June 2019Startup_festival, IRL_event
EMERGE 2019
The second EMERGE conference perfomed a graceful transformation from a factory-held medium-scale festival, to a professional global tech event in the black box arena, all while staying true to its indie values and vibes. The event gathered 2,100 attendees from more than 43 countries and became a meeting point and place-to-be for the whole startup and tech community in the New East.
The main agenda was dedicated to building and growing global product and emereging technologies shaping the way we live, eat, work and even die. It was designed around 3 themed stages: FUTURE, BUILD and GROWTH, followed by 10 networking side events in different parts of the city.
The EMERGE 2019 visitor experience was hybrid: using the PINE platform we designed a conference app for our attendees to navigate the venue, network, send requests for meetings at the Matchmaking area, view the conference schedule and create their own agenda from their top picks.
Expanding beyond the event venue, EMERGE created a public art urban intervention showcasing major emerging technologies that were discussed later on stage.
EMERGE 2019 public art near the local IT-hub and on the bar street in the center of the city.
Background
Started in Belarus in 2018, EMERGE conference has become the hotbed for tech, founders, community leaders, bigger companies and investors from across the New East — including countries from Eastern Europe, the Balkans and Central Asia. The conference was co-founded by Alina Nilsson and Margo Lazarenkova.
Project team:
Margo Lazarenkova (Co-founder & CEO, Creative Direction, Experience Design)
Alina Nilsson (Co-founder & CEO, Strategy)
Valentine Kirik (Production Producer)
Karolina Miller (Speakers & Programme Manager)
Alina Rosanova (Startups and Investors manager)
Anna Sholina (Head of Community)
Nastia Piven (Art Director, Visual Communications)
Julia Fedosenya (Volunteers Manager)
Alexander Starodetko (Digital Project Manager)
Partners:
Microsoft, Workfusion, Apalon, Bulba Ventures, EPAM, Flint Capital, The Untitled Ventures, & more.
Speakers:
Bryony Cole (founder of Future of Sex media), Lev Manovich (professor, theorist of the digital culture and author of the book "The language of new media"), Alexandra Genis (critical food-designer and the founder of tas2r), Lysandre Follet (design director of Nike Innovation Kitchen), Michael Smuga and Danielle McClune (Microsoft), Anna Buldakova (product manager at Workplace by Facebook), Eugene Fooksman (Founding Engineer and first employee at WhatsApp) & more.