by Dot Cannon
Next week, Pasadena Convention Center will be filled with: real-time graffiti, possibly drones and robots, and certainly, ideas about life in the year 2034, and how we get there.
It’s all going to be a part of Innovate Pasadena‘s first annual ENVISION Summit.
For two days, ENVISION 2014 will bring together creative minds from all over the world, to talk about the future in everything from entrepreneurship to ways to make the world more people-friendly.
“(Our speakers) will be envisioning the future of their fields: healthcare, design, robotics, and startup investment,” said ENVISION Summit chair Mark Breitenberg, who is co-founder of Pasadena’s Design Accelerator. “We chose the theme ‘Envision’ because there’s so much to be excited about for the next twenty years.”
The ENVISION 2014 summit starts Wednesday evening, October 22nd, with a keynote speech from TrueCar Founder and CEO Scott Painter, followed by a mixer. Then, on Thursday, the program continues with six innovative speakers offering their perspectives on the future. Scheduled presenters include robot startup evangelist Andra Keay and ASTIA CEO Sharon Vosmek.
In addition, on Thursday, startup companies will get to compete in a “Fast Pitch Contest”, and a panel of venture capitalists will be discussing “The Future of Money”.
“The summit will feature a host of peripheral events, in addition to the speakers, to create a total immersive experience for our audience,” Breitenberg said.
There will be a graffiti artist onsite, Breitenberg said, to capture the event in real time. Attendees can sample refreshments including liquid nitrogen ice cream, and they may very well hear beeping, booping and whirring. “We’re hoping to bring in a robotics and drone company, but are awaiting some special permissions for this,” said spokesperson Mallory Howe.
Asked what she, personally, finds most exciting about the upcoming ENVISION summit, Howe said, “The Patricia Moore presentation is not to be missed. I’m also really excited about Mark Meadows’ (presentation on) the future of robotics.”
Patricia Moore is President of Moore Design, and has been named as one of the most influential women of the twenty-first century. Howe said Moore will be sharing her design work for the Department of Defense, on re-acclimating Gulf War veterans to civilian society.
Best of all, ENVISION 2014 is the centerpiece of a series of special events Innovate Pasadena is hosting next week, as part of CONNECT Week 2014.
CONNECT Week 2014 begins next Monday, October 20th, as venues all across Pasadena host more than thirty independently organized workshops, seminars, competitions and networking events. The week’s sessions fall into four different categories: science, technology, business and design. Among the planned events are a Monday evening “Show and Tell” for makers, a Tuesday evening “Tech Crawl” in Old Town Pasadena, and a Friday-morning coffee meetup on creative spaces. 3D printing, crowdfunding, emerging biotech and the Internet of Things will be among some of the innovations attendees get to explore, as they discuss the ways innovation in Pasadena is pointing them towards the future.
Many of the events for Innovate Pasadena CONNECT Week 2014 are free, while ENVISION 2014, at the Pasadena Convention Center, offers student discounts.
Looks like 2034 is shaping up to be an exciting and creative year–twenty years before it arrives.