Conference News: SaaStr & DevNetwork Grow for it; Emtech Speaks

Scaling in Singapore: SaaStr is coming to Singapore for the first time in 2023 with their new SaaStr APAC event. From 22 – 23 February 750+ SaaS company founders and executives, as well as members of the VC community will take over the Fullerton Hotel Singapore. Remember that SaaStr events were created for companies between $1-$10M USD ARR so that they can learn how to get to the next level. While this gathering will be more intimate that the annual conference, which brings more than 12,500 to California every autumn, the conference organizers note that this may make it even easier to build connections with peers.

Developing New Connections in Latam: DevNetwork is also adding a new event to their lineup, but in 2023. DeveloperWeek Latin America will be held from 21-22 June as an all-virtual conference (held in E. South America Standard Time (UTC-03:00) timezone), but will add a live component in future years. The audience will be made up of 3,000+ developers, engineers, software architects, dev managers, IT professionals, and technical executives who are eager to learn best practices and new trends.  A call for speakers is open now and more information will be available soon.

Speaking Opportunity: Augmented World Expo/AWE USA is one of the world’s largest events for professionals working in augmented reality, virtual reality, and wearable technology. Its program covers everything from 360 VR to gaming to health/medical applications to spatial audio. For the 2023 agenda – which will run 31 May – June 2 at the Santa Clara Convention Center – conference organizers are soliciting speaker suggestions for panels, joint presentations, standalones, and tutorials. Submissions for AWE 2023 will be accepted through 7 February, however, the agenda could fill up sooner so earlier submission is preferable.

Conference Manager Q&A: Just before the end of December, we spoke with Director of Event Content & Experiences at MIT Technology Review Brian Bryson about the group’s exciting 2023 event calendar. Brian shared that, new for 2023, Future Compute (30 April – 1 May) will begin on a Sunday and provide delegates with off-stage activities that take advantage of MIT’s campus.

Speaker Strategies: Can you tell us more about the new programming at Future Compute 2023?

After two plus years of virtual meetings, the return to in-person/hybrid events gave us an opportunity to re-examine how we could best serve our attendees. We made the decision that we want our events to be equal parts of inspiration content and meaningful connections. The new off-stage activities are our way of fostering meaningful connections. We’ll be going to MIT classrooms and labs, morning yoga and spin classes, and what I’m most excited about is an evening wine tasting. Small groups, sitting down to enjoy fine wines, share stories and really getting to know each other.  Our inspirational sessions are going to offer incredible tech insights for strategy over the next 12 months, but the connections our attendees make will last for years.

Speaker Strategies:What differentiates Future Compute from the other events in your EmTech series?

Future Compute is our event for CTOs, CIOs, and senior IT leadership. This audience has the incredible dual challenge of keeping the technology infrastructure of an organization running at maximum speed and efficiency while simultaneously innovating with technology that will create the competitive advantages of tomorrow. In a word, these are the most pragmatic people in tech. Future Compute is laser focused on their needs, and the agenda doesn’t waste a second on any topic that doesn’t address one of these two challenges.

Speaker Strategies: What do you love most about your job?

This is an easy one for me. We do prep calls with every speaker, to help them understand our audience and the larger context of conference and for us to get an idea of the main points they’ll be making on stage. For me, it’s an incredible opportunity to have a one-on-one discussion with them. The conversations often go long, and into topics we just don’t have time for in their session. It’s an incredible honor to have time with these people and is definitely the highlight of the position. Off the top of my head, CRISPR creator Dr. Jennifer Doudna was the most influential; Project Liberty’s Frank McCourt was the most inspirational; and Microsoft CTO Mark Russinovich a coding hero to me; and I’d say Salesforce CEO Mark Benioff blew me away with his passion and sincerity.

Coming Up Next Week: SEMI – the industry association representing electronics manufacturing and design supply chain – kicks off its event calendar year with the Industry Strategy Symposium/ISS, held 8-11 January at the Ritz Carlton in Half Moon Bay. Speakers at 2023’s ISS will focus their expertise on the regional and global investments that will be the drivers of the industry’s path to $1T, with emphasis on automotive, big data, and AI markets. Digital Life Design/DLD Munich convenes at a new venue in 2023, the House of Communication in Munich’s trendy Werksviertel district. Held the week prior to the WEF in Davos, DLD is known for gathering 1,500 business leaders from across the global to address the intersection of business, tech, science & culture. Held online 12 January, the fifth annual TechStrong Predict examines what the upcoming year will hold in the realms of DevOps, digital transformation, cybersecurity & cloud native. And finally, set amongst the Swiss Alps, the Crypto Finance Conference will run 11-13 January in St. Moritz, offering a curated conference focused on digital assets and blockchain.