4 reasons to attend conferences for IT professionals and companies

Study the environment and current reality

Any conferences and forums are primarily used as

entry points into the professional environment.From this point of view, they are valuable for both beginners and professionals. A person gets the opportunity to look around, see the segment leaders and closest competitors, understand who is a significant figure in the market, who to listen to, who to follow. Professionals interested in offering their services to someone can study potential clients and their level, needs, and moods.

In addition, conferences are a good way to evaluateindustry and market situations. This issue is touched upon in one way or another in the speeches. For Russia, for example, I think that RIF (Russian Internet Forum) is the only event in the industry that has existed almost since its founding here, so it develops along with it and reflects its current state as much as possible. In fact, this is a “litmus test” of how IT is developing. However, today it is not only RIF that speaks about the state of the industry after the pandemic: the same topic is the focus of the first day of the CIPR conference, and the issue of synergy between high-tech areas and their digital horizons was put at the forefront of the entire event.

A Digital Community (Huawei Digital CommunityConference) intends this year to talk about a common digital future, technologies to combat the pandemic and the Russian economy after COVID-19. They are now following all the significant trends - 5G in various industries (for example, in the mining industry), intelligent transformation, innovation in business processes, universal accessibility of communications. While this is initially an event for Huawei customers, the topics are relevant to many IT professionals because it is about the future.

The organizers try to make their conferencesthe most up-to-date, advanced event and offer discussions on a variety of topics: from state-important (industry regulation) to really pop: for example, how to make money on TikTok, how to be cool on Instagram. Although, of course, there are some specifics. For example, at RIF, more emphasis is still placed on technology, the future and trends: BioTech, MedTech, DeepTech, GovTech and others. What makes our life better, makes it more comfortable. This year we will discuss how the industry is developing, including in the context of a pandemic. There will be many sections of dialogue between the industry and the state. She was not recognized as a victim, but in the long term, we understand that there may be difficulties.

Do networking

Professional events are always aboutcommunication, developing new contacts, maintaining old ones, increasing one's own recognition. The target audience, colleagues, and those who are a step higher, whose experience is worth learning, can gather on one site. A person enters a community with the same interests, preferences, problems, and the more informal the type of the event, the easier it is to engage in networking. For this, conference and festival or exhibition formats are usually combined. Within the framework of RIF + KIB in 2019, there were even sports competitions and contests, and the Samara 404fest traditionally makes a bright after party.

Conferences are worth attending to be in trendunderstand who is working and where, what projects are launched. This is an excellent platform for hunting: people gather to show their best side, to show themselves, to interest potential clients or partners, assemble a team, find employees. It is easier to do this live than by phone or e-mail - it is easier to interest, explain, convince, find an approach.

People are the main value of any event. In 2019, the Russian Internet Forum gathered more than 10,000 participants and more than 600 speakers in three days. More than half the number of people was at the CIPR - 5,000 participants and 600 speakers, and a little less at the St. Petersburg SPIK - 3,000 participants, 250 speakers. International conferences provide even more promising networking: such as the French Viva Technology, which attracts 124,000 people and is especially valuable for startups - more than 3,000 investors come here. You can even get to some events by invitation only - like the IDC Security Roadshow, but if you manage to get to such events, the chances of successful and useful acquaintances increase significantly.

International conferences provide even morecool networking and opportunities: like France's Viva Technology, which draws 124,000 people and is especially valuable for startups - 3,000 investors come here. Equally attractive to young entrepreneurs is London Tech Week, which provides startups with a platform for contacts with corporations (including IBM, Intel), accelerators and investment communities from various industries. In general, international events are of interest primarily to those who are not only interested in global trends, but also want to enter the international market, develop their project.

Top 6 international IT conferences

Web Summit is the largest technology trade showin the world. The speeches are also devoted to other areas: marketing, AI, VR / AR, Big Data, social media, cybersecurity, cryptocurrency, startups and others. From 2009 to 2015 he took place in Dublin, from 2015 - in Lisbon. Web Summit hosts events around the world, including Founders, RISE in Hong Kong, Collision in New Orleans, SURGE in Bangalore, and MoneyConf in Madrid.

Game Developers Conference is an event forgame developers is held in San Francisco, includes training programs, round tables, exhibitions. Participants immerse themselves not only in programming, but also in business, marketing, design.

Le Web is the best way to meet newtrends, participate in a startup competition, build relationships with investors and participate in workshops. In summer, the event is held in London, in winter - in Paris.

Global Entrepreneurship Week is a festival of innovators that brings together 10 million participants from 170 countries and offers to launch the most daring projects. Interesting mainly for IT startups.

TechCrunch Disrupt is a technology conference held in several countries, but the largest event is always in San Francisco. It's worth a visit for the startup battle and hackathon.

Cloud Expo (Europe / Asia) is an exhibition dedicated to the development of cloud technologies that brings together thousands of professionals who are ready to share their experience in creating new business models and seek solutions for innovation.

In 2020, the pandemic has forced many conferencestemporarily go online, and here networking suffered. For him, offline conferences are still more effective, when people understand who is who and can actively get acquainted and present themselves. On the Internet, if we are talking about chats in the broadcast, you first need to figure out for a long time who is hiding behind a nickname, what interests this person has, how to find a common thread and make an acquaintance, how to exchange contacts in the general stream of rapidly appearing and leaving messages. If we consider online conferences, then networking in groups created on social networks for a particular event will be relatively effective: you can really make a good community there.

Build marketing

For a company or a startup, a conference is greatPR way. Especially if the program includes an exhibition where you can buy a stand and present a product or service there. Thanks to this, not only does the recognition of a company or a specialist increase, but also his expertise grows in a professional environment, especially if he not only will be at the stand, but also perform somewhere.

Large IT conferences are always attended bymedia representatives - the event is covered both in print media and on television. For any company, this is a chance to appear in the materials following the conference and thereby increase the weight of its brand, become more attractive to potential partners and employees.

Some event organizers alsoprovide all participants with bonuses: recording of presentations, discounts for attending the following conferences and festivals, demo access to online projects. RIF also offers online access to special project materials: master classes, round tables, interviews with opinion leaders in the industry. FrontendConf has the same “range of bonuses” plus the broadcast of all conferences, and for the most expensive ticket to an online event in 2020, you can also get offline in 2021.

Get new knowledge

Master classes and other applied blocks - rareguests at conferences and forums, although they often meet at events for developers: for example, at SECON or Digital Transformation Day, at the highly specialized Russian Python Week. But still, new knowledge can be gained from each conference thanks to the speeches of the speakers. They talk about experiences, real-life case studies and technologies that the participant can later apply in their activities. If the speaker is Western, there are chances to learn about something exclusive, not yet used in Russia. And the locals always have something to learn, because representatives of strong IT companies are always invited to events. For example, you can even see the New York Times at 404fest.

In addition, conferences involve the exchange of experiencewhile discussing the presentation. At the same time, the educational moment is individual for each participant: beginners strengthen the base and build on it, expand and deepen their knowledge. Experts who have been working in the industry for several years get a fresh look at some of their problems, and experienced professionals get acquainted with new trends and approaches. Even for the speaker, there is an educational moment: in preparation for the speech, the existing knowledge is systematized, during the presentation the practice of public speaking increases, and the negotiation skill improves. When studying the program of some conferences (for example, Russian Python Week), you can immediately see which block is suitable for a beginner, and which is suitable for a more advanced specialist.

From an educational standpoint, RIW is strong -Russian Internet Week, also an event of RAEC. It takes place in December and is suitable for IT professionals of any level. We are also talking about technology here - in 2019, for example, they talked about their impact on the quality of life of citizens and small businesses, about IoT (Internet of Things), biometrics, digital security. But all the presentations are more “practical”: about the practices of PR digital agencies, about tools for promotion and analytics, organic increase in turnover.

Also for educational events you canrefer to TestCon Moscow, where software (software) testing specialists meet to exchange experiences and teach best working practices. The program includes about 10 workshops, some of which are conducted by foreign guests. And one of the most powerful Russian educational events is Tech Week: an applied conference with the participation of practicing experts, a separate day of training and a “mentor's living room” - a half-hour session where the participants' cases are analyzed.

All four components of benefit are present inevery conference or forum, however, often the strongest are 1-2 - for example, networking and exposure to the state of the industry or networking and marketing. The combinations can be anything. However, in any case, the event brings practical benefits to both parties - both speakers and participants, regardless of their professional level.

See also:

The Doomsday glacier turned out to be more dangerous than scientists thought. We tell the main thing

Two pieces of evidence of extraterrestrial life emerged at once. One on Venus, the other - no one knows where

Hybrid vehicles are more environmentally hazardous than diesel vehicles. We tell the main thing