DIG SOUTH Tech Conference

You’re attached to your smartphone. But do you know why? It’s because you have a deep and personal relationship with it, a relationship that you’ve never had with another phone before. It’s a relationship that is almost human. We are in the first of several waves of the anthrotech movement, a movement that is making technology more human. Join Kit Hughes as he dreams about the future of friends, education, advertising, and the workforce in an eerily familiar anthrotech future.

KIT HUGHES, CEO, Look Listen

Kit Hughes is a typical technology entrepreneur. He dropped out of college to start a company (it failed), spent a period of time homeless (by choice), and became an overnight success (slowly).

Eventually, Kit returned to school as a two-time research fellow at the University of Georgia, leading experimental technology research projects and exploring mobile computing and connected devices. He credits his business smarts to his studies in strategy and innovation at MIT.

In his agency career, Kit has worked with a variety of B2B and B2C brands across multiple touchpoints: AnheuserBusch, BP, Char-Broil, Coca-Cola, Flextronics, GE, NCR, Philips and Steve Harvey.

He co-founded Look Listen with his collaborator in punk bands, Paul Sternberg. Under Kit’s leadership as CEO, Look Listen was recognized as one of the fastest growing privately held companies in the US by hitting #408 on the INC 500 in 2015—staying on the list three years in a row—and has been in the top 100 fastest growing companies in Atlanta three years in a row, according to the Atlanta Business Chronicle Pacesetter Awards.

A discussion of the latest fintech trends including blockchain, cryptocurrencies, emerging markets, crowdfunding, security and other financial services innovations.

Everybody knows the tech and media industries are innovative and progressive, right? Until you know – at the top levels – they aren’t. It’s time to bridge the gap on gender equality.

According to Scientific American, decades of research by organizational scientists, psychologists, sociologists, economists and demographers show that socially diverse groups (that is, those with a diversity of race, ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation) are more innovative than homogeneous groups. It seems obvious that a group of people with diverse individual expertise would be better than a homogeneous group at solving complex, nonroutine problems. It is less obvious that social diversity should work in the same way—yet the science shows that it does.

These hard-working, passionate, pioneering women reflect on how they rose through the ranks and how we can all move, collectively, forward. The case is clear, diversity will give your company a competitive edge.

And, bottom line, brilliant women are good for the bottom line.

Motivated. Inspired. Ambitious.

Entrepreneurs are deified and labeled in many ways but there's a grittier, emotional and
secretive side to the entrepreneurial lifestyle.

Dig in with award-winning tech celebrity, Esosa Ighodaro (COSIGN, Black Women Talk Tech),
for first-person tales of entrepreneurship you wouldn't believe in her fireside chat with TheStreet.com
reporter Jordan French. Concludes with a Q&A with the audience. An opportunity for photographs with Esosa are
provided to the first ten attendees.

Esosa Ighodaro is a leading figure among women in tech and black women in entrepreneurship. The cofounder of New York-based Black Women Talk Tech, she is an "Under 30 CEO" and was named to CIO magazine's list of "top female entrepreneurs to watch." Esosa's company, COSIGN.co, connects you to your favorite brands and retailers in just one tap. COSIGN is the first app to make products in your photos ready-to-buy, turning your social media followers into customers and your style into a way to earn cash rewards.

Esosa--known for her personable and accessible stories we all can relate to--is joined for a warm and lively fireside chat with Jordan French, multi-media journalist and reporter at TheStreet.com.

Transportation companies are now software companies, too, with the need to track millions of data points and consider the full spectrum of challenges related to manufacturing, urban infrastructure, renewable energy, autonomous vehicles, regulations, privacy and much more. These four experts will share the latest trends and innovations, and discuss how vehicles of the future will effect you and your business.

Alex Western, Managing Partner, ESW Capital

Ethan Levy, Lead Designer, N3TWORK

This talk draws on my experience working as the lead designer of Top Grossing hit Legendary: Game of Heroes, as well as years working as a monetization design consultant, to explain the 7 laws of monetization. It first explains the golden equation at the heart of the freemium business model (cLTV > eCPI) and the seven most important things to understand about your users when figuring out your monetization strategy. It will combine examples from both games, apps and the physical world to explain how successful products put these laws into action. The purpose of the talk is to equip audience members with the critical knowledge they need when designing their monetization strategy.