What to expect from Spiceworks Spiceworld 2019
This is the fifth year the Computer Weekly Developer Network team has previewed Spiceworks SpiceWorld, the Texan tech gathering designed to connect IT buyers, sellers and other assorted industry pros.
Spiceworks positions the event as a place for the IT community to exchange ideas and engage with tech leaders across variety of industries.
The show has longevity – it’s been running since 2008 – which may suggest that it continues to be a good draw.
As you might imagine, the event is designed to support the wider Spiceworks organisation, which offers a marketplace where IT purchasers can find, buy and manage products and services.
How do you do, how-to
The 2019 event consists of three days of ‘how-to’ sessions, networking opportunities and what the organisers describe as ‘hands-on time’ with the latest IT products and solutions.
This year, SpiceWorld is also making more of its Austin, Texas location, which is claiming the title of the country’s newest IT hub. Bloomberg recently called it a ‘mini Silicon Valley’, where twice the number of people work in tech compared to the national US average.
This time round, Spiceworks has picked out headline themes for the event including the role of security, AI and ethics in IT.
Keynote speakers include Dr. Kate Darling, a research specialist at the MIT Media Lab and an affiliate at the Harvard Berkman Center… and Brian Krebs from KrebsOnSecurity.com
Dr. Darling will discuss the progress in robotics and related fields (like AI) and how these advancements pose novel ethical quandaries, impact the current and future societal norms — and ultimately shape future cultural mores — and challenge current legal codes developed in an age of sharp divisions between man and machine.
Formerly with The Washington Post, Brian Krebs is probably best known for breaking stories on high-profile data breaches. Krebs will discuss what insights can be gleaned from data breaches. As has become increasingly clear in the last few months, the daily drumbeat of data spills, breaches and thefts can feel never ending. Side-effects such as breach fatigue, apathy and cynicism can brew among even the most hardy security professionals, giving way to a suspicion that efforts are for naught, and that cybercriminals are always one step ahead.
In truth, most of these incidents are not only preventable, but they take months or years to bubble up. Krebs will discuss some of the more alarming trends in cybercrime today, and offer some perspectives on how businesses, consumers and infosec pros can up their game in response.
60 session selection
In all, there are over 60 tech sessions across IT topics from networking, security and cloud to virtualisation, automation and software, the event will also see the release of the annual Spiceworks ‘State of IT Report’, which draws on its community to focus on tech budgets and trends.
The organisers also point towards various training workshops as highlights for this year. These include sessions focusing on Powershell, HyperV, Windows Admin and Cloud Computing. Training is geared towards to attendees and their companies, as well as the importance of connecting sellers to buyers.
How to: know-how
Using IT know-how has always been an important message for SpiceWorld. This year, event sessions will ask questions about the importance of IT in the eyes of business leaders and provide advice on issues such as growing from basement business to global network.
You can read last year’s major news analysis pieces here: Spiceworks puts ‘personalisation factor’ into IT procurement and here Spiceworks AI-automates the network inventory, in a free app.