From an attendee:
There are endless conferences out there, endless speakers, topics and networking. All claim to have the most relevant content. All come with big words like Big Data, Deep Data, AI, ML, Smart Cities big promises and of course Big price tags.

I get to attend many of them, all with varying degree of enthusiasm. But there is one that always sticks. Silicon Harlem’s annual conference held in Harlem at the National Black Theatre. It is attended by educators from Colombia and Cornell, CTO of the city of New York, and elected officials, executives from SAP, Chase, as well as cutting-edge startups, students and residents.

It is a full day packed with parallel sessions, keynotes, start-up pitches. Each session makes you think, each speaker makes you want to connect, and each hour teaches you something new. Because everything has a real touch, real facts and doers from the industry speak from their everyday experiences.

Some of the takeaways:

Like everyone else, they talked about SMART cities but focused not only on technologies but the challenge of developing “SMART RESIDENTS” and including them in the design of those cities.

They discussed 4th Industrial revolution and looked not only at positive but also negative potentialities of it for everyone.

They raised an issue of how to enable children and make them not just tech-savvy USERS but also tech-savvy ENABLERS.

They brought up examples of Unfair Advantages of those who those who are the outsiders and how they bring a radical creativity when they get involved.

Author: Anna Hakobyan