As Techonomy’s program director, the first quarter of the year is when I look for the people and ideas to weave into our programs and editorial work. Lots of talking, lots of reading, lots of learning. Weeding through mountains of information to find the beginnings of an idea for a session or speaker for our programs. There’s a word I’ve recently learned people use for this—curation (I thought it only pertained to museums, but apparently not).
So what am I thinking about? As usual for us at Techonomy, it’s a disparate and interrelated group of ways that tech is transforming the world right now: Algorithms and AI; Bio and syn-bio; Cities (smart or otherwise); Computational social science; Data (capture, policies, open, visualization, security, privacy); Tech and the tension between skepticism and hope; Tech and politics, policy, and government; the Drone Racing League; Signals; Sensors; Censors; Intelligence; Information; And yes … the inescapable Internet of Things (IoT) … but as one of our TE15 participants stressed, the Internet of things that matter—systems that will tackle large-scale problems and have broad societal impact.
I’m excited that this year in addition to our annual Techonomy 2016 in Half Moon Bay, California on November 9-11, we’re finally organizing a conference in our hometown. Techonomy NYC: Man, Machines and the Network will take place May 26 at NYU’s Kimmel Center. It is the first of two conferences we’re programming this year. IoT and the impact of tech and interconnection on the social and economic ecosystems of our companies and cities will be a key programmatic thread. The day-long conversation will include a focus on data and health, smart cities, and the evolving shape of media and finance in a technologized era. No doubt we’ll talk about the election as well. Some of the people and companies already attending include Dr. David Agus, AppDynamics, Bloomberg’s Matt Winkler, Epibone’s Nina Tandon, Facebook’s Carolyn Everson, FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, GE, Microsoft Research’s danah boyd, Philips, and Simulmedia’s Dave Morgan.
We’re just starting to put the program together, so I welcome ideas and suggestions, and hope you’ll join us in NYC in May.
