TALK’s Techfest Plans underway for August 2015 at Henry Clay Building

TALK’s first Techfest is scheduled for August 20-21, 2015 in Louisville, KY being held at the Henry Clay Building.   TechFest is a first-year event that will educate, connect, and entertain the audience of coders, designers, leaders, and makers. We’ll bring in national and regional speakers and vendors to cover a variety of topics.

The major tracks are:  Healthcare (including biotech, quantifiable self, wearables, ecotech, and more); The Internet of Things (including big data, robotics, wearables, and more); Management (including agile/lean, best practices, entrepreneurship, and more); and General (including cloud, communications, ecommerce, games, security, and more).

      Format.  Conference with keynote breakout sessions, trade show with exhibitors, social networking time, workshop/toy room, how-to lightning talk demos, and a battle of the bands.  Audience.  TechFest will provide value to technologists, executives, emerging professionals, biotech, security issues, programmers, data analysts, designers, agilists, makers, and government officials.  Attendance.  Attendance is anticipated at approx.  600 for the conference, and 1000+ for the battle of the bands.  Tickets.  Entire Conference: $299, One Day: $199, TechJam: $30.

TALK’s TechFest is a two-day summit where those professionals living and working in technology circles, particularly IT, come together for learning, and networking.   This may lead to economic development avenues for growth and expansion, the facilitation of new ideas or a chance to explore shared resources, and the understanding of technology tools. This TechFest is designed for the Louisville, KY region and its surrounding counties to assist in presenting an overall global, regional and national perspective of technology directions. It is the inaugural event, intended to be held at least every two years.

TALK’s TechFest is also designed to be a fundraiser to continue the mission and objectives of TALK, the Technology Association of Louisville, KY, one of approximately 50 tech councils across North America, including Canada. TALK is a member of CompTia, the oldest IT trade association in America today, as well as a member of TECNA, the Tech Councils of America.

With networking and education can come creativity and innovation, so the TALK TechFest will include the TechJam fundraiser on its first evening, providing entertainment, as well as chance to unwind and explore new relationships.

TechFest Benefits Include:

  1. The opportunity to meet and network with expert speakers from within our region, nationally and internationally, to further career paths to implement or innovate technology for commercial and governmental purposes.
  2. The opportunity to participate in forum discussions, hands-on training, and interactive sessions, including demos and a Tech Toy Room with a Mini-Trade Show.
  3. The ability to share your issues, ideas, and action steps regarding your career, your company, and your community with others vested in technology solutions and facing similar challenges, missions, and objectives in their spheres of influence.
  4. A chance to unwind with others that understand the technology multi-tasking and can interpret how to handle the pressures with more interaction as a community under TALK.
  5. An ability to jump between different tracks of thinking to stimulate new paradigms for your internal teams. TechFest will have four mini-tracks: The Internet of Things Track; The Healthcare IT and Related Tech Track; The General Tech Track; and the IT Management Track.
  6. The space to envision and experience outreach channels for economic expansion within your company ranks after interacting in the TALK community.
  7. The mindshare to delve further into the advocacy needed in Washington, DC regarding technology issues, including security, privacy, and public telecom infrastructure.

A Sampling of Intended Audience Types: CIOs, CTOs, IT Project Managers, Programmers, Business Analysts, Local Technology Company CEOs, Webmasters, information Architects, Engineers, Tech Entrepreneurs, Researchers, Medical Professionals needing to understand Technology, etc.

Key Contacts: Dawn Marie Yankeelov, Executive Director/CEO, Technology Association of Louisville Kentucky (TALK)  Phone: 502-292-2351; Email: dawny@talklou.com Event Website: www.techfestlou.com or TechFest Chair, Dave Mattingly, dave@blackwyrm.com.

Visit www.techfestlou.com for event information as it is updated. Business First of Louisville is a key media partner for this event.  Read the first story at:  http://bizj.us/1co4bj (short version)