5 Days of Inspiration and Innovation
After 5 days of capturing stimulating and provocative conversation about technology, science, art and the future, the ImageThink team is back to our office in Brooklyn, New York.
We looked through the 68 pieces of artwork we created during the course of the week, and we even amazed ourselves. This was the 5th year that ImageThink has graphic recorded at SXSWi, and each year the conference brought new surprises and challenges to its attendees. Images of the 68 talks can be found here on Slideshare.
On each day during the conference, our team was split up into 3 and captured every talk in Exhibit Hall 5, Ballroom A and Ballroom D. At the end of each day we also brainstormed and compiled new trends that we kept hearing in all of the talks.
There were trends that emerged last year and is being carried through this year; there were a few trends that came up this year and this year only. A few that we noted and illustrated:
Robotics, Bionics, Artificial Intelligence
This year, new projects consisting of ground-breaking results in AI, robotics and the convergence of human and technology is even more provocative than last year. Hugh Herr walked through his journey of finding a new concept for the human body, Martine Rothblatt shared her vision of a future of mind-clones and a new model of ‘self’ shared with cyber-consciousness.
Diversity
This year when we interviewed attendees about what they thought the biggest trends were, people often responded with ‘women in tech’ and ‘minorities in tech.’ We recorded numerous talks about diversity and inclusion in Silicon Valley. Statistics show a prediction of a huge shortage in the tech industry in the coming years, and it is going to crucial for companies to start recruiting from institutions they have in the past overlooked.
Middle-Aged Men on Battery-Powered Skateboards
We spotted this quite a few times outside the Austin Convention center…must be part of the new trends this year as far as automated commute goes!
The “Stacked” (or, the GAFMA)
Bruce Sterling introduced the “Stacked” at SXSW this year. The “Stacked,” or the GAFMA stands for Google, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft and Amazon. These biggest players in technology gets mentioned over and over and often as a whole–an idealized collection of companies that are ‘doing it right’ and leaving a trail of actions for the rest of the tech companies to mimic and follow.
We will be posting some in-depth recap of the talks we loved in the coming weeks. Please stay tuned! You can also find us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram for more information or visit our services page!. Thank you for reading!
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