Steve Michelotti: TechBash 2016

Last week I had the pleasure of presenting at the TechBash 2016 conference. This was the first year of TechBash, but it was such a success, TechBash 2017 has already been announced.

If you're looking for a great, high-quality conference on the east coast, I strongly recommend TechBash 2017. TechBash 2016 had a ton of high quality speakers, including keynotes from Pete Brown and Glenn Block. In my opinion, the TechBash organizers did a great job selecting presentation topics that covered a wide range of technology areas. You can check out the sessions here.

The venue - Kalahari Resort in the Pocono Mountains - was absolutely beautiful. Its location on the east coast makes it an easy drive, even for someone like me coming from the Baltimore/DC area. One aspect I really liked about this conference was the attendee lounge - a place where attendees and speakers could easily network. So often at conferences there is a private "speakers lounge" that is hidden away from attendees which can have an "elitist" feel. At TechBash the speakers are totally approachable and I enjoyed spending time in the attendee lounge having conversations with attendees, conference organizers, and other speakers. Additionally, evening events were planned where once again, attendees and speakers could come together for more networking, etc. The conference organizers were constantly soliciting feedback from attendees - always looking for ways to make the conference even better.

During the week, I presented three separate talks:

In another nice touch, you can download the slides and code samples for my presentations, and all conference presentations at this central TechBash GitHub repository.

If you're looking for a great conference that has a "big conference" feel but is still small enough to allow for direct networking with attendees and speakers, then you should definitely put TechBash 2017 on your calendar for next year. Personally, I can't wait to go back.