Michael Eynon-Lynch, Riley Eynon-Lynch and Dan Sweeney of PearDeck speak during the inaugural Mission Creek Tech + Innovation conference on Saturday in Iowa City.
On Saturday morning, more than 50 entrepreneurs, students and members of the community gathered in the University of Iowa’s Pappajohn Business Building for a common purpose—the inaugural Mission Creek Tech + Innovation conference.
“I knew it would be a bit different from what people have come to expect from tech conferences and was relieved to see most people reacted to this discrepancy with surprise and delight,” organizer Wesley Beary told Silicon Prairie News. “There was an energy to the room and seemed to be a lot of great discussions going on.”
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The one-day conference featured local and national speakers, including David Gould of the Downtown Project in Las Vegas, Chad Whitacre of Gittip, the PearDeck team, Integrated DNA Technologies, BIG Ideas School’s Shawn Cornally and keynote speaker Matthew Israel, director of Artsy’s Art Genome Project.
In the past, the Mission Creek Festival has focused solely on creative pursuits such as music, literature, film and food, to name a few.
Couldn’t make it to the conference? We’ve compiled some Twitter snippets, quotes and photos from throughout the day that’ll make you feel like you were:
“Two most important times in your life, the day you were born and the day you find out why.” David Gould #mcti
— Mat (@MatWinegarden) April 5, 2014
“While the course may have been about Reimagining Downtown, it was really about reimagining education.” – Dave Gould #MCTI
— Megan Bannister (@meganebannister) April 5, 2014
I got (gitted?) mine from @whit537 and @Gittip at #MCTI pic.twitter.com/eQntesDUHv
— Zach Sanderson (@zachsanderson) April 5, 2014
Excited to know about @Gittip and how its works for the whole comminty by the concept of generosity #mcti
— Farida AL-Rimawi (@Nutrizonia) April 5, 2014
I’ve been thinking…I think we should quit our jobs, buy a house, get married and start a company. @PearDeck #mcti
— Amanda Styron (@mandastyron) April 5, 2014
“I think those that get the entrepreneurial bug just may be unemployable.” Sound reasoning if you have that drive! Awesome. @PearDeck #mcti
— Grant Poock (@Agent_654) April 5, 2014
“I just realized that everyone else is stupider than I thought,” – @PearDeck founders on finding their own confidence in business. #mcti
— Sarah Binder (@sarahebinder) April 5, 2014
Ginormous multinode thumb wrestling social experiment #ftw @missioncreekIC #MCTI by @fjsteele pic.twitter.com/hmH2EUSxXO
— Nico Aguilar (@nicaguilar) April 5, 2014
“We’re going to make school not so terrible and that’s how I’m going to help rebuild Cedar Rapids.” – @ThinkThankThunk #MCTI
— Megan Bannister (@meganebannister) April 5, 2014
Be an artist not a critic cause a critic’s acidic @artsy #MCTI
— Amanda Styron (@mandastyron) April 5, 2014
For more quotes, photos and stories from the inaugural conference, check out #MCTI on Twitter.
Credits: Event photo by Megan Bannister.
