Tampa Bay Tech conference expected to draw over 1,000 to St. Pete
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - In two days, tech moguls from across the area will hold a meeting of the minds.
Tampa Bay Tech is hosting poweredUP Tampa Bay Tech Festival at the Mahaffey Theater in St. Petersburg on Wednesday. It’s the non-profit’s biggest event of the year.
"There will be a lot of AI discussions," Meghan O’Keefe, the executive director of Tampa Bay Tech, said. "Obviously, that's a hot topic. Everybody's still talking about ChatGPT and how to integrate AI into what they're doing. So, we will be talking a lot about that, but it's also just how technology is influencing and changing different industries that we might not think about. So, how it has changed the music industry. How our national defense is using technology to use things in an innovative way."
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O’Keefe said they’re expecting close to 1,500 people of all ages from across the area to attend.
"We have high schoolers who have created their own product and will be demoing their own product live on our geek row, through the executives that are the founders and CEOs of the companies here that have either been headquartered here or also moving in and expanding here," she said.
"Technology has grown a lot here, especially in the last four years. It has really exploded, and it's amazing to see, and it's awesome to see that Tampa to get that highlight and be able to be recognized as a national, international tech hub," O’Keefe said.
The conference will also feature several speakers, including the keynote speaker, Igor Jablokov. He is one of the founders of the technology that created Amazon’s Alexa.
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"It's important for our community to have events like this, so we can continue to collaborate and innovate within our own region. I mean, a lot of people want to compare us to the Silicon Valleys and the Austins right now, but we're our own region. We have our own flair. We have our own people. We have our own products and technologies that are coming to life here," O’Keefe said.
The festival runs from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Wednesday. Tickets are available on Tampa Bay Tech’s website.
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