Executives and thought leaders from a number of leading technology companies are planning to come together on May 5, 2010 in the Des Moines-area to participate in the inaugural Heartland GreenUp, an event being produced by the Technology Association of Iowa (TAI) and the Iowa Department of Natural Resources. Billed as an “IT Symposium & Expo,” the event will focus on mitigating the information technology industry’s impact on the environment.
Speakers include Randy Mott, EVP/CIO of Hewlett-Packard, Simon Mingay, VP research at Gartner Research, William A. Johnson, biofuels development manager at Alliant Energy and Bill Weihl, green energy czar at Google, and several others from Iowa and around the country.
“The Heartland GreenUp is a first-of-its-kind event that brings the conversation of Green IT from America’s coasts to the Midwest. One of TAI’s strategic priorities is to establish Iowa’s national reputation as a technologically advanced state and a leader in IT,” said TAI President Leann Jacobson on the importance of having this specific conversation here in the Silicon Prairie.
“This world-class event will draw the eyes of the nation and globe to Iowa and the Midwest on May 5, and as it does it will provide a forum to promote the region’s leadership in renewable energy and information technology. Moreover, TAI is committed to presenting this conference year over year and measuring its impact. It is important from an economic and social standpoint for the high tech industry to do its part in reducing energy consumption.”
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The event will be primarily held at The Meadows Events & Conference Center in Altoona, Iowa, but for those who can’t make it, or don’t want to impact the environment by making the trip, a virtual version of the conference is also available. Leann explained, “As we discussed bringing nationally-known speakers to Iowa for this event, Christian [Renaud, CEO of Palisade Systems and TAI committee member,] pointed out that to be a legitimately Green conference, we should be mindful of our own carbon footprint and one way to minimize it was to enable virtual participation – both by attendees and speakers. So, we engaged the experts at World2Worlds to facilitate a virtual event in conjunction with real world, so now people from around the globe can dial into Iowa for the day. In addition, Simon Mingay, vice president of Gartner Research and one of our keynotes, is actually based out of England and will be appearing virtually as an avatar.”
