Once again Hudson Valley Tech Festival will bring together tech professionals, entrepreneurs, government and community leaders to discuss strategies for technology-oriented economic development in the Mid-Hudson Valley. HVTechFest’19 was about awareness. HVTechFest 2020 is about defining communities and priority action areas with the goal of building a Hudson Valley technology cluster..

Have thoughts about which priority actions we should pursue, and want to be part of this co-creation process? Email us your answers for the survey below; Join us at a conference call on March 27 and April 17th to help us narrow our options for these priority action areas.

• In what focus areas would you like to see community collaboration? 
• In what area do you see yourself contributing to develop HVTechFest resources? 
• If you could give us a piece of advice for supporting the community, what would it be?

Important Dates

• Submit your session ideas: due: April 12th, 2020
• Proposals for talks and workshops: CFP will open April 15th, due: June 1st, 2020
• Notification to talk and workshop presenters: July 1st, 2020

Testimonials

• "I saw the value in this conference. I got some questions answered, learned new things, observed new trends."
• "The quality of sessions and speakers selection was fantastic, the level of program coordination is very impressive."
• "Speakers were sharing what they are excited about - I see it is changing the Hudson Valley already!"
• "I experienced collaboration and being part of something bigger."
• "One of the things I discovered was the strength of the local startup community, their needs, and how invisible they are to the larger community. High tech employees already in this area who are looking for new jobs are likely to leave the area because they are unaware of the jobs available here."

Overview of HVTechFest 2019

It was tremendously rewarding and inspiring to see so many gathered together on Friday, October 11th for the Conference portion of the Festival, to explore and rethink our tech education, tech workforce development and trends in hiring the lean startup way. The programming committee invested countless hours engaging and curating speakers one by one to reflect the industry trends, both global and local.  We are so proud of the 40+ speakers and 150+ attendees who participated in the Conference. Thank you all for your hunger and curiosity to learn from each other through the Conference tracks and sessions. You can see speakers notes using 2019 Schedule or see live streamed video here

Our first Hudson Valley Youth Hackathon on Saturday, October 12th teamed 100+ professionals working side by side with youth, and competing equally. We appreciate our partner, AT&T, who lobbied with vigor to have kids involved more than we initially envisioned – it was amazingly inspirational and a learning experience for all! We discovered that our high schoolers are way more tech savvy than previous generations. They are thoughtful, engaged and collaborative, responsible and capable. The startup bug bit them at the Hackathon – we can expect more tech entrepreneurs coming… Let’s cultivate this spirit!

We are excited to see that we are all aligned in our dream of making the Hudson Valley a better place to live and work, and leveraging technology as a practical tool for this rising tide!