Top venture capitalists, leading tech CEOs, groundbreaking inventors, award-winning sci-fi writers, and even a former NASA astronaut who is trying to protect Earth from errant asteroids will join us this week as we kick off the fourth annual GeekWire Summit on Oct. 1-2.
Heck, even the co-founder of Sub Pop records will be there, spinning our favorite Seattle tunes, and keeping the mood upbeat as we take a deep dive into the future of the tech industry.
We’re looking forward to seeing more than 600 of you at the Sheraton Seattle this week for the GeekWire Summit, the Pacific Northwest’s premier technology conference, presented by Bank of America.
We’ve been working for months on this event, and we’ve got a lot of amazing stuff in store, including fun surprises, awesome parties and hopefully some of the best conversations you’ll encounter in the tech industry today.
If you’re attending this year’s Summit or still interested in grabbing one of the remaining tickets, here’s everything you need to know about the big show.
GeekWire Summit Location: Sheraton Seattle, 1400 Sixth Avenue in downtown Seattle. Map here.
Dates: Oct. 1-2.
Time: Registration, located on the second floor of the Sheraton, opens at 7:45 a.m. on Thursday, Oct. 1, followed by a welcome and introduction at 8:50 a.m., leading directly into our first session with longtime venture capitalist Greg Gottesman who will share details about his new Seattle investment firm, Pioneer Square Labs. The first day will conclude with an Opening Night Party at Sullivan’s Steakhouse (621 Union St.), just a few steps south of the Sheraton. On Oct. 2, registration will open at 7:45 a.m., and the first fireside chat of the day, featuring DocuSign founder Tom Gonser, will begin promptly at 9 a.m.
Agenda: We’ve lined up two days of great content, featuring technology leaders from across the industry, including fireside chats with Zillow CEO Spencer Rascoff; Nike COO Eric Sprunk; Concur execs Steve Singh and Elena Donio as well as venture capitalists Nick Hanauer and Dave McClure.
We’ve also got a full slate of high-energy panel discussions, including What We Learned at Amazon — featuring New York Times reporter David Streitfeld interviewing three former Amazon execs — and The Engineering Front Lines — featuring top tech leaders such as Redfin CTO Bridget Frey; Socrata CTO Deep Dhillon; and Tim Prouty, head of Seattle engineering at Uber. Check out the full schedule and read more about the speakers under the “speaker” and “agenda” tabs here.
Food & Drink: No need to search for your own meal — we’ve got you covered. Light breakfast will be served on both mornings, sponsored by Sharp, and lunch will be available to all attendees, sponsored by Dice and Acumatica. We’ve also sprinkled coffee and beverage breaks throughout the day to keep the energy flowing.
Wi-Fi: Free Wi-Fi will be available throughout the Summit. Network: Summitwifibydice. Password: Dice
GeekWire Summit Welcome Party at Chef: Kick off the GeekWire Summit in style on Wednesday, Sept. 30, with heavy appetizers and drinks at the spectacular new headquarters of Chef in Seattle’s Pioneer Square neighborhood. KEXP DJ Darek Mazzone will start spinning the tunes at 6 p.m., and Chef CEO Barry Crist will face off against GeekWire co-founder John Cook in an epic ping pong match at 6:45 p.m., with the “loser” donating $1,000 to the Washington State Opportunity Scholarship fund. Location: 619 Western Avenue, suite 400. The Summit Welcome Party, from 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m., is open to all GeekWire Summit attendees, speakers and sponsors. Note: There is construction in the vicinity of Chef’s headquarters, so use this handy parking map if you are driving.
Twitter: We’ll be using the hashtag #gwsummit for the event, and also monitoring the Twitter stream for questions from attendees during the various sessions.
Opening Night Party at Sullivan’s Steakhouse: Hang out with GeekWire Summit speakers, attendees and other VIPs and get your geek on — ’80s style from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. We’re transforming Sullivan’s — located at 621 Union just a few steps south of the Sheraton — into a retro gaming arcade, complete with your favorite pinball and arcade games. Time to polish off those Galaga and Pac Man skills. Oh, yeah, drinks and appetizers to be served, too! Open to all GeekWire Summit attendees, speakers and sponsors. If you can’t make the full Summit, you can purchase a $45 ticket to the Opening Night party here. Interested in sponsoring the Opening Night Party? Contact GeekWire Chief Business Officer Daniel Rossi at daniel@geekwire.com.
Prizes and giveaways: Have what it takes to uncover what’s inside the mysterious Treasure Trunk? That’s just one of the fun activities we’ve got cooking at this year’s Summit. Plus, the first 500 Summit attendees will receive a cool laptop computer sleeve, courtesy of our partners at Brenthaven.
Parking: Paid parking is available at the Sheraton, as well as garages in the vicinity. We encourage you to bus, bike or use other alternative transportation.
Tickets: If you’ve purchased tickets, just pick up your Summit pass at the 2nd floor registration booth at the Sheraton Seattle. (Note: Printed tickets are not needed). A limited number of tickets are available for the Summit, so make sure to invite a friend, colleague or co-worker to join the fun. Tickets available here.
If you have any questions about the Summit, just email us at events@geekwire.com.
Thanks to all of you for attending, and a huge thanks to all of our GeekWire Summit sponsors for helping to make this event happen.
Presenting sponsor: Bank of America, which is partnering with GeekWire on our Geeks Give Back campaign in support of the Washington State Opportunity Scholarship.
Gold Sponsors: Wave Business, WSGR, Best Buy, WE, Acumatica, Dice and Vulcan.
Silver Sponsors: OfferUp, Xtreme Consulting Group, EY, Hired, EMC/Isilon, Chef, Flowroute and UPS Connect.
