Tech event hot ticket [Archive]

Casey

10-15-2002, 04:15 PM

quote:Dorgan: Tech event hot ticket
By Tom Pantera
tpantera@forumcomm.com

The Forum - 10/14/2002

The Upper Great Plains Technology Conference and Trade Show already was a success Sunday, the day before it was to open, Sen. Byron Dorgan said.

The North Dakota Democrat, co-sponsor of the event along with the Chamber of Commerce of Fargo-Moorhead, said advance interest shows the conference is a hot ticket.

“We could put on a conference, if nobody shows up it suggests that it’s on the wrong subject,” Dorgan said Sunday at the Fargodome during a tour of the conference set-up. “But when you have seating for 1,100 people at lunch for the first keynote speech and the 1,100 seats were sold out some while ago, you know that there’s a tremendous demand for this kind of a conference.”

Organizers expect at least 7,500 people to attend the two-day event.

This region has “always been at a disadvantage geographically,” Dorgan said. “We’re far from the big markets. But we understood that once the book was written that distance was dead, that opportunity was born in our region of the country. That’s what all these booths about technology tell us. … We’re a nanosecond from anyone in the world.”

Chamber President John Campbell said there will be 215 booths in the Fargodome. That compares to 85 to 90 for last year’s conference at the Ramada Plaza Suites, which drew about 2,500 people.

The big difference, Campbell said, is that this year’s event is being held while all three local universities are in session. The conference has been heavily promoted to students, he said; in fact, 3,000 Fargodome seats will be available for free to those wishing to hear the keynote speakers.

Both Dorgan and Campbell touted the lineup of keynote speakers, which includes Dean Kamen, chairman and chief executive officer of Segway LLC; Donna Dubinsky, founder and CEO of Handspring; Duane Acker-man, chairman and CEO of BellSouth Corp.; and Doug Burgum, senior vice president of Microsoft Corp., president of Microsoft Business Solutions and a North Dakota native.

The conference will open at noon today with a welcome from Dorgan and Burgum’s presentation. The trade show opens at 1:30 p.m. Ackerman will give the afternoon keynote address at 3:30 p.m.

One of the most heavily hyped features of the show, a live Webcast of robotic heart surgery from MeritCare Hospital, will begin at 5 p.m.

The conference continues Tuesday with Kamen’s keynote address at 8:30 a.m. and Dubinsky’s presentation at 12:50 p.m.

Readers can reach Forum reporter Tom Pantera at (701) 241-5541