2018 #BCTECH Summit

The 2018 BCTech Summit was a pretty cool event and was a lot bigger than I realized it would be.

Its reported that there were about 9,000 participants attending a dozen conference-related events over the three days of the summit. Apparently it broke attendance records.

The first thing we did at the Summit was interview  some people Who worked in tech related industries. I interviewed David Donaldson. Donaldson works in the mining industry. I recorded him and created a podcast explaining how technology has effected his job.

SPEAKERS

There were over 270 exhibitors and more than 200 speakers who spoke to  the transformations technology is driving across all industries and its impact on how we work, live and play.  The two speakers that I found most interesting, on the one day we attended (May 16) ,  where:

B.C.’s Primer, The Honourable John Horgan

 

 

 

 

 

And the Founder and CEO of the Plastic Bank, David Katz.

 

 

 

 

The first speaker, John Horgan, seemed to have some very strong opinions on the tech industry in BC. He stated that “Tech is not just one sector…..Its every sector.” He went on to describe how tech wasn’t just a stand alone industry, every advancement made in tech would affect all other sources of industry and culture. He stated that one of his goals was to make all of Vancouver a “tech hub”. To facilitate this process, he is planning on creating more women’s tech-related scholarships to help increase the number of women in the industry. Additionally, John Horgan plans to spend $10.5M to help marginal communities get tech education as well as spend $102M to try and keep graduated students in BC to work and live. I believe that these are all very progressive goals seeing as how tech is going to be the main driver behind most industries in the future and as a student that will one day graduate and hopes to live in BC, I am happy to hear that someone like John Horgan wants me to stick around. Here is an article that talks about his presentation at the Summit.

 

The second speaker, David Katz, decided to speak on a different topic: ocean pollution. He stated that “The last thing we need to do is clean the ocean.” I found this a little confusing and shocking. It seemed like he didn’t care about the large amount of plastic waste floating around the ocean. I thought this until he shared an analogy that I found quite interesting. ‘If you come home and your sink is running causing your house to flood is your fist reaction to try and bucket out the water? No! Its to turn off the tap‘. This meant that to stop the plastic waste crisis, the last thing we need to do is clean the ocean. Thats because the first thing we need to do is stop the flow of plastic. Katz’s solution to this was the “Plastic Bank“.

 

Plastic Banks are collection centers in impoverished countries that will buy used plastics from impoverished people. They then re -sell that plastic as “social plastic” to other companies to fund there banks. This cycle both helps to reduce the over all ocean plastic as well as poverty in those countries. I this this is a vary good business model. Not only is his business turning a profit but its also helping the world.

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TECHFEST

While at the BC TECH Summit, I attended techfest. This is a recruiting event that attracts up to 1,000 attendees who have a chance to connect with  up to 15 hiring companies (who reportedly have about 300 career opportunities).

Here is a cool video made to share information about the event.

 

While I was there, I began talking to some of the university recruiters about programs that appealed to me. One of the ones that I found stood out to me was User Experience Theory. User Experience Theory is the theory behind a users experience of a UI (user interface) and the design (UXD) that supports it, for a website or digital program. This would include accessibility, usability, enjoyment, and the overall flow of the experience.

Most tech companies have people working in this area. Microsoft, who was well represented at techfest, hires people for this area of their business.

 

One of the schools that was at the Summit, that offers a program that prepares you to work in this area, is SFU as a part of SITA (The School of Interactive Arts and Technology).

http://www.sfu.ca/siat/undergraduate.html

This program teaches students about the importance of intersections between programming, media arts and design. These are all skills required for website design which would be a job I’d be interested in.

What I like about this program, in addition to what you learn, is how you learn.   While you are studying and learning, you work alongside  programmers, media and digital artists, and designers, so that you have exposure to industry work. There is a co-operative education program and other industry opportunities, depending on your interests. You get to  build a portfolio and learn about professional standards BEFORE going out to find work. So you take classes and get experiential learning opportunities, just like PLP.  In fact, it’s a lot like PL P because you study with the same group of people in your first year, you do a lot of projects (like PLP), and you have lectures and labs…..their website says:

“Lab/studio sections are an important part of the project based learning environment….”

Sound familar?

All in all the Summit was a great experience and it got me thinking about university in a little different way then I had been before. Before the Summit I was focused just on studying Business in University. Now I am thinking about business but more in relation to technology and the new technology programs that are being created at universities like SFU. its sounding like the technology industry is a key one for me to think about, especially if I want to stay in BC.