Photos, Audio, Video from "What's Next in Tech"

The "What's Next in Tech" event that I moderated at BU on Thursday was a lot of fun... as was the impromptu after-party at Eastern Standard.

Some links related to the event, which featured a panel of VCs and a panel of entrepreneurs riffing on what's next for our region:

- Bostonist has video

- Here's the Twitter traffic

- VC panelist Bijan Sabet of Spark Capital posted his thoughts

- Some Flickr photos

- iTunes audio by Jeff Cutler... or the MP3 version. (A bit quiet -- I'll try to listen to my recording today and see if it's better.)

- Blog post from participant Cesar Brea.

- Blog post from participant Stephen Sherlock

(The next event-related project I'm working on is Future Forward 09, in November. But that will be preceded by a series of breakfast workshops on topics like demystifying term sheets... designing software with purpose... and generating awareness in a social media driven world.)

Catching Up: Convergence, #NEINNO, What's Next in Tech

- The sixth edition of Convergence: The Life Sciences Leaders Forum (an event I help organize) happened last week. Oddly, attendance was up from 2008. Not sure how to explain that. Featured speakers included Genzyme CEO Henri Termeer, Sirtris founder Christoph Westphal, Harvard Pilgrim CEO Charlie Baker, Beth Israel CEO Paul Levy, and cutting edge researchers David Altshuler from the Broad and David Eisenberg from Harvard. Xconomy had some coverage, as did Mass High Tech, and there was a pretty healthy stream of tweets, too.

(Termeer's appearance was followed by a great Sunday Globe story by Stephen Heuser, and then some unfortunate company news on Tuesday, as Genzyme was forced to shut down its Allston plant for decontamination.)

For the first time, we're sharing audio from the event. You can either download the MP3s for later listening, or just click play.

- Christoph Westphal / Henri Termeer session on "The Past, Present & Future of Genzyme." (MP3 file.)



- Alnylam CEO John Maraganore moderates a panel of executives from GlaxoSmithKline, Biogen Idec, Novartis, and Merck on "The New Logic of Partnerships, Licensing Deals, and Collaborations." (MP3 file.)



- Stromedix CEO Michael Gilman talks to David Altshuler of the Broad Institute and David Eisenberg of Harvard Medical School's Osher Research Center about their research. (MP3 file.)



- Jeffrey Krasner interviews Beth Israel Deaconess CEO Paul Levy and Harvard Pilgrim CEO Charlie Baker about the future of the healthcare system. (MP3 file.)

- I've been psyched to see how many people have been tweeting about New England Innovation Month using the tag #neinno. This coming week wraps things up, so do help spread the word -- and try to get out to an event. (We just added a free event called PitchPub to the calendar.)

- For my part, I'll be dropping by XSITE 2009 and EurekaFest on Wednesday and Friday, and moderating/emceeing things at What's Next in Tech on Thursday evening -- which looks like it is attracting a great group of participants (listed on the registration page all the way at the bottom.)

- I'm also adding the Social Media Breakfast series to the list of regular gatherings (at right)... although I find it impossible to figure out from their site when the next one will be held (!)

(In the photo is Genzyme CEO Henri Termeer being interviewed by Sirtris Pharmaceuticals founder Christoph Westphal, at Convergence 2009.)

What's Next in Tech? Discuss the Growth Opportunities, on June 25th

I'm moderating an event on June 25th called "What's Next in Tech: Exploring the Growth Opportunities of 2009 and Beyond."

The idea is to provide a picture of the tech clusters that are going to drive the next waves of growth here in Massachusetts, from cloud computing to robotics to videogames to energy efficiency to social media. Speakers include venture capitalist Bijan Sabet from Spark Capital, iRobot co-founder Helen Greiner, Brian Halligan of HubSpot, and Tim Healy, who runs the publicly-traded EnerNOC. (Note: The early registration rate ends on May 15th -- tomorrow.)

One goal leading up to the event is to start some blog conversation about the high-potential areas in tech right now... a discussion we'll obviously continue at the event on June 25th. (Boston University's Institute for Technology Entrepreneurship & Commercialization is hosting it.)

Bloggers like Don Dodge, Pito Salas, Larry Cheng, Doug Levin, Tom Summit, Gregg Favalora, Furqan Nazeeri, Chris Herot, and the folks at Mobile Monday Boston have already published their lists of "what's next in tech." If you decide to create one, post a link to it in the comments here.

Here's the list of tech areas I'm following most closely (in no particular order...and excluding here all things outside of pure tech, such as life sciences, med devices, energy):

- Healthcare IT and electronic medical records
- Digital video (esp. getting Internet video onto the TV)
- New analytics companies (in the vein of Compete.com, Visible Measures, Localytics, etc.)
- Mobile apps
- Robotics
- Video games
- Intersection of IT and energy efficiency/management
- New forms of media/reporting/content creation
- Online payment and micropayment
- Better management/prioritization of e-mail
- Cloud computing and SaaS (wrong to group those two together?)
- Social media and marketing (wrote about this pretty recently)
- Ways of connecting bands (and other creative artists) with their fans (a la Sonicbids)
- Enhancing e-commerce (a la Paragon Lake, which does custom jewelry)
- New ways of interfacing with computers (touch, speech, thought, etc.)

I could go on, but that's a start...

(The hashtag for the "What's Next in Tech" event is #whatsnext09. Feel free, of course, to Tweet about it... and hope to see you there!)