It’s a wrap! Another year of Philly Emerging Technologies for the Enterprise (ETE) is in the bag, and the post-event teardown has slowed to a pace where we can finally reflect on and recount another successful year.
Team Takeaways
One of the perks of working for Chariot is free access to Philly ETE (as well as any other conference of your choosing – more about our benefits here.) So we asked some members of the Chariot team to share their takeaways from this year’s show.
What was your favorite talk? Favorite speaker?
- Sujan Kapadia: Why are you making me choose? I didn’t get a chance to see all of them, so this is unfair 🙂 That being said, Cory Doctorow’s closing keynote was awesome!
- Stephen Griese: There are a few talks that I particularly liked: Yehonathan Sharvit’s talk on The Secret Art of Storytelling, Drew DeCarme’s talk on components, and Richard Feldman’s talk on his programming language, Roc. I think the best of all was the Typed vs. Untyped panel.
- Peter Paugh: My favorite speaker was Dr. Cory Doctorow.
- Drew DeCarme: I’ve never witnessed someone speak as well and as deeply as Cory Doctorow did. The guy blew my mind. Can’t wait to watch that replay.
Cory Doctorow was a fan favorite with his keynote, Seize the Means of Computation: The Big Tech Disassembly Manual.
Any new topics you’ll be researching or exploring based on what you heard?
- Sujan Kapadia: The Typed vs Untyped panel made me want to spend more time with Elm for web development and see if their claim of zero runtime errors is true. Also, “service archetypes” – these are basically project starter templates. I’m interested in learning how we can make it easier to spin up new projects and teams, maximizing reuse. I had also never heard of htmx until this year’s ETE.
- Stephen Griese: Dapr was something I’ve never heard of before, and now I need to use it!
- Peter Paugh: I’m interested in the application of game theory to the software development process, per Jessica Kerr‘s talk Gamification Without the Garbage.
Anything else you want to share?
- Sujan Kapadia: As always, the chance to ask questions directly to the experts, our speakers, is priceless. I love hearing the stories speakers share about their own experiences.
- Stephen Griese: This was my first ETE and I must say I absolutely loved it.
- Peter Paugh: Trees are cool! 😉
A screen from Linda Rising’s humbling talk, About Trees, Agility, and Me.
Virtual (Again)
You know what they say about the best-laid plans. From the jump, our committee was planning for an in-person return. We visited the Old City Marriott for the first time in two years, and started thinking through what a hybrid format would look like. But then, a new variant entered the scene, giving us pause. As we watched another surge, speakers became unable, unwilling, or not allowed (per their companies) to travel, making booking a significant challenge. We had to make another difficult call in the face of uncertainty.
Of course we all miss the serendipitous catch-ups, the soft pretzel snacks in the lobby, and the impromptu runs to Khyber Pass Pub…. but once more, we were reminded of the many benefits of virtual.
No Plane Tickets, No Problem
While we always love to feature some Philly favorite speakers (shout out to Richard Feldman, Courtney Wilburn, Audrey Troutt, and William Entriken!), Yehonathan Sharvit delivered a talk – and joined us for a lively panel – all the way from Israel. Billy Korando from Java’s Project Amber – and our own Drew DeCarme – were both able to deliver their talks like champs despite having COVID, which would have been a show-stopper in-person.
No More Speaker Lines
Perhaps the best part of virtual format is the way in which it facilitates Q&A. Gone are the days of mobbing the speaker post-talk in an attempt to get a question answered, that only you’ll hear the answer to. Audience questioning via Slack and Zoom gave the entire community a chance to hear a speaker’s answer to other attendees’ questions, as well as their own.
Great questions from the community for Elizabeth Adams and her keynote, Leadership for Responsible AI: The Case for Inclusive Tech.
Stay In Touch
For tech events and all Philly ETE announcements, make sure to follow us on Twitter @ChariotSolution, or sign up for our events mailing list. Additionally, all video from the conference will be released to the public by the end of July, so we also recommend subscribing to our YouTube channel to be the first to know.
We hope to see you at many more Chariot events!