Follow-up: TechFest Bucharest 2018 (2018.09.20-24, Bucharest)

TechFest Bucharest 2018 took place between 20-24^th September 2018 in Bucharest. There were 3 days of conferences, on 20-21^st September and 24^th September 2018, which took place at Palatul Universul. On 22-23^rd September there was a technology exposition (XPO Tech), a hackathon (MegaHack), a gaming day, a junior coding club. A Science Club took place at the National Theatre Bucharest on 24^th September.

Below, photos from the event, and my notes. Photos are from the first two days of the event and the hackathon / technology exposition.

See Google Photos album »

See Facebook album »

DAY 1

Sorin Zaicovici, Vice-President GreenTech Capital Advisors - Financing Innovation What is the problem you try to solve? - Is it urgent? - Is it important? - Is it nice-to-have? You need to know the market well. Scalability - you need to grow your customers at a rate about 10% per week. You also need to be vertically integrated. You need to have a great team. Tips: 1. You need to be honest. Don't be aggressive/arrogant. 2. You need to grow your network. 3. Be authentic. You need to be able to tell a good story. 4. You should be able to receive a no. 5. Don't hold back into your product launch. 6. Be a lean growth business. 7. Solve a real problem. You need to understand your user base very well. 8. Have a mentor. 9. Have a plan B. 10. You need to be greedy. Enjoy the ride! Irina Scarlat, Country Manager, Romania at Revolut – Disrupting Banking There are high fees for payments outside the country. With Revolut, you can transfer money without fees anywhere in the world. They have 500 employees. Revolut is a Unicorn business. They are present only in Europe, currently. They've reached 2.5+ M users, with zero paid marketing. Actual users - daily: 350.000, monthly: 1.8 M. They are a challenger bank. It takes 60 seconds to create an account. 24 currencies. Their card is multi-currency. Gen Ashley, Director, Women Who Code – Women in the tech space Most people in tech are men, not women. It's ostly a sea of men. There is a lot of work to be done concerning the proportion of women in tech. Radu Tudorache, Chief Digital Officer, Vodafone Romania – Humans in the Digital Age. The Time of Opportunity AlphaZero beat Stockfish 16-0. At Vodafone: - Paperless office. - Seat mobility. - All mobile work - offices are mobile. - Agile project management. Marius Coman, IoT Country Sales Manager, Vodafone Romania - Narrowband-IoT (NB-IoT) connects the dots Internet of Things (IoT) is about: - Connecting multiple devices. - Giving a wider coverage in zones in which access to the Internet would be typically impossible. On 19th of September, it was launched IoT on a national level - it covers the whole of Romania. Ralph Simon, Chief Executive & Founder, Mobilium – What’s coming next? eQuoo is a one-of-a-kind emotional fitness game. Playing the game will have you taking away life hacks that will make you a master of relationships. There is a game to improve emotional intelligence. Brien Nicolas, Executive Director, France Digitale – The state of the European AI ecosystem Venture Capital companies invest more in the US / Asia than Europe. European companies receive far less later stage funding than USA / Asia. More data = better algorithms. We need to speak more about augmented intelligence, rather than artificial intelligence. If we train our people, automation is able to keep the jobs. It took 3 centuries between the invention of the printing press and mandatory schooling. GDPR - there are 30 regulations added. You will be good at IF if you access to an ocean of data. Freya Oehle, CEO & Founder, spottster – Stupidity & Innovation – The limits of renewing existing markets You can scan a product and find cheaper products in other stores. They have reached "Top 5 apps" in both the AppStore and Play Store. It only took them 2.5 years for break even.

DAY 2

Stephanie Locke, Principal Consultant, Locke Data – Ethical Data Science: Tools and Practice See the presentation online » Based on human subjects research - ethics might be related to: - You need to have respect for persons. - Beneficence - do no harm / maximize benefits and minimize possible harms; - Justice - risks and benefits of research should be distributed equally. Mathew Wilson, CEO, Centrys – The current and future potential of Blockchain There is a perfect match between GDPR and blockchain. Interoperability is the biggest current issue with blockchain. You shouldn't analyze blockchain in today's economy. Instead, think for future technology.

Hackathon:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cc_zuFcbrj4

Event description:

After two days of talks and presentations of digital trends between September 20^th and 21^st, TechFest connected by Vodafone, the most complex technology festival, awaits participants at XPO Tech, Gaming, the satellite event Science Summit, plus at a new series of discussions for IT and digital marketing specialists. These are complemented by Mega Hack, Junior Coding Club and special concerts. The first 3 days are dedicated to business communities interested in the latest technology and digitization solutions, IT developers communities and entrepreneurs or start-ups ecosystems. Several types of events are organized for this specific audience:  the Digital Transformers conference, the Innovation Camp, Digital Venture LAB with Vodafone Romania - BCR - Innoenergy, but also Tech JAM sessions on verticals such as Blockchain, AI / Data, respectively Java / JavaScript and a Google Digital Workshop. MegaHack consists of a 24-hour programming marathon in which participants will test their skills to solve business challenges by developing tech solutions for companies.

Promenada Mall will host XPO Tech, an experimental area for hardware or software technology innovations, smart home and IoT solutions, urban eco-mobility, as well as gadgets. There will also be special interactions which mix technology with body movements, digital interactions as well as virtual reality.

XPO Tech will also host a mini-museum with over 30 systems and components for locally produced computers such as DAF, CIP, TIMs, PRAE, HC, Junior, as well as computers from international companies that have changed the history of computers such as Apple Macintosh 128, Osbourne 1, Kaypro etc. The oldest piece was produced almost 30 years ago.

The most complex technology festival in Romania, developed in collaboration with the IT community, becomes, for 5 consecutive days, the meeting place of programming experts from the most innovative IT companies and start-ups, in an informal atmosphere, generating an unique experience to which is added a special infotainment component for the mass public. TechFest connected by Vodafone is also an open invitation to any technology enthusiast, whether are games, gadgets, or innovative tech solutions.

Thursday: Transformers Stage 10.00 – 10.20 – Sorin Zaicovici – Financing Innovation 10.20 – 10.40 – Irina Scarlat – Disrupting Banking 10.40 – 11.00 – Gen Ashley – Women in the tech space 10.40 – 11.00 – Mihai Dragan – CEO & Founder @ OVE.it 11.00 – 11.20 – Radu Tudorache – Humans in the Digital Age. The Time of Opportunity 11.00 – 11.20 – Ralph Simon – What’s coming next? 12.00 – 12.20 – Marius Coman – Narrowband-IoT (NB-IoT) connects the dots 12:40 – 13.00 – Cosmin Ochisor – What Makes a good start-up? 13:00 – 13:55 – LUNCH BREAK 13:55 – 14:15 – Brien Nicolas – The state of the European AI ecosystem 14:15 – 14:35 – Freya Oehle – Stupidity & Innovation – The limits of renewing existing markets 14:35 – 14:55 – Johanna Green – Crash course in Exponential Technologies – Opportunities and Risks 14:55 – 15:15 – Zaedo Musa – Digitalisation of restaurant booking industry 15:15 – 15:35 – Radu Ionicioiu – The Future is Quantum 15:35 – 15:55 – Stiven Kerestegian – Building the LEGO Open Innovation Capability 15:55 – 16:15 – Break 16:15 – 16:35 – Nansi Lungu – Transformari Digitale si Transformari Cognitive 16:35 – 16:55 – Matei Nedef – Start-ups and entrepreneurship in Romania 16:55 – 17:15 – Aghahuseyn Ahmadov – How to impact a billion lives with technology, entrepreneurship and education! 17:15 – Oana Maria Pop – Ecosystem thinking 16:00 – 18.00 – Digital VENTURE LAB with Vodafone – Innoenergy – BCR 18:00 – 20:00 – Investors Meet-up by Techcelerator FRIDAY: BLOCKCHAIN 9.30 – 10.00 – ARRIVAL AND REGISTRATION 10.00 – 11.00 – Dinis Guarda – How Business & Governments can prosper with Blockchain, Fintech & AI 11.00 – 12.00 – Andrei Nagy 12.00 – 13.00 – Andrei Mihai Costescu – What’s next? 13.00 – 14.00 – LUNCH 14.00 – 15.00 – Alexandra Frincu 15.00 – 16.00 – Matthew Wilson – The current and future potential of Blockchain 16.00 – 16.30 – COFFEE BREAK 16.30 – 17.30 – Vlad Suteu – “Building communities in the crypto world” 17.30 – 18.30 – Luc Desroisers – DLT and Digital identities… a match made in heaven? 18.30 – 22.00 – TECHFEST GARDEN PARTY @ Promenada DEEPDATA 9.30 – 10.00 – ARRIVAL AND REGISTRATION 10.00 – 11.00 – Alexandra Petruș 11.00 – 12.00 – Valérie Touraine 12.00 – 13.00 – Stephanie Locke – Ethical Data Science: Tools and Practice 13.00 – 14.00 – LUNCH 14.00 – 15.00 – Tereza Iofciu – Deploying ML solutions in production 15.00 – 16.00 – Raul Popa – From Research to Start-Up 16.00 – 16.30 – COFFEE BREAK 16.30 – 17.30 – Gabriel Puiu – Data Security 18.30 – 22.00 – TECHFEST GARDEN PARTY @ Promenada JAVA 9.30 – 10.00 – ARRIVAL AND REGISTRATION 10.00 – 11.00 – Steve Poole – All Change how the economics of Cloud will make you think differently about Java 11.00 -12.00 – Jamie Coleman – The new Java Developer’s kit 12.00 – 13.00 – Steve Poole & Jamie Coleman – Are you ready for Cloud native Java? 13.00 – 14.00 – LUNCH 14.00 – 15.00 – Diana Gergeanu – DOs and DON’Ts with Microservices 15.00 – 16.00 – Victor Rentea – Functional Programming Patterns with Java8 16.00 – 16.30 – COFFEE BREAK 16.30 – 17.30 – Silviu Matei – ‘Building conversational agents for industry problems’ 17.30 – 18.30 – Harald Wendel – Transaction Cascades 18.30 – 22.00 – TECHFEST GARDEN PARTY @ Promenada MONDAY JAVASCRIPT 9.30 – 10.00 – ARRIVAL AND REGISTRATION 10.00 – 11.00 – Mike Rynart – Progressive Web Apps and the future of Mobile Web development 11.00 – 12.00 – Christian Grail – “Live Coding: Augmented Reality Game with WebXR” 12.00 – 13.00 – Max Gallo – You don’t know MobX State Tree 13.00 – 14.00 – LUNCH 14.00 – 15.00 – Paul Brie – Think-to-code & design-to-code 15.00 – 16.00 – Adrian Oprea – Stop Learning useless thing 16.00 – 16.20 – COFFEE BREAK .NET 9.30 – 10.00 – ARRIVAL AND REGISTRATION 10.00 – 11.00 – Dennis van der Steelt – NED Autonomous microservices don’t share data. Period. 11.00 – 12.00 – Raffaele Rialdi – Writing IoT applications with NetCore 2.1 on the Raspberry PI 12.00 – 13.00 – Andrea Saltarello – Upgrading to ASP .NET Core: this session would be targeted at ASP .NET 13.00 – 14.00 – LUNCH 14.00 – 15.00 – Irina Scurtu – Communication in a microservice architecture 15.00 – 16.00 – Daniel Costea – ASP.NET Core takes over the IoT 16.00 – 16.20 – COFFEE BREAK MOBILE 9.30 – 10.00 – ARRIVAL AND REGISTRATION 10.00 – 10.50 – Aygul Zagidulina – Zero to App: Introduction to Building Apps for the Google Assistant 10.50 – 11.40 – Kaan Mamikoglu – Improve the Experience, Instantl 11.40 – 12.30 – Paul Hudson – Building a server-side Swift app 12.30 – 13.00 – Ostap Andrusiv – You’ve Built your app. Now what? 13.00 – 14.00 – LUNCH 14.00 – 15.00 – Diego Gonzalez – Effective Mobile VR 15.00 – 16.00 – Esteban Torres – “Pedal to the Metal” 16.00 – 16.20 – COFFEE BREAK 16.20 – 17.00 – Maria Magdalena Miu – Roweb Development Room: An SQLite Object Mapping Library 17.00 – 17.40 – Bartosz Kraszewski – Your phone is learning 17.40 – 18.20 – Stephanie Walter – Secret Super powers of Mobile Browsers 18.20 – 19.00 – Paul Ardeleanu – Test Driven Development hackathon: POWERED BY VODAFONE 1. Pe baza unei liste a stocurilor de telefoane din managazinele Vodafone si coordonatelor Vodafone din Bucuresti, sa se dezvolte o functionalitate peste shoping cart-ul website-ului Vodafone care sa permita identificarea celui mai apropiat magazin care are in stoc telefonul respectiv, precum si o functionalitate care sa ofere indicatii de orientare pentru a ajunge la magazinul respectiv. 2. Creați o aplicatie care să permita la semnarea la distanță a contractelor cu certificarea identității clientului. Functionalitatile trebuie sa includa identificarea facial, scanarea ocr a buletinului si, pe baza acestora, certificarea identitatii. 3. Construiți o aplicație de augmented reality prin care clientul să-și poată compara (virtual) telefonul propriu cu orice alt telefon disponibil pe piata (functionalitatea trebuie demonstrate prin compararea cu minim 5 telefoane). Comparatia trebuie sa permita vizualizarea dimensiunilor 360º, a marimii ecranului si a pozitionarii butoanelor / camerei. Culorile si materialul trebuie reprezentate realist. 4. Sa se construiasca o aplicatie care sa permita unei persoane aflate in orice punct de vanzare retail sa identifice un produs (telefon mobil) aflat pe raft si sa returneze pagina din magazinul Vodafane care contine respectivul produs. Identificarea trebuie sa fie posibila atat prin intermediul procesarii imaginii respectivului telefon cat si prin procesarea codului de bare. POWERED BY INNOENERGY 1. How to tackle smog in the cities with new technologies. 2. How to empower Public Authorities to support innovation ecosystem in order to promote entrepreneurship.

TechFest vision is to create a global marketplace for companies, innovative start-ups and technology fans. The technology festival aims to bring together the needs of the business community and the energy and start-ups’ energy and capability to generate innovation, providing access to the common vision of professionals and educating the general public on technology.