Techsylvania 2019 - the overview of the biggest tech conference in EE

Innovation - the key concept that links industries and puts them work together to bring smart solutions to life. This and much more have happened at Techsylvania 2019!

Year by year (and it has been already six times in a row) Techsylvania is making huge innovative waves in the local tech ecosystem. But we can clearly say that this year 6th edition was a tsunami that couldn’t fit an ordinary building. For the first time, Techsylvania was held at the Polyvalent Hall, Cluj-Napoca.

From June 8 to June 11, the calendars of 3000 of people were booked with a Connected Devices Hackathon, a 2-day technology & innovation conference, and the much-awaited Startup Avalanche competition.

The biggest tech conference in Eastern Europe achieved its goal of boosting the community potential for innovation by organizing a 24-hour Hackathon and over 70 sessions that included speeches, Q&A, pitches, and workshops. At Techsylvania even coffee breaks help at gaining and exchanging top-notch knowledge and ideas. What made these breaks even better was the vast space made available for exhibitions and networking. There you could hear participants discuss business, strategy, code, funding, startups, web and mobile apps.

It was our pleasure as a Silver Partner to contribute to Techsylvania on breaking boundaries between countries and minds.

The moments which enlightened minds

For the last 2 days of the event, the stage was the epicenter of the greatest takeaways to reflect on at night and implement on the next day.

One of the giant topics that have been brought up in the spotlights was AI and its impact, negative and positive, on society. Jatin Aythora from BBC was the person to make the public aware of an important dilemma: “will AI outgrow our abilities or will it be a major help in our day-to-day lives?”.

Another topic that took over the attention at the event was Startups and everything related to it. Techsylvania was the place to hear successful startup stories in person. And who if not a Unicorn is the best to share them. Ahmed Aljunied, the owner of GO-JEK, revealed his way to success both from an entrepreneurial and a cultural point of view.

Dreaming big is a thing even in the most practical, logical and predictable domains like technology. By the end of the conference, the attention was moved from fintech, HealthTech, security, AI and everything earthly to space and the technology to reach it. The special guest, Tom Mueller from SpaceX, presented the revolutionary but realistic perspectives on this matter.

“It’s not within human nature to slow down and reach balance. We’re always onto exploring new horizons. We need to go to space to preserve humanity.”

And these are only some crumbs from over 50 top speakers present there.

Workshops were the way to cover the same niches from another angle. Ted Persson from EQT Ventures was the one who volunteered to help startups overcome the problem of Branding, Communication & PR. Meanwhile, Valli Ravindran from Google was glad to make Lean User Research easier to implement, by applying simple but essential steps.

Meeting and supporting youngsters in the tech world

Not only stunning talks from international speakers gave a breath of fresh air to the tech ecosystem. The originality and innovation of the startups participated at Startup Alley and Startup Avalanche also contributed to that.

Startup Alley was the place where the youngsters in entrepreneurship like XVision, Beez, CNEO and many others had their stands right beside giants in the industry. And they had wonderful new opportunities to pick from as a result of all the interactions that occurred during the event.

The numbers say that over 500 startups applied for Startup Avalanche. All fo them did “show, don’t tell” how their projects are pushing the technical progress to new limits. Exposure, validation for VCs and investors, high profile networking and a 100,000 EUR prize were definitely worth competing for. The online selection process and the first round of pitches let only 8 startups from 6 countries get to the final presentation.

Here is the list of the startups that made it to the finals:

• DocBook from Romania;
• Patch AI from Italy;
• Better Nature from the UK;
• Maillon Fintech from Romania;
• Tested Works (Eyezilla) from the UK;
• Betmarkets from Spain;
• Poligy from Germany;
• Aeler Technologies from Switzerland;

By the decision of the jury, the Startup Avalanche Winner title went to Patch AI. Congrats to that healthtech startup from Italy which facilitates the clinical trial network of researchers, patients, and sponsors. Let’s welcome them to Romania and to the new opportunities they embraced!

Innovation always comes with a Hackathon

Going backward, the first day of the event was saved entirely for new ideas to rise up overnight as the moon does. This year the Hackathon connected 12 teams, coaches, mentors, and the jury to take on to the mission to explore the fintech industry with a serious and original touch.

One of our wolves contributed to this. Mihai Dornea bytes the code like no other and did his best which brought him and the team the 2nd place. But we all know that prizes are just a formality, while apps that have been born are what really matters. Can't wait to see what the God of Startups has in plan for these ones. 🤞🤞

Wolves howling their experiences

As a true pack, we attacked the conference from many directions at once: our colorful stand in the exhibition area, the award-winning hackathon experience, attending presentations, networking, the Ruby on Rails satellite event hosted in our office garden, the satellite panel on diversity moderated by our CEO - we dare say our wolves really took the best out of Techsylvania.

Meeting Wolfpack Digital at Techsylvania 2019

We wanted to share with Techsylvanians the vibe from our cozy and colorful office. This is why we literally brought a "corner" of our office to the conference. As Techsylvania Silver Partner you could see our stand shining yellow at Polyvalent Hall.

Even though #WeByte, that didn’t stop many of #techsylvanians to visit our wolves’ den. There we had coding quizzes, a floating moon (see what we did there with our SpaceX reference?), goodies, a photo booth, and the howling wolf. Based on the feedback we received, we may say none of the attendees left the stand bored or uninformed.

We are already excited to come back with the same energy and fluffiness next year at Techsylvania 2020. And while you are reading this conference overview, we are all into implementing the takeaways we got.

From our side, a big round of applause goes to all the organizers and the effort they invested to bring Techsylvania to life. Bigger. Stronger. Together. is the mindset the organizers materialized this year. Let’s keep it that way.

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