DEARBORN ? More than 300 technology professionals and entrepreneurs packed the Ford Conference & Event Center Thursday to participate in the Michigan Technology Conference, the first statewide technology conference in two years.
The event was co sponsored by the Detroit Regional Chamber, Automation Alley and the Michigan Economic Development Corp. From 2001 through 2003, the MEDC produced the Michigan Technology Summit, but light crowds and government funding cuts prompted the quasi public corporation to drop the event in 2004.
Now back on a smaller scale, the Michigan Technology Conference could become an annual event again, said Ken Rogers, Automation Alley executive director.
?Everyone I spoke with said they got a tremendous ROI (Return on Investment) from this event,? Rogers said. ?We wanted to start small this year and attract about 300 attendees, which we did. Next year, we hope to land more sponsors and make it much bigger.?
The triple themes of the conference were Innovate, Integrate and Imagine.
The morning keynote came from Scott Anthony, Partner, Innosight; Co-author with Clayton Christensen, in the book, Seeing What’s Next: Using the Theories of Innovation to Predict Industry Change.
The lunch keynote came from Evan I. Schwartz, Author of the book, Juice: The Creative Fuel That Drives World Class Inventors.
The first general session, focused on the theme, Innovate, looked at the potential for Radio Frequency Identification technology. The panel was moderated by Dennis Carmichael, of Cimulus, and the panel included:
Robert Clarke, Asst. Professor, Michigan State University;
Michael Lowry, President, Lowry Computer Products;
Tom Manzagol, RFID Global Solution; and
Dr. Ilan Rubinfeld, Henry Ford Hospital.
The second general session, Integrate, featured Andrew Brown Jr., of Delphi Technologies, and Gregg Zank, of Dow Corning.
Both explored the integration of technology into traditional businesses and product lines; how technology is being applied to create new products and/or services, as well as how smaller or non-traditional suppliers can benefit from this business model.
The third general session, Imagine, was moderated by David Cole, Center for Automotive Research. The panel consisted of James Barbaresso, Iteris Inc.,
Sandy Munro, President, Monroe Consulting, and Michael Quah, NextEnergy.
The panelists covered the future of transportation, and what our children are likely to not only drive, but find careers in. They talked about the emerging futures of Intelligent Transportation Systems, mobile grid power technology, and NASA’s small aircraft transportation systems as they relate to how people will commute in the future.
Concurrent Sessions included Thinking Like an Entrepreneur, with Jim Price, CompanyCrafters, and Nina Krietemeyer, AeroWire Communications Inc.
University/Industry Partnerships, with Jan Garfinkle, Michigan Venture Capital Association, Linda Chamberlain, Sordal, and Thomas Collet, ProNai Therapeutics.
And Public/Private Funding, with Thomas Anderson, Automation Alley,
Jeff Mason, MEDC, James Mainero, TARDEC, Michael Skaff, Seneca Partners, and David Weaver, President, Great Lakes Angels.
If you missed the conference, you can view and hear the keynotes, the panels and the breakout sessions very soon. The Detroit Regional chamber will offer webcast video of the presentations from its web site, DetroitChamber.Com
Mitechnews.Com, in partnership with MediaRica, also will offer each speaker and panel as separate audio segments in a broadcasting format called podcasting. The podcasts will be available in about a week. We?ll announce when they are available for download to your iPod or other handheld device that can play MP3 files.
