2013 was an exciting year for WTIA events. We launched our new Tech in Focus event series which featured great speakers on the hottest tech topics at some of the coolest tech offices, we celebrated the motion pictures through the years at our 18th annual Golf Tournament, and we shared the thoughts and perspectives from some of the technology industry’s leaders at our TechNW: North to Innovation conference. It has been our pleasure to serve the Washington technology ecosystem with 50+ events for over 3,300 attendees throughout 2013 and we are excited to launch 2014 with continued high-caliber events.

Take a look at how we finished off an amazing 2013:

On December 3, WTIA’s IT Security group took an in depth look at cloud security and discussed some of the hottest trends in cloud security including enforcement agencies access to cloud systems and how companies can best keep their mission-critical information secure. The panel of experts moderated by Ed Kimm, Partner at WowRack Technologies, included Alan Murphy, Director of Enterprise Marketing Architecture at F5 Networks, Joshua Schmidt, Chief Information Security Officer at Vertafore, and David Uhler, National Director of Research and Development at Slalom Consulting. You can watch the entire event here.

Our final event of 2013 was a memorable one. We brought back the popular Cocktails & Contributions event where we celebrated the holiday season in style on a beautifully decorated Argosy Cruise Ship while enjoying cocktails, live music from Robbie Christmas, and an interactive photo booth. In the spirit of the giving season, we asked our event attendees to support our local Toys for Tots by donating new, unwrapped toys in exchange for raffle tickets. Marines were onsite to collect the toys and brought back over 50 toys. In addition, with the donated raffle money, we were able to buy $450 worth of toys! Thank you to everyone who generously donated to such an amazing cause.

Check out the photos from the event here:
Facebook Photos
Phototainment Photos

In preparation for event planning for 2014, we asked our member key contacts and our event attendees to complete a brief survey on WTIA events. Questions included feedback on topics, location, timing, and how we can make WTIA events event better for 2014. Thanks to everyone who filled out our event survey. We are excited to use this data to help us inform our event planning for 2014. Here’s a quick snapshot of the survey results.

• 214 answered responses.
• 89% of respondents attend events for networking/business development.
• Tech in Focus event series received the highest grade for value.
• Tuesday-Thursday from 4-6pm in Seattle or Bellevue works the best for timing and location.
• The top five technical topics that were chosen were:
  • Cloud
  • Big Data
  • New Technologies (i.e. wearables, sensors, brain-computer interfacing)
  • Security
  • Predictive Analytics
  • The top five business topics that were chosen were:
    • Trends
    • Industry Thought Leader Speeches/Presentations
    • Operational Excellence
    • Organizational Development and Design
      Lucky winners of the $20 Starbucks gift card:
    • Esther Daniels, Bellevue College
    • Andrew Pohlmann, Morse Best Innovation
    • Andrew McLain, Fulcrum Technologies
    • Nicole Maus, 2nd Watch
    • Jenny Chynoweth, WhitePages

  Be sure to check out our January events including an Exec Women in Tech event featuring F5 Network’s CEO John McAdam, a Tech in Focus event on one of the hottest tech topics – Bitcoin, and our first Tech Author Event Series with Erez Aiden. Event page.