of something bigger, there's a place for you here.

Pre-Summit Check-In — Monday Evening, October 19

5:00 PM – 8:00 PM · Early Check-In & Badge Pickup CoBuild Center, Downtown Missoula · 🟪

Get a head start before the Summit begins. Stop by the CoBuild Center in downtown Missoula on Monday evening to pick up your badge early and beat the Tuesday morning rush.

Day 1 (Tuesday Oct. 20) — Foundations for Purpose

9:00 AM – 9:45 AM · Opening Plenary: The Montana We're Building — Past, Present, and Future · 🟦 UC Theater

Welcome to the Summit and to a story that begins long before any of us here arrived. For countless generations, Indigenous peoples have stewarded this land. The generations that followed reshaped it through displacement and hard chapters. Out of that complicated history, new types of commerce took root: rural electric cooperatives, credit unions, ranchers, and grain growers working side by side. Today, a new generation of founders, farmers, educators, and tribal leaders carries that spirit forward. CoBuild Montana is part of that ongoing work, offering structure, support, and community to help local ideas grow into thriving, locally rooted ventures.

9:45 AM – 10:00 AM · Coffee Break · 🟧

10:00 AM – 11:00 AM · General Session: How Purpose Takes Shape Through Ownership · 🟦 UC Theater

Not all businesses are built the same, and that matters. Before you head into the deep dives, this session lays out the landscape of ownership: employee-owned businesses, co-ops, nonprofits, LLCs, and other structures that communities are using to build and hold value. You will leave with a clearer sense of which models fit which problems and why the structure of a venture shapes everything that follows.

11:15 AM – 12:30 PM · Deep Dive Sessions: Where Ideas Take Root · 🟨 Breakout Rooms

Choose a theme and dig in. Today's question: where is Montana's untapped potential hiding in plain sight? These working breakouts help you spot the opportunities we've been leaving on the table.

• Affordable Housing — Montana has a long tradition of neighbors helping neighbors. With community-ownership models, modular construction, and manufactured housing, we can keep homes within reach of working families and longtime residents. — Led by Front Step CLT

• Rural Health — From community hospitals to volunteer EMTs, Montana's spirit of local care runs deep. We can build on it with locally-rooted clinics, shared-service models, and creative staffing partnerships that bring reliable care closer to home. — Led by University of Montana

• Food Systems — Montana is one of the nation's top agricultural producers, yet most of that abundance leaves the state. Through local processing, producer networks, and fair markets, we can capture more of that value and keep Montana-grown food closer to home. — Led by Mission West Community Development Partners

• Biochar & Carbon Solutions — Montana's forests, farmland, and city lots generate vast amounts of excess biomass. With local processing and soil-health markets, we can turn a growing liability into lasting value — cutting fire risk, building soil, and creating local jobs. — Led by University of Montana

• The New Energy Map — Montana has abundant sun, wind, and geothermal resources, plus a tradition of communities powering themselves through cooperative utilities. As solar, microgrids, and ground source heat pumps come online, the opportunity is to own the infrastructure, not just host it for outside developers. — Led by Montana Renewable Energy Association

12:30 PM – 1:30 PM · Lunch · 🟧

1:30 PM – 2:45 PM · General Session Panel: Wide Minds, Open Country — The Skills That Win in an AI World · 🟦 UC Theater

AI is reshaping the nature of work at remarkable speed, automating the routine cognitive tasks that once anchored whole careers. But as those tasks get cheaper, something else is rising in value: ethical reasoning, the ability to connect ideas across fields, and the trust it takes to lead when the ground is shifting. These are exactly the strengths a liberal arts education builds — which means the University of Montana isn't behind the curve here, it's ahead of it. That's a genuine competitive advantage for Montana, and a hopeful reminder that the future economy will be built by people who know how to think, question, and bring communities along with them.

2:45 PM – 3:00 PM · Coffee Break · 🟧

3:00 PM – 4:00 PM · Workshop: Six Hats, One Idea: Think It Through, Every Angle · 🟩 North Ballroom

Ready to put a real venture through its paces? You'll join an assigned team and run one community business concept through Edward de Bono's Six Thinking Hats — switching perspectives on cue and thinking as one crew. Round by round, your team moves through all six modes: White — facts; Red — gut feeling; Black — risks; Yellow — upside; Green — fresh ideas; Blue — next steps. By the final round, you'll have tested every assumption, uncovered the blind spots, and sharpened a Montana venture into something ready to build. Fast, focused, and genuinely fun — come think out loud with us.

4:15 PM – 5:15 PM · General Session: Where Capital Meets Community — Investors, Members, and Local Ownership · 🟦 UC Theater

Capital comes in many forms, and this session opens up all of them. Mission-aligned investors share what they look for in community ventures and how they measure success beyond financial returns. We'll also look at cooperative capital, where patient investors fund the work while everyday members keep control. You'll also see how businesses, homeowners, and whole towns can finance what they need — with or without traditional investors — while keeping ownership rooted locally.

5:30 PM – 7:00 PM · Community Social & Mixer · 🟧

7:00 PM – 8:30 PM · Monday Evening Keynote & Public Panel: "Who Owns Montana's Future?" · 🟦 UC Theater

Elizabeth MacBride · Co-author of Capital Evolution: The New American Economy

Elizabeth MacBride's book makes one central case: capital is shifting away from a few coastal hubs toward a more distributed economy — one where places like Montana can build and own real value. Her keynote opens with how money moves, and how it can move differently. She then joins a cross-section of Montana leaders — founders, investors, and civic and tribal voices — for a public panel on ownership and the choices shaping our state's future. Leave with sharper language for the stakes ahead and a wider circle of people committed to acting on them.

Free and open to the public.

Day 2 (Wednesday Oct. 21) — Building the Ecosystem

8:30 AM – 9:30 AM · Coffee & Networking · 🟧

9:30 AM – 10:30 AM · General Session: The Missing Middle Meets the Silver Tsunami · 🟦 UC Theater

This panel focuses on the shops, farms, and family businesses that hold our towns together. A whole generation of Montana owners is getting ready to step back, and what happens next will shape our communities for decades: these businesses can stay rooted here, owned by the people and places that built them, or they can drift away to distant buyers. You'll leave with a clearer view of the stakes — and real hope for how this transition can strengthen, rather than hollow out, the places we call home.

10:30 AM – 10:45 AM · Coffee Break · 🟧

10:45 AM – 11:45 PM · General Session Panel: Care That Stays — Building Montana's Community-Owned Health · 🟦 UC Theater

When a clinic closes or a hospital pulls out, rural Montana feels it first. But we’ve never waited on distant systems to take care of our own. This panel brings together rural health leaders and community-based innovators exploring how locally rooted care models create staying power — through earned revenue, local employer partnerships, and structures that keep care close to home. Together, we’ll look at what it takes to keep a clinic open long after any outside money is gone.

12:00 PM – 1:30 PM · Lunch · 🟧

1:30 PM – 3:00 PM · Deep Dive Sessions: From Insight to Action · 🟨 Breakout Rooms

Yesterday we mapped the opportunities. This second round moves from insight to action — inviting you to help shape community-aligned solutions for the challenges we care about most. You'll leave with the beginnings of a shared venture concept and a clearer sense of how we might build it together.

Each session is grounded in a few simple questions:

• What would a community based solution look like here? We'll explore ownership models that keep the value we create in Montana hands.

• Who needs to be at the table? We'll identify the producers, residents, and workers whose voices should shape the venture from day one.

• What's the first practical step? We'll sketch early, achievable moves that turn a good idea into real momentum.

Session tracks: Affordable Housing; Rural Health; Food Systems; Biochar & Carbon Solutions; The New Energy Map

3:00 PM – 5:00 PM · Montana in Motion · 🟫 Various Sites

Ideas come alive when you can walk the site, touch the work, and talk to the people behind it. These limited-capacity tours take you out across Missoula to see real projects in action — community housing, innovation in healthcare, biocarbon opportunity sites, local food systems, and tribal enterprise — all built by Montanans, for Montanans.

5:00 PM – 6:00 PM · Networking · 🟧

6:00 PM – 8:00 PM · Startup World Cup USA Regional: Real Ventures, Real Capital · 🟦 UC Theater · Open to the public.

Ten selected ventures compete live before a panel of mission-aligned funders, with audience participation — and the winning venture advances to the global finals in San Francisco. Discover local founders with big, bold ideas, watch Montana ventures take a larger stage, and leave with proof that capital and ventures are building value here at home.

Day 3 (Thursday, Oct. 22) — The Launch: Where the Work Begins

Day 3 is not a closing — it is a starting line. This morning we launch CoBuild Montana as the vehicle that carries every connection and commitment from the summit into year-round action.

8:30 AM – 9:00 AM · Coffee · 🟧

9:00 AM – 10:00 AM · General Session: The Next Generation Takes the Mic · 🟦 UC Theater

Led entirely by students, this session hands the stage to the young people building Montana's future. Hellgate High School students will share two ventures they're actively helping move forward: one harnessing local resources to build healthier soil and stronger ecosystems, and another reimagining what attainable, community-rooted living can look like in Montana. If you believe great ideas can come from anyone at any age, this is the hour to be in the room.

10:00 AM – 11:00 AM · General Session: Building On Your Purpose —The Launch of CoBuild Montana · 🟦 UC Theater

This isn’t a closing — it’s where the work begins to take shape. Together, we share out the strongest ideas, solutions, and opportunities that emerged from the deep dives and across the Summit, then turn them into next steps. As we launch CoBuild Montana, participants are invited into the road ahead: joining the CoBuild Impact Network, helping form an Investors Circle, and stepping into the partnerships, working groups, and ventures that will carry this momentum forward across Montana.

11:00 AM onward · Ribbon Cutting & Grand Opening Celebration at the CoBuild Center · 🟪 CoBuild Center, Downtown

The summit ends here — and so does the beginning. Join us downtown for the ceremonial ribbon cutting and grand opening of the CoBuild Center in Blues Alley, then stay for a mid-day celebration: live local music, Montana makers, and food vendors filling the space with the best of what our communities create. Browse the work and raise a glass to what we've built together.

A Note on This Program

Times and sessions reflect the current plan and may be refined as speakers and partners are confirmed. Every session is built to do three things: share practical knowledge, connect you with the right people, and move the work forward — from this summit into the year-round work of CoBuild Montana.