The clearest sign that our latest San Diego Meet the Xconomists networking reception was a runaway success occurred when the restaurant staff at the Farmer and the Seahorse at The Alexandria turned out the lights at 8 pm. The bar had been closed for 30 minutes, and close to 100 innovation leaders were still networking away in the scenic Torreyana courtyard.
Xconomy has hosted these annual networking events in each of the 10 U.S. cities and regions where we provide our unique blend of innovation news coverage and events in which we bring together leading technologists, scientists, and business innovators to share their views and insights.
The annual “Meet the Xconomists” reception is our way of saying “Thanks!” to the folks who have helped Xconomy along the way. This was San Diego’s seventh Xconomists reception, and it was by far the biggest—with about 200 guests in attendance.
A short time-lapse video shot by Xconomy’s volunteer videographer/photographer Caitlin O. Bigelow shows how busy the networking got.
The reception also provided an opportunity to conduct an experiment in networking to see if we could encourage a little cross-pollination between experts in fields that don’t usually have much to say to each other.
The idea was to encourage the San Diego life sciences leaders who are experts in molecular diagnostics, genome sequencing, and digital health to meet local experts in big data and predictive analytics.
Xconomy’s networking events cut across disciplines, and innovation often requires a multi-disciplinary effort. So it only makes sense to give life sciences leaders an opportunity to talk about the type of computing problems they face as they generate enormous amounts of data about the human genome, microbiome, and patients who are wearing health and fitness sensors.
A few unofficial exit polls suggest that our experiment was successful.
Dawn Barry, who oversees emerging technologies as a vice president of market development at the genome-sequencing giant Illumina (NASDAQ: [[ticker:ILMN]]), wrote in an e-mail, “The event was really valuable and thank you, Bruce, for the ‘shout out’—it stimulated a number of folks to come chat with me, most of which will result in continued engagement.”
In a similar vein, Allele Biotech founder and CEO Jiwu Wang, wrote: “We actually initiated some serious business talks with bioinformatics service providers we badly needed for our customer iPSC [induced pluripotent stem cells] banking business to be spun out next month, with a fresh round of investment and establishment with major pharmas as partners on the back end. Thanks for the invite.”
You’re welcome. It’s one reason why we’re here.
