A Guide to the 2019 Hudson Valley Tech Festival In Newburgh N.Y. Columbus Day Weekend
Posted in Hudson Valley Tech Festival Newburgh | Last Updated October 10, 2019
About the Hudson Valley Tech Festival
Billing itself as a technology-driven economic development festival, The Hudson Valley Tech Festival will feature a two-day conference and a hackathon.
This festival is the first of its kind in the Hudson Valley and is being held during Columbus Day weekend, starting at 8:15 a.m. sharp, Friday, October 11th & concluding Saturday, October 12th, 2019.
The two days will be split between the campus of SUNY Orange, Newburgh and Mt. St. Mary College, Newburgh.
The following information can help guide you as you consider attending a wonderful smorgasbord of lectures, and/or participating, or observing the hackathon.
Purpose of the Conference and Hackathon
The conference and hackathon are both designed to inform and educate attendees while also raising awareness about the region’s education and workforce challenges.
Its goal is to explore the Hudson Valley’s tech landscape, especially as it involves developing a workforce and employing that workforce.
On day one, keynotes presentations, workshops, and lightning rounds will fill the day, and a multitude of topics will be covered including:
- building a tech workforce
- advancements in open data
- cybersecurity
- machine learning
- 5G and the Internet of Things (IOT)
- cryptocurrency
On day two, the Hackathon occurs, but there are also a series of lightning round breakout sessions scheduled that day as well.
Thus tech topics will be featured both days.
The Hudson Valley Tech Fest is located in Newburgh NY
NOTE: The two days are split between two separate campuses in the City of Newburgh: SUNY Orange, where the Conference will be presented on Friday in Kaplan Hall, and Mt. St. Mary College, where the Hackathon will be conducted all day Saturday at the Kaplan Recreation Center. Links to the maps are provided below. (Willam Kaplan a Newburgh philanthropist has endowed both colleges generously with capital improvements, and so both SUNY Orange and Mt. St. Mary’s have facilities named after him).
From the organizer
“The “regional” tech market is burgeoning and therefore ripe for a gathering such as the Hudson Valley Tech Festival. Having lived here for over 5 years, I have witnessed an increasing interest in technology and I’m happy to see that the Hudson Valley is experiencing a surge of activity in the tech industry.” says festival founder Yulia Ovchinnikova. “After working with tech communities in Orange, Ulster, Dutchess and Sullivan counties, I appreciate the vibrancy of the region and that it is time to spotlight the entire valley,” adds Ovchinnikova.
The Conference
The Tech Festival Conference brings together Hudson Valley area tech companies, entrepreneurs, startups, investors, professionals, educators, students and more and will offer a series of panel discussions to help encourage a climate of economic growth.
The Keynote speaker on Friday will be Rensselaer PolyTech Institute’s Dr. James Hendler, Chair of Computer, Web and Cognitive Sciences at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
One of the hottest topics worldwide is: will there be work to do or will robots do it all?
Dr. Hendler will discuss Artificial Intelligence (AI) currently and its future implications, specifically what the near future may bring.
Following Dr. Hendler will be a number of other panels and breakout sessions, including two workforce development panels from two different perspectives – existing hiring – training pipeline and future readiness.
We are certainly looking forward to hearing Dr. Hendler, and his take on AI as his scholarly credentials, fieldwork, and practical experience make him a leading expert on this topic.
View of Mt. St. Mary College, Newburgh from the Newburgh Beacon Bridge
Lineup and schedule
A copy of the program lineup and schedule can be found here.
The Hackathon
The Hackathon will be held at Mt. St. Mary College.
It will focus on solving for these problems:
- Education leading to Employability
- Professional Sustainability.
A recent report, Out of Alignment, issued by Newburgh’s Pattern For Progress underscores the need for workforce training in well-paying jobs and for keeping young people living in the Hudson Valley, as an alarming demographic shift reveals a decline by as much as 25% in the younger millennial population.
Uniquely, it invites youth to work with professionals to solve community problems.
Recently appointed President , Dr. Jason N. Adsit, seventh full-time president of Mount Saint Mary College, will open the event.
The Hackathon in some ways is actually kind of a blended Hackathon with one aspect dubbed the first-ever youth hackathon in the region — and named the AT&T Hudson Valley Hackathon.
Young people interested are invited to bring their laptops, imagination, and teamwork to participate in the youth hackathon.
The Youth Hackathon collaboration between AT&T, Open Hub, Orange County, and Mount Saint Mary College was born out of a desire to expand coding opportunities for Hudson Valley youth.
It’s also intended to introduce youth to future career opportunities that are available in the fields of information technology, coding, and machine learning.
Hackathon participant details
Free for youth
The AT&T Hudson Valley Hackathon is free for youth, and the first 100 youth participants registered will be welcomed into this event.
Computer programmers and others involved in software and hardware development will collaborate intensively on projects in order to solve challenges by using technology.
The students and adult participants will create hacks that focus on issues within a changing digital world that impact them, mainly in how the region educates and retains talent for future employment.
According to a press release about the Hackathon, “participants will build apps, games, websites, animations and interactive stories related to solutions for education, such as availability, employability, skilled workforce retention and professional sustainability, while being judged on their teamwork, imagination, code and design skills, while rating the digital solutions provided to the Hudson Valley education and workforce community.”
The hackathon will feature mentors from area colleges, tech companies and local developers assisting the participants.
Free food
Meals and snacks will be provided.
Those with laptops — or even tablets — should bring them, but attendees can participate even without their own devices.
Adults to pay
While students are able to get in free, adults pay.
No prior coding experience is necessary. There is no upper limit on adult attendance.
All participants must register in advance at https://bit.ly/HVTechFest; ticket prices for adults are shown on the web site.
Some not to be missed presentations
All the presentations look interesting, here are a few notable picks:
Dana Jones
Dana is a recent graduate from Dutchess Community College and a recipient of the Think Dutchess 2019 Business Excellence Award as innovator of the year:
Her winning submission was Accessadoor.
Dana Jones creator and founder of Accessadoor
For Dana, the day-to-day challenges of accessing doors inspired revolutionary technology. Together with a fellow Dutchess Community College student, Accessadoor was born in 2018 to change decades-old technology and create access for millions of differently-abled people everywhere. Now entering the manufacturing stage, these young innovators are a testament to the valuable educational resources and talent that exists in the area;
How can technology increase accessibility for those with physical challenges? This talk will be centered around how personal experiences can lead to creative ideas and inventive solutions utilizing the vast amount of technology available to us today.
Sam Addeo
Sam Addeo
is a New York native and urbanist based in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Her work focuses on the creative intersection between the processes and pressures of urbanization and the culture of urban life.
Sam is presenting
Track
Storytelling with Open Data and Mobile Technology
Discover how Sam and her team have used open data and mobile technology to catalyze sharing, collaboration and public engagement across 40-plus cultural organizations in both NYC and Newburgh, NY.
10/11/2019 – 11:30am to 12:00pm
SUNY Orange Kaplan Hall
Joe Cupano
Dell EMC Consulting Product Manager
Track
Join Joe for an unvarnished, broad level presentation about threat and risk considerations for technologists whether it is the development of their products/projects or in their personal use of technology. We’ll discuss the cybersecurity mindset and how to apply it, starting with non-technical approaches and moving onto cybersecurity technologies and methodologies.
Friday, October 11, 2019 – 2:00pm to 3:00pm
Classroom 1
OU Boces SUNY ORANGE Newburgh (Inquire at registration)
Kianga Daverington
Ms. Daverington is a crypto asset manager, cryptocurrency miner and founder of a boutique law practice, Daverington PLLC, that advises clients on crypto-asset investing and regulatory compliance for decentralized finance.
Ms. Daverington began her career as an Associate in the Derivatives practice group at Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP in New York. In later roles gained extensive experience supporting the derivatives, FX, derivatives prime brokerage and commodities trading businesses at Goldman Sachs, derivatives and physical commodities trading at Lehman Brothers, and global commodities merchant trading businesses at Castleton Commodities International.
This will be a fun and non-technical talk designed to de-mystify cryptocurrency for those who need a basic intro, but also informative historical perspective on how “money” technologies have evolved over centuries. Also will cover some practical topics like where to go for info, how to purchase, how to securely hold digital assets, and how to avoid scams and bad actors. I could also offer a workshop with more hands-on demonstrations about creating exchange accounts, basics of trading, hardware wallet set up and usage for securely holding cryptocurrency. She is the founder of a digital asset investment firm and passionate about making sure that all people -regardless of wealth- may have the knowledge to take advantage of the early stages we are still in for the growth of these new assets.
Friday, October 11, 2019 – 1:00pm to 1:30pm
College Information:
SUNY Orange – Newburgh
3 Washington Center
12550 Newburgh , NY
See map: Google Maps
Mount Saint Mary College
330 Powell Ave
Newburgh , NY
See map: Google Maps
About Open Hub
Open Hub (Sponsor and originator of the Tech Fest) is a technology resource center in the Hudson Valley. It provides technical education and networking opportunities throughout the region.
Open Hub provides support to a growing network of talented techies in the Hudson Valley who are inspired to work together and promote doing more together through collaboration, sharing resources, knowledge, and opportunities. OpenHubProject.com
A River Of Opportunities’ funding partner, T-SEC, is a proud supporter of Hudson Valley Tech Festival 2019
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