You would never know it just by going in but this conference marked only the second year of Dublin Tech Summit. 2 full days at the Convention Centre Dublin, featuring a wide variety of speakers from across the globe, on four different stages. DTS is a technology summit covering themes around business, creativity, marketing and the internet of things. The speakers featured some remarkable people, speaking on various topics around technology, innovation and even music, such as Jordan P. Evans, from NASA JPL, and American film director and creator of YouTube videos, Casey Neistat.
On the TechxFactory stage featured Amali de Alwis, who highlighted the importance and impact that women in technology have made. Over at InnovationxTech featured Kevin Mako who urged all innovators to keep going; convert the fear of innovation to excitement. He showed a few examples of the kinds of product designs they have had at Mako Designs. Jordan P. Evans took the audience through a tour of the amazing work that has been done at JPL throughout the decades such as robotic explorations Curiosity and Opportunity. He also gave us a peek into what NASA JPL are working on next, and what they hope to accomplish, such as having a way to collect and bring back core samples from Mars (the mission dubbed Mars 2020).
The biggest showstopper was Casey Neistat. It is true that DTS themselves anticipated a
large crowd for the filmmaker, as they had already set up the TechxFactory stage to livestream the speech from next door, so that anybody who could not fit in the room, could at least watch from the other one. However this was not enough. There were crowds of people still, outside in the lobby, just waiting for a chance to get a glimpse at Casey. His speech was based around his own journey and how he got to where he is now. It was sad at times but overall very inspirational. His talk was entitled “How to be Heard”, to which he said that he still does not know. In a society now where everything needs to be viral, there is no formula for this. However he noted that he has learned a lot throughout his career; some things worked out great for him while others did not and that’s okay.
Afterwards, Casey stayed on and was joined by Johanna Maska (who used to be Obama’s Director of Media Advance). Together, with the moderator, they discussed how people could build a community. It was an interesting discussion around how many people who begin to film themselves on the internet these days, think that they will all blow up and become big stars when in fact this is not the case; it is very much unpredictable and a battle on must be willing to fight. If somebody wants to get into YouTube then they really have to put the time into it.
If you did not catch either of Casey’s panels, then I’m afraid to say, you really missed out!
Aside from the talks, DTS featured an entire exhibition hall dedicated to start-ups making themselves known (and handing out a lot of freebies). Whether big or small, no start-up/business was overlooked here and it was a great chance to be able to talk and network with people. I know I learned quite a bit during my time at DTS.
If you’re interested in attending, keep a look out for tickets going on sale next year. It’s a great event for anyone interested in technology/business/innovation. If anything, it’s a great place for you to get to know some new people and network!
Visual Artist, student at DIT, and writer for DITSU.tv
I've been writing for DITSU.tv for 2+ years now, still ongoing
I mainly cover events but also like to write a few helpful, lifestyle pieces and here and there
