Jax to host TechCoast Conference

[spuwho]

The Jacksonville Chamber IT Council and FSCJ are proud to announce the hosting of the TechCoast Conference.

http://www.techcoastconference.com/



What is Tech Coast Conference?

A signature technology conference designed to showcase Jacksonville as the high tech hot spot. This event is a collaborative effort to highlight the skilled talent pool, local companies, and emerging trends in our tech community.

Tech Coast Conference is featuring two elite Keynote Speakers in Dr. Ben Amaba, Worldwide Executive at IBM and Paz Efrat, Enterprise Account Technology Strategist from Microsoft.

Speakers include Executives from EverBank, Crowley Maritime, City of Jacksonville, etc.

Discussions & Tracks

Cloud Technology, Big Data, Social Media, Professional Development, Information Security & more.

Location:

Florida State College at Jacksonville
401 W State St. Jacksonville, FL 32202

Date: August 15th, 2014

Cost: Free. Just register and attend.

Corporate Sponsors:

FIS
Community First CU
Colo5
Quadrant
Carousel

Forbes ranks Jacksonville #2 in the nation in IT job growth. Come and see why.

More information on who/what the JaxChamber IT Council is, go to their website to see:

http://www.jacksonvilleitcouncil.com/

[IrvAdams]

Supercool! This looks like a good conference. A nice mix of local and national talent and firms. I like the location, also - nice to have something downtown. Looking forward to it!

[spuwho]

Per the JBJ:

Tech Coast Conference dials up innovation Downtown

http://www.bizjournals.com/jacksonville/blog/morning-edition/2014/08/tech-coast-conference-dials-up-innovation-downtown.html?page=all

Jacksonville's first Tech Coast Conference — meant to cement the city's reputation as a hot spot for innovation and creative collaboration — was all its organizers hoped it would be.

The one-day symposium, to which organizers wanted to attract about 500 people, counted at least that many attendees at the Advanced Technology Center at Florida State College of Jacksonville on Friday.

The eight-hour agenda included drop-in lectures, panel discussions and networking activities involving a veritable who's who of Jacksonville's tech community leadership. The event was organized in cooperation with JaxChamber's IT Council.

Presenters, like Mark McCombs, said they are feeling optimistic about the direction in which the local scene is moving.

McCombs, a multi-media artist who's been involved with the One Spark festival the past two years, showcased some of the robotics projects he's been working on with local college students.

McComb hopes to expand his efforts to school district across Duval, Clay, Nassau and other surrounding counties over the coming months and is in the process of forming local teams to compete in robotic-creating competitions, hopefully with the help of corporate sponsorship.

At the conference, McComb and his team of young charges demonstrated robots that picked up blocks and responded to other commands, all programmed by a team of student engineers.

"I want to build up to 30 to 40 teams in the Duval schools alone by the year 2020," McCombs said, adding that STEM – science, technology, engineering and math -- skills will be among the most in demand in the future.

That reality is also what motivated Frank Eaton, who served as the senior project manager for the Tech Coast Conference.

"It's about keeping IT [information technology] talent right here in Jacksonville and letting everyone know what we do here," he said.

Eaton, a member of the Jacksonville Chamber IT Council, has been working since April to pull together the speakers, sponsors and vendors involved in the event.

"We need to keep IT jobs and IT growth here," said Eaton. "Something like this [conference] might make a difference in a company being able to meet its staffing needs. FIS [Fidelity National Information Services] was one of my gold sponsors, and that's why they're here, talking to people, handing out information and trying to recruit local talent."

In the end, the Tech Coast Conference was able to bring in about 500 visitors, 15 speakers and 20 vendors/sponsors.

Eaton would like to see those numbers grow by next year. His goal: to make the conference a signature event, like One Spark, one that just might put Jacksonville's evolving innovation culture on the map.