Having started in 2019 as a web-only reality show for local startups, Rocket has now developed into a full universe of multi-platform content and unforgettable live experiences with the goal to foment, give visibility, and highlight the positive impact of innovation and entrepreneurship in everyone’s lives.
Though an important topic as innovation may be, it is not always the most accessible to the general public. New technologies, business models, metrics, scaling, seeding, and valuation may be the bread and butter for founders, but while watching the news during breakfast, most people are worried about the weather, traffic and what will affect their lives that day. Despite not realising, the transformations brought by innovation are at least as impactful.
So when the idea of bringing such a niche topic to mass media was being conjured up, the challenge was to make it in an accessible and exciting way, while also making it about people, their passion and dreams for the future.
And what a more engaging way to do so than through competition? Thus came Rocket – a RPC original reality show in which founders go through challenges to improve their knowledge, teamwork, and public speaking skills with the culmination being a pitch challenge to business specialists. In front of a live audience. In one of Brazil’s largest innovation events. And being transmitted to thousands of people online, who also vote in order to decide who the champions will be.
Fast forward to the present, and what Rocket has become is a multimedia and multi-platform innovation ecosystem, which over the years has amassed hundreds of thousands of pageviews and over 800 hours of original content for anyone to access for free on the web, either through videos or podcast episodes. More than that, for the past three years, Rocket has had its own broadcast television show, granting invaluable credibility and visibility to local startups and their solutions.
It has also constantly expanded its frontiers and provided new experiences for new groups of people. University students, for instance, can now challenge themselves in Maratona Rocket, an intense 12-hour hackathon focused on smart city solutions. However, not only those already in university can further their learning with Rocket, because through Academia Rocket de Inovação, anyone can take up a course and watch industry leaders sharing their knowledge through masterclasses.
Rocket has proved that when passion is involved, content is more than something to be consumed; it can be reality-changing, and no topic should be so niche that it cannot provide a meaningful connection to those whose lives will be forever impacted by it, as certainly is the case for innovation. And it is only fitting that an innovation project like Rocket would be conceived in a smart city like Curitiba.
