May 8, 2023 • 6 mins
Peirce Macgill, Assistant Director, Harrisonburg Economic Development, joins us to discuss Valley TechCon.23!
This full day conference seeks to bring The conference offers a wide variety of topics that vary from technical presentations to using technology to improve your business. Breakout sessions are divided into three categories: Technical Topics for Practitioners, The Business Impact of Technology, and Growing Your Technology Business. The conference will kick-off with a breakfast keynote from Monica Logothetis, Senior Advisor, Innovation Office of the Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education.
Valley TechCon.23 will be held Thursday, May 25th at Hotel Madison & Shenandoah Valley Conference Center. To learn more and purchase tickets, visit www.valleytechcon.com.
This full day conference seeks to bring The conference offers a wide variety of topics that vary from technical presentations to using technology to improve your business. Breakout sessions are divided into three categories: Technical Topics for Practitioners, The Business Impact of Technology, and Growing Your Technology Business. The conference will kick-off with a breakfast keynote from Monica Logothetis, Senior Advisor, Innovation Office of the Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education.
Valley TechCon.23 will be held Thursday, May 25th at Hotel Madison & Shenandoah Valley Conference Center. To learn more and purchase tickets, visit www.valleytechcon.com.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Shenandoah Valley Business Break is a podcastabout local business and community happenings in and
around the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.And it's a pleasure to be joined today
by Pierce McGill, the assistant directorof Harrisonburg Economic Development and Pierce, we're
really excited about the return of ValleyCheckon. Yeah, thank you. We
are excited too. This will beour third time hosting Valley TechCon here in
(00:21):
Harrisonburg. We had a short hiatusbecause of the pandemic, right we did
so the first Valley TechCon was intwenty eighteen and it was planned to be
in an annual conference really celebrate techin the valley. So we had a
great conference in twenty eighteen, hada great conference in twenty nineteen, hosted
both down at the Hotel Madison andthen COVID hit So we of course took
(00:44):
a bit of a pause and nowwe are rearing and ready to go May
twenty fifth, and you mentioned it'sgoing to be at Hotel Madison. This
is undesigned to bring together technology enthusiasts, practitioners, researchers, and business leaders
to facilitate idea sharing, liberation,and innovation. Right, yeah, yeah,
so it's you know, I'm withcity economic development, but it really
(01:04):
is about bringing the tech community togetherthan a traditional economic development project you might
might think of. We really wantedto kind of celebrate tech in the valley,
bring together some of the knowledge thatwe have in the tech community in
the valley, but also bringing outsidespeaker so not everybody that will be speaking
at the conference is actually from thevalley, but it just gives us a
(01:26):
chance to do some good networking,to make some good contacts from from B
to B contacts, and hopefully folkslearn something. So you might be kind
of in the tech world and knowabout blockchain and artificial intelligence, but you
don't have to be to get alot out of Valley Tech con. It
really is technology with a kind ofbusiness plant. So we do get the
(01:53):
technical folks, but we get alot of folks who aren't in techt but
they have a business and wanted tosee how maybe tech could help their business
or just kind of do some networkingat the event, or you know,
possibly they're looking for employment in thetech sector. So it's it's a good
mix of folks and they're kind ofthrown together and a bunch of different topics,
(02:13):
and we have what we got tocall happy collisions. So what's the
agenda look like for the conference?Yeah, so we take off at eight
thirty. We actually have a breakfastkeynote speaker, so we'll have a nice
breakfast and we have a speaker comingin. She's actually a stantonated but she's
now and Washington, DC, workingin the Office of Innovation at the US
(02:35):
Department of Education. So she's goingto kick things off for talking about rural
technology. And then the whole restof the morning spent and breakout sessions.
So attendees, we'll get to chooseevery hour which of the three breakout sessions
they'd like to attend. So maybethey do want to learn about a technical
topic like virtual reality, you know, how to map your business for virtual
(02:57):
reality purposes, or maybe they wantto learn about government contracting, so we'll
get to choose throughout the morning,we'll have three of those breakout sessions until
lunch. We'll do a nice seedonlunch with another keynote panel, and we'll
do a couple more breakout sections sessionsin the afternoon. There's just a lot
of content for folks to choose fromand then at three thirty, you know
(03:21):
you can you can hang around,have a cup of coffee and do a
little more networking or go home.So is the conference limited to local business
leaders or is this open up tobusinesses from up and down the valley?
Kind of like our speakers, youknow, we do pull from a really
primarily Lexington to Winchester, So wehave speakers from Lexington. We have a
couple of business system shin into acounty presenting. Of course, we have
(03:44):
some twitty businesses presenting and the attendeeskind of represent that too. They come
from up and down the valley.So no, it's it's not geared for
Harrisonburg Rockyham folks, only it reallyis. It is a great opportunity to
show off the city of Harrisonburg,though it is, and that's really our
goal and city economic development because youknow, why are you guys putting on
a tech conference? Well, forus, it gets to shop the city,
(04:09):
have a chance for our tech communityshow itself off. And it's kind
of a marketing strategy for us thatyou know, these folks come in from
the valley and outside the valley.We got folks from northern Virginia coming in
and they have a full day techconference, they learn a lot, and
they walk away and say, wellthat was a great conference, and oh
(04:30):
yeah it was in Harrisonburg, Virginia. So we start to kind of build
a tech ecosystem or associate the techsector with Harrisonburg. You know, and
as we can see from the techcompanies that are already located in Harrisonburg,
they bring really well paying jobs exactlyright for us. The technology sector is
our number one target when we talkabout business attraction for those very reasons.
(04:53):
You know, they're they're good,high paying jobs. We have a lot
of talent here already. We havea lot of talent coming out of the
universe cities that we think businesses canhave into as far as a pipeline.
And we think we're a great locationfor you know, tech companies that are
growing. Maybe they want to puta second office here. You know,
we're not we're not trying to attractGoogle headquarters. We can't handle that here.
(05:14):
But you know, maybe we canget a satellite office with our great
proximity to DC and Richmond or ourgreat talent pool. Valley techon twenty three
is sent from May twenty fifth.How we get information. If we'd like
tickets, you can go right onthe conference club side and that is Valley
TechCon dot com and you can seethe full agenda there, see all the
great speakers we have, and youcan buy tickets directly through that website.
(05:38):
Pierce McGill, Assistant director for HarrisonburgEconomic Development. We appreciate you joining us
today and thank you for all thegreat work you do for the city of
Harrisonburg. Oh, thank you,Chris. I appreciate that. I appreciate
the time to talk about Valley TechCon. This is been Valley Business Rate.
If you have an idea for afuture show, reach us at the Kijac
tab at news radio WKCGY dot comby doll tact episodes Searching Business Break on
(06:00):
the iHeartRadio app
Shenandoah Valley Business Break is a podcastabout local business and community happenings in and
around the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.And it's a pleasure to be joined today
by Pierce McGill, the assistant directorof Harrisonburg Economic Development and Pierce, we're
really excited about the return of ValleyCheckon. Yeah, thank you. We
are excited too. This will beour third time hosting Valley TechCon here in
(00:21):
Harrisonburg. We had a short hiatusbecause of the pandemic, right we did
so the first Valley TechCon was intwenty eighteen and it was planned to be
in an annual conference really celebrate techin the valley. So we had a
great conference in twenty eighteen, hada great conference in twenty nineteen, hosted
both down at the Hotel Madison andthen COVID hit So we of course took
(00:44):
a bit of a pause and nowwe are rearing and ready to go May
twenty fifth, and you mentioned it'sgoing to be at Hotel Madison. This
is undesigned to bring together technology enthusiasts, practitioners, researchers, and business leaders
to facilitate idea sharing, liberation,and innovation. Right, yeah, yeah,
so it's you know, I'm withcity economic development, but it really
(01:04):
is about bringing the tech community togetherthan a traditional economic development project you might
might think of. We really wantedto kind of celebrate tech in the valley,
bring together some of the knowledge thatwe have in the tech community in
the valley, but also bringing outsidespeaker so not everybody that will be speaking
at the conference is actually from thevalley, but it just gives us a
(01:26):
chance to do some good networking,to make some good contacts from from B
to B contacts, and hopefully folkslearn something. So you might be kind
of in the tech world and knowabout blockchain and artificial intelligence, but you
don't have to be to get alot out of Valley Tech con. It
really is technology with a kind ofbusiness plant. So we do get the
(01:53):
technical folks, but we get alot of folks who aren't in techt but
they have a business and wanted tosee how maybe tech could help their business
or just kind of do some networkingat the event, or you know,
possibly they're looking for employment in thetech sector. So it's it's a good
mix of folks and they're kind ofthrown together and a bunch of different topics,
(02:13):
and we have what we got tocall happy collisions. So what's the
agenda look like for the conference?Yeah, so we take off at eight
thirty. We actually have a breakfastkeynote speaker, so we'll have a nice
breakfast and we have a speaker comingin. She's actually a stantonated but she's
now and Washington, DC, workingin the Office of Innovation at the US
(02:35):
Department of Education. So she's goingto kick things off for talking about rural
technology. And then the whole restof the morning spent and breakout sessions.
So attendees, we'll get to chooseevery hour which of the three breakout sessions
they'd like to attend. So maybethey do want to learn about a technical
topic like virtual reality, you know, how to map your business for virtual
(02:57):
reality purposes, or maybe they wantto learn about government contracting, so we'll
get to choose throughout the morning,we'll have three of those breakout sessions until
lunch. We'll do a nice seedonlunch with another keynote panel, and we'll
do a couple more breakout sections sessionsin the afternoon. There's just a lot
of content for folks to choose fromand then at three thirty, you know
(03:21):
you can you can hang around,have a cup of coffee and do a
little more networking or go home.So is the conference limited to local business
leaders or is this open up tobusinesses from up and down the valley?
Kind of like our speakers, youknow, we do pull from a really
primarily Lexington to Winchester, So wehave speakers from Lexington. We have a
couple of business system shin into acounty presenting. Of course, we have
(03:44):
some twitty businesses presenting and the attendeeskind of represent that too. They come
from up and down the valley.So no, it's it's not geared for
Harrisonburg Rockyham folks, only it reallyis. It is a great opportunity to
show off the city of Harrisonburg,though it is, and that's really our
goal and city economic development because youknow, why are you guys putting on
a tech conference? Well, forus, it gets to shop the city,
(04:09):
have a chance for our tech communityshow itself off. And it's kind
of a marketing strategy for us thatyou know, these folks come in from
the valley and outside the valley.We got folks from northern Virginia coming in
and they have a full day techconference, they learn a lot, and
they walk away and say, wellthat was a great conference, and oh
(04:30):
yeah it was in Harrisonburg, Virginia. So we start to kind of build
a tech ecosystem or associate the techsector with Harrisonburg. You know, and
as we can see from the techcompanies that are already located in Harrisonburg,
they bring really well paying jobs exactlyright for us. The technology sector is
our number one target when we talkabout business attraction for those very reasons.
(04:53):
You know, they're they're good,high paying jobs. We have a lot
of talent here already. We havea lot of talent coming out of the
universe cities that we think businesses canhave into as far as a pipeline.
And we think we're a great locationfor you know, tech companies that are
growing. Maybe they want to puta second office here. You know,
we're not we're not trying to attractGoogle headquarters. We can't handle that here.
(05:14):
But you know, maybe we canget a satellite office with our great
proximity to DC and Richmond or ourgreat talent pool. Valley techon twenty three
is sent from May twenty fifth.How we get information. If we'd like
tickets, you can go right onthe conference club side and that is Valley
TechCon dot com and you can seethe full agenda there, see all the
great speakers we have, and youcan buy tickets directly through that website.
(05:38):
Pierce McGill, Assistant director for HarrisonburgEconomic Development. We appreciate you joining us
today and thank you for all thegreat work you do for the city of
Harrisonburg. Oh, thank you,Chris. I appreciate that. I appreciate
the time to talk about Valley TechCon. This is been Valley Business Rate.
If you have an idea for afuture show, reach us at the Kijac
tab at news radio WKCGY dot comby doll tact episodes Searching Business Break on
(06:00):
the iHeartRadio app
Popular Podcasts
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy And Charlamagne Tha God!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Decisions, Decisions
Welcome to "Decisions, Decisions," the podcast where boundaries are pushed, and conversations get candid! Join your favorite hosts, Mandii B and WeezyWTF, as they dive deep into the world of non-traditional relationships and explore the often-taboo topics surrounding dating, sex, and love. Every Monday, Mandii and Weezy invite you to unlearn the outdated narratives dictated by traditional patriarchal norms. With a blend of humor, vulnerability, and authenticity, they share their personal journeys navigating their 30s, tackling the complexities of modern relationships, and engaging in thought-provoking discussions that challenge societal expectations. From groundbreaking interviews with diverse guests to relatable stories that resonate with your experiences, "Decisions, Decisions" is your go-to source for open dialogue about what it truly means to love and connect in today's world. Get ready to reshape your understanding of relationships and embrace the freedom of authentic connections—tune in and join the conversation!