We’re very proud to announce that Conferize has just been named the #1 event startup at Event Tech Circus. Jon, Conferize’s co-founder and CCO, traveled to Amsterdam in May to give a one minute pitch in front of some of the most exciting event startups, hoping to nab first place.
The competition was stiff. Julius Solaris at Event Manager Blog wrote, “The most promising sign that Event Tech Circus gave to the industry was the calibre of the startups attending.” Even among all these stellar startups, conference organizers gathered behind closed doors and awarded Conferize the big prize.
This marks our second award this year recognizing Conferize’s tremendous potential. We’re excited to continue to prove ourselves and our product—especially with the beta launch coming so soon!
Stay tuned to see where we’re headed: it’s gonna be great.
I’m a digital strategist and writer with special expertise in mobile, social media, and omni-channel content strategy. I work directly with US and international brands, helping them transform their marketing to meet the demands of a multi-screen, realtime world. At present, I collaborate closely and most often with Token (www.tokenco.com) a NYC based marketing and design agency that I helped co-found. We specialize in digital branding, responsive design, mobile applications, wearable technology, and gestural interfaces. Prior to Token, I founded and managed the mobile group at iCrossing, a marketing company owned by the Hearst Corporation and have held executive roles at Organic and a number of other digital agencies.
I live in New York City. For the past 15 years, I’ve been a commercial director, a creative director, and an executive at a network— and then BOOM. I woke up. I needed to learn some new tricks. The media industry is in radical technical disruption, and I knew that if I didn’t change with it, I’d die a slow career death. With a bit of effort, I decided to change my course. I was accepted into a unique Graduate Program at UC Santa Cruz in Digital Art and New Media.
I’m going back to graduate school to examine the world through the lens of new technologies and how they apply to both business and art. I wanted the space to think long and hard about our rapidly changing society. We’re at the crossroads of art, science and technology. It’s the right turn I needed to take in order to get my passion on—again.
Featured conferences this week explore social media trends, consumer culture, behind-the-scenes design and how to beautify the web. Take a look at Conferize.
I’m from India and work as a Web Evangelist for Opera Software. A major part of my job involves interacting with the web community at large, which involves coding, writing articles and of course, speaking. I’m really passionate about the web, and want to continue to see it succeeding as platform, and as such, I try to encourage the adoption of open web technologies whichever way I can.
What is your favorite area of expertise to present?
I love to present on upcoming web technologies, and in the browser world, these keep changing all the time. Something which was new just a couple of months ago might be considered common knowledge now. So you always have to keep learning about new things and be at the forefront of what is possible in web technologies.
Can you tell us a little about yourself? What is your favorite area of expertise to discuss as a speaker?
My research is social tools and the future of work, principally, so there’s a great deal in there. I gave a keynote last week in Portugal on ‘The Future Of Work In A Social World’, for example. Last year I gave a talk several times called ‘What Will Matter In The Future’.
How did you begin your career in public speaking? What were some key conferences for you?
I started in grad school studying computer science. My first talk was at Usenix to 1,500 people. The moderator read my whole bio, it was like seven paragraphs and it seemed to go on forever. People started shuffling their feet it was so long. I walked up and said ‘Thanks for that but you left one thing out: twelve arrests, no convictions’. The audience laughed out loud and I thought, ‘Hey, I can do this’.
The Meetings Industry is currently experiencing a momentous shift toward greater democratization within the conference space; the demand for speakers has grown tremendously and more and more people have the potential to get on stage and share their expertise.
Unfortunately, the tools available to help organizers find new knowledge-producers has yet to reflect this trend. Just as attendees should not have to slog through search engines to find interesting conferences, organizers should not have to dig through the web to find new speakers.
Conferize is looking to bridge this gap and bring greater exposure to experts who we believe are integral to more dynamic and transparent conferences.
We are currently reaching out to thought leaders who wants to benefit from a tailored platform where they can connect with conference organizers, advertise upcoming speaking engagements and share their knowledge with a wider audience online.
We envision a place where speakers capture targeted communities tied to their industry, which not only allows them to find speaking engagements but also empower them to maximize their participation at conferences by developing a tool to promote themselves and generate buzz around their work.
