Silicon Slopes Summit is one of the largest and most recognized business and technology events in the world. As every year, the sixth edition took place in Salt Lake City, Utah, being celebrated for the first time at the Vivint Arena.
Bruno Bologna, our CEO, Daniel Castro and Valentina Ibinete from our Business Development team, participated in the event alongside Alex Charpentier, Director of ROAM Social, one of Kaizen’s partners based in Tacoma, Washington State.
We’d like to share our impressions about the Summit with you! Spoiler alert: if you’re in Utah, don’t miss it next year!
Who should attend?
The tech community in Utah is thriving, and it’s not just because of all the startups that are popping up. It’s because of events like Silicon Slopes Summit, where people from all over the world come together to learn about new technologies and best practices, and do networking that will help them empower their businesses.
This event has become an annual tradition for entrepreneurs, founders, tech executives—and even aspiring founders with a burning startup idea! It’s also the place to be if you’re looking for some big announcements from major companies in Utah’s tech ecosystem. There’s no better way to get plugged into what’s going on in Utah than by attending this summit!
Tracks
As I walked through the doors of this year’s tech conference, I encountered booths staffed by companies from all over the globe, eager to show off what they’ve got and meet new people. And you’ll get to do it all while sipping on complimentary drinks, eating delicious food, and listening to some of the biggest names in tech.
This year’s speakers hailed from Utah’s own rich and diverse tech community and included big names like Allison Abraham, Chairwoman and Director of Overstock; Aaron Skonnard, Co-Founder and CEO of Pluralsight; Richard Williams, President of Utah Tech University; Dave Wright, Co-Founder and CEO of Pattern, among many more!
This year the Summit scaled down its agenda featuring +20 sessions in only 4 tracks: Community, Ethos, Future and Growth.
“We’ve done this a million different ways…”, says Clint Betts, CEO and Co-founder of Silicon Slopes. “The first year we maybe had five or six tracks…the second year, seven. One year I had twelve. What we’ve learned over the years is like what the community wants more condensed programming. So this year we are doing only four tracks.” 1
1. Community
Community it’s a hot topic right now, and it’s easy to see why: it can be a powerful force for good and it can bring people together in ways that are truly transformative. The sessions were about how to harness that power and influence your company at the grassroots level. To be clear, we’re not talking about just any old community—we’re talking about an intentional one. A community that’s organized to make something happen. A community that’s organized to create change.
2. Ethos
Do you ever wonder why you’re doing what you’re doing? What drives you to achieve your goals? How can you become a better leader, mentor, and person? These sessions were about principles.
Principles are the foundation of your business, and when you’re building a house, you need a solid foundation. You can’t build a house if the foundation is weak—it’ll fall over. And just like houses, businesses need to have strong foundations in order to succeed.
That’s why it’s so important to understand your principles: they’re what hold everything together. They’re what keep you grounded when things get tough and help you stay focused on what matters most to you and your business.
3. Future
We’re in an age where new technologies like AI, cryptocurrencies, NFTs, decentralized autonomous organizations, are emerging every day making an impact on our community from several industries.
The sessions went around how these technologies are helping us imagine new ways of doing business and even changing how we think about ownership. They move us away from centralized systems that don’t take into account the needs of people or nature and toward decentralized systems that do. They also move us away from a world where profit is king and toward one where people come first.
4. Growth
Growth is the mecca for any business but it can be a tricky thing. When your company is doing well, you want to make sure it keeps doing well by making smart decisions about how to grow and maintain growth in a sustainable way. This can be difficult, however—it’s easy to get caught up in the excitement of having new customers or more revenue than last year, but if you don’t have strategies in place ahead of time, then your growth might not last long enough for you to reap all of its benefits.
On this track, the sessions dive into what it means to scale and how this affects business’s culture, finances, and marketing strategy as well as how these things impact each other over time as the business continue expanding into new markets or hiring staff members.
Wrap up
It was a great honor to play a part in the Silicon Slopes Summit 2022. It was fun to tour together through conferences, breakout sessions, and networking opportunities with the Utah tech community. It’s not every day that you get to share with over 20,000 people in the fields of entrepreneurship, technology, marketing, product design, and sales.
But on a more personal level, I certainly hope that our efforts (and those of the other creative folks working on this event) pay off, and that this becomes an annual event that helps us connect with future partners and friends.
The Silicon Slopes community is an amazingly supportive one. It’s also one of the most diverse communities in Utah, attracting attendees from a variety of industries—not just tech. If you haven’t yet, definitely consider checking it out! My advice? If you’re in Utah, don’t miss it next year.
Related read: [“Silicon Slopes: the tech hub for entrepreneurs you need to know about”]
References:
- Tullis, Mark. Sep 28th, 2022. Silicon Slopes Summit 2022—New Venue, Streamlined Agenda https://www.techbuzz.news/silicon-slopes-summit-2022-the-must-attend-event-of-the-year-for-utah-s-tech-community-to-meet-hire-and-do-business/
