The first Atlantic Technology Summit is slated for next month, to provide a one-day conference for people who work in the IT field and showcase some of the region’s growing companies.
The goal of the conference is to bring together people who work in the digital technology field and provide talks by specialists, both reps from some of the world’s biggest tech companies and home-grown talent.
The organizers are hoping for about 250 attendees, and are inviting guests from around the region. The event will take place Nov. 20 at Park Lane Cinemas in Halifax. You can buy tickets here.
“The goals of the Atlantic Technology Summit are to foster our region’s technology community by bringing globally recognized thought leaders and technology companies together while showcasing some of our home-grown, world-class technology leaders and innovators,” said organizer Calvino Anderson in an email.
Anderson, who has held a range of sales and business development roles for several companies, said the Atlantic Technology Summit is being organized by a committee of seven volunteers, each from a different segment of the tech community. He said they decided to stage the conference simply because there is a demand for it.
In the past four years, the Halifax IT/Technology Meet Up Group has grown to more than 1,000 members and many have asked for a full-day conference, he said.
He added the city and region currently offer conferences aimed at specific fields like cybersecurity, project management, dev-ops, and marketing.
“But the current general IT/Tech events are all re-seller or vendor driven, tend to ignore other sections of the community and they have a clear agenda to sell products or services,” said Anderson. “We are building a general technology event that encompasses traditional IT as well as emerging tech and dev-ops.”
He added the thrust of the event will be core to the community’s values in that “it provides a completely unbiased open forum for the sharing of ideas, learning, discussion and networking.”
The program features 19 presentations and panels, including a CIO panel, an IT vendor panel, and discussions on women in tech and artificial intelligence.
The keynote address on Canada’s digital economy will be delivered by Namir Anani, President and CEO of the Ottawa-based Information and Communications Technology Council.
The local speakers include Ulrike Bahr-Gedalia, President and CEO of Digital Nova Scotia, and Travis McDonough, Founder and CEO of sports health data provider Kinduct.
