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For those of us used to running at the speed of technology, putting together an event seems like just another to-do in a never ending stream of tasks. I routinely handle every detail of projects, marketing, blogging, web site development, working out NDA’s, MOU’s, drafting technical straw men (and women) fielding partnership calls and creating PowerPoint decks and reading several books, blogs and…well you get it.

Creating and executing an event like the IoT Symposium takes a lot of preparation and planning that one person just can’t do alone. So it’s time to acknowledge the planners, participants and helpers that pulled together on April 27th at the MEVIC Innovation Centre in Milton, Ontario.

Our hosts and strategic partners, Milton Education Village and Innovation Centre (MEVIC) provided the facility and management and support team to handle marketing co-ordination, list management and registrations, set up and tear down and of course the great catering for 2 meals plus refreshments.

Shout outs to Nitya, Amanda, Sandra, Kevin and Andrew for making this happen. Special thanks to Jeff Quiambao ourĀ MEVIC summer volunteerĀ from Waterloo, who helped me immensely with web content, research and chasing down details!

To our co-conspirators in the event- Arrow Intelligent Systems- I’d like to thank the entire team of relentless account professionals that worked tirelessly to help put the event together.

I can’t thank Frank Simone and Bryan Busacco enough for making us a regular stop on their journeys from Rochester, New York to strategize and talk IoT passionately, in support of putting together a great event.

To the local team of Rob Unger-Peters and Rajnish Chandra from Arrow Component division and OEM division respectively, major shout out for so many supportive and decisive meetings and calls at late hours.

I would like to thank our presenters Garth Reid and Team from HP Enterprise, Rex St.John from Intel “Makers” from Portland (longest trip winner!) and Adarsha Datta from Microsoft Startups for their great presentations and engaging support for the attending startups and customers.

I would also like to thank Kazim Agha and Colin Climie, Partners from Ridout and Maybee LLP (Intellectual Property Lawyers and Patent Agents) for their help in preparing and delivering a great presentation on IP in a complex ecosystem of technologies and partnerships.

We had a lot of great conversations during the day and we have stimulated a lot more to follow up on so I think we accomplished what we set out to- launch a great program to support IoT adoption in Halton Region and support startups by creating a new IoT ecosystem of opportunities.

Thanks again everyone- well done.