Conference News: What I learned this week – February 10
More Changes Come to Austin: In March, the organizers of SXSW will be streamlining the conference into one unified event with 24 tracks of programming. The Music Festival will start on Monday, March 13 and the Film Festival will still take place across nine days, beginning on Friday, March 10. Find a complete list of the tracks here.
The Business of Blockchain: This spring MIT Technology Review and the MIT Media Lab Digital Currency Initiative, a leading research center, will present a new one-day conference to explore blockchain technology. Learn from the entrepreneurs and researchers who are developing this new approach to online transactions as they discuss about the biggest opportunities and challenges. The Business of Blockchain will be in Cambridge, MA on 18 April.
Crossing the Pond: The creators of Women of Silicon Roundabout, one of the UK’s leading women in tech event series, has had such positive feedback on its European Women in Tech Conference that it has decided to cross the pond! On 19 – 20 April the Women of Silicon Valley 2017 will debut in Santa Clara, featuring “the tech industry’s leading women, both as speakers and attendees.” If you are interested in personal, professional and/or corporate development, check out the details here.
Speaking Opportunity: The Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers (SCTE), along with its global brand, the International Society of Broadband Experts (ISBE), is seeking proposals for papers and presentations for technical sessions that will be conducted during SCTE/ISBE Cable-Tec Expo® 2017. The event will be held from 17–20 October in Denver, Colorado. Successful applicants will be required to submit a technical white paper that has not previously been published. Some of the topics of interest are: Evolved Network, Cloud and Virtualization, Security and Authentication, Business Services, Customer Journey, and Future Services and Technologies. The Call for Papers closes on 1 March, so submit today!
Lunchtime Learning: Traction Conference brings together founders and growth experts from tech unicorns to teach startups “distribution strategies and tactics to get, keep and grow customers and users at scale.” Hear great advice and best practices from past presenters, which have included LinkedIn, Dropbox, Pinterest, Zillow, Hootsuite, Marketo, Groupon, HubSpot, AngelList and more.
Coming Up Next: Next week, more than 35,000 people will flock to San Francisco for the RSA Conference. This year’s keynote lineup includes Alphabet Inc. Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt and Emmy Award-winning writer and current Late Night host Seth Meyers. Also next week, the Dublin Tech Summit will debut in – wait for it – Dublin! The program will include the following tracks: Business & marketing; IOT; Creative; FinTech; Big Data; MedTech; and Fashion. On the other side of the world, the National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM) will host its 25th annual India Leadership Forum under the theme: Digital Inflection Point: Re-imagine not Re-engineer. Finally, the Kidscreen Summit will take place in Miami, where more than 1,800 attendees will explore “new horizons in kids entertainment.”