Do tech events need an upgrade?
Are tech events really supporting the development of technology or just wasting time and money?
The Tech Open Air or TOA18 took place in Berlin last month and we had one of our teammates, Jean-Christophe Quillet, the Head of the AI team at the D. GmbH, visiting the event and here is what he has to say about it:
“It was a tech-in-general event, with five stages and with different activities every day.
“Topics covered were such as AI, Blockchain and Machine Learning, but there were more into it, such as activities, games, lunch, meditations and much more.”
Such a combination of tech-related talks and jazzy environment gives a laid-back, easy-going mood to the visitors and invites them to ‘hang out’ all day. But is that good enough?
“I went there because I was offered tickets while visiting Berlin, and I thought it would be a nice opportunity to listen to the AI talks. Looking forward to listen to experts and hopefully finding out something new.” — JC said.
The key rewards of attending such events, especially for younger startups, entrepreneurs and altogether, tech-savvies, can involve the opportunity to grow a strong network, keep a look-out for major, upcoming techy and scientific trends and ideas to create their own projects and brands.
Carl Fritjofson said on his article ‘Most startup events are a waste of time. Here’s how to pick the right ones’:
“The value of attending events has to be put in relation to the time commitment needed; an average meetup is 2h and a conference in another city or country is a minimum 1-day commitment.
“My advice is not to avoid events completely.” -he continues saying-. “The important thing is rather to be very selective about what events you choose to attend and the reasons therefore. And don’t overdo it. Think about what you and your organization mostly need right now.”
Jean-Christophe also tried some other activities, such as a challenge where the user had to draw something on a phone, and instead of people, machines needed to guess what it was.
“It was indeed an open air event, with an artsy vibe, big stages and small booths for network, concerts playing around and the atmosphere overall was pretty chill and nice.”
Having professionals from different, particular domains was very helpful, as they provided talks, discussion and specialized approaches to specific topics such as:
The ‘Inescapable AI: Predicting the Next Frontier (Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning)’. Where Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and other experts discussed the implications for effective machine learning and the best practices for applying AI across industries.
“AI is one of the most important things humanity is working on. It’s more profound than electricity or fire.” — Sundar said.
JC enjoyed the whole event, “however..’, he mentions, “..an issue was that talks were happening almost at the same time and so it left me with having to choose between two presentations, hence, attending one and missing the other.”
JC also attended another talk named ‘Decision intelligence, where the discussion was centered around how we can use machine learning and AI to improve businesses — something referred to as “decision intelligence engineering”.
One of the most interesting, yet evident and current issues is how businesses are reshaping daily points such as business records and artists. This was covered on ‘Will record business become music venture capital?’.
“Technology has transformed the way artists create, share and distribute their music, and today there are more paths to career growth than ever before.” — described by TOA.
“The key points of this SoundCloud talk were about how to give some flexibility and control to the artists on the way they are funded”, — JC said-. “And how to support their creative process in the way that works best for them.”
It may be that such complex topic should be introduced with a more practical approach, so that the audience can understand or feel that they are taking something away with them as they leave.
Maybe speakers taking part in these events should be day-to-day startups or entrepreneurs sharing daily issues or points of view — relatable anecdotes that the attendees can feel related, or points they can start implementing right away instead of just feeling the inspiration of the moment.
“Conferences are a terrible way to promote a new company.” -said Brian McConnell on his answer to the question ‘Are tech conferences worth the money?’ at Cofounders Lab website forum.
“I’ve been active in startups for 20 years.” -Brian added-. “Very few of them will generate decent leads. People don’t go to conferences to find new vendors like they used to 10 or 20 years ago (they use the web for that).
The question, asked by Aly Mahmoud, Marketing Executive at Osool for Real Estate Services, was made regarded to his situation back in July 2016:
“My start up just got accepted to exhibit at ALPHA Web summit in Lisbon next November.
The tickets are quite expensive, I’m wondering if these events are worth the money for a seed-stage startup?”
Another answer was made by Guy Poreh, founder at Playground:
“Honestly, It’s a wonderful way to waste your seed money and get really frustrated.
Everybody gets accepted to exhibit at conferences and there’s no need to repeat what the smart people before me said.”
“But, if you can get yourself to present on a stage,” -he added-, “or be part on an expert panel, then you have a real chance of getting somewhere.”
To sum up it all up, JC enjoyed TOA. However, he admits that he wouldn’t have considered attending if the opportunity would have not come up to his hands with free tickets.
Tech events seem to be going down faster than the speed technology is evolving — On the article ‘Why networking events are a waste of time, and what to do instead’, written by Derek Coburn in The Guardian, he says:
“We have very little control when we attend networking events organised by others. We usually don’t know who will be there and when we do, we can’t be certain we’ll connect with the people who would be most useful for us to meet. This leads to results that are unpredictable at best.
“Proper networking is about building new relationships” -Dereck Coburn ends with-, “and deepening your existing ones. You don’t have to follow traditional advice, or even go to events, to successfully build and maintain a valuable network.”
If you want to have a closer look at the TOA18 program, click here. Also, keep up with TOA on Instagram or Facebook.
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