DES MOINES—We’re just over a week away from the second annual I/OWA conference and Tuesday morning the event’s organizers announced the final three speakers joining the Oct. 17 slate.

Well-known Creative Corridor community leaders Amanda West, co-founder and CEO of Seed Here Studios, and Eric Engelmann, president and CEO of Geonetric, will head west to Des Moines to share their experiences with the conference’s audience. Sqwiggle co-founder Matt Boyd, who originally hails from Missouri, is also on board. As with Bunchball and Modest, Inc., Sqwiggle also has a presence in Des Moines through its iOS developer Cameron Webb.

Previously, the conference announced speakers Bunchball founder Rajat Paharia, Modest, Inc. CEO Harper Reed and Techstars managing director Nicole Glaros.

The conference kicks off Oct. 16 at Gravitate with a day of open co-working and educational breakout sessions. That part of the I/OWA conference is free and open to the public. On Friday, Oct. 17, the event continues at the Kirkwood with a day of speakers from across the country. Tickets for the second day of the conference are available online for $99.

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The conference will help close out the inaugural Des Moines Tech Week, 10 days of entrepreneurial-focused events to strengthen and celebrate the central Iowa community.

Learn more about all of the speakers from the I/OWA conference organizers:

	Rajat Paharia — Founder of Bunchball Widely recognized as the father of gamification, Rajat Paharia founded Bunchball in 2005. Since then, he has parlayed his unique understanding of technology and design—along with a preternatural ability to recognize patterns—into the creation of a company whose market-defining solutions have helped engage customers and motivate employees at a wide array of companies, including Applebee’s, Mattel, T-Mobile, NBCUniversal, VMware, Coca-Cola, SAP and Cisco. Before founding Bunchball, Rajat had built a technology design career at IDEO, Philips Consumer Electronics, IBM Research and ViewStar. Rajat earned a master’s degree in computer science (with a focus on human interaction) from Stanford University, and a bachelor’s degree from the University of California Berkeley. Rajat also is the author of the New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller “Loyalty 3.0 – How to Revolutionize Customer and Employee Engagement with Big Data and Gamification.”
	Harper Reed — Founder & CEO of Modest, Inc. Harper Reed is a hacker/engineer who builds paradigm-shifting tech and leads others to do the same. Harper loves using the enormity of the Internet to bring people together, whether as CTO of Obama for America, CTO at Threadless.com, or on his own projects. Harper and his team created Dashboard, a site that connects volunteer teams and acts as an online component of the field office. You can often find Harper playing with new technology, looking for something to hack or enjoying life in Chicago with his amazing wife, Hiromi.
	Nicole Glaros — Managing director of Techstars Nicole got her entrepreneurial start in the 4th grade, orchestrating cousins into theatrical plays and charging neighbors admission. From there, she founded three startups including Property Management Shop. All three are still operating. She has spent nearly a decade working to improve the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Colorado through leadership roles at various organizations and incubators such as CTEK, Investor Avenue, CleanLaunch and the Advance Colorado Center. When not thinking about TechStars, you’ll find Nicole on the slopes or on her bike, hanging with her big fat greek family, traveling to some exotic destination, or generally making a fool of herself to entertain others.
	Amanda West — Co-founder & CEO of Seed Here Studio Amanda West is co-founder and CEO of Seed Here Studio, an events, media and consulting company dedicated to building communities where entrepreneurs and creatives thrive. She leads strategy and production of multiple community building efforts including events, programs, media and co-working spaces.
	Eric Engelmann — President & CEO of Geonetric Eric founded Geonetric, a seven-time Inc. 5000-award winning company in Cedar Rapids in 1999. He’s grown the company tremendously, and it is well known in eastern Iowa for both being a great place to work and for its unconventional management style: it runs without managers at all. No performance evaluations, no hierarchy of any kind. Eric is also the managing director of the Iowa Startup Accelerator, Iowa’s first 90-day startup accelerator program.
	Matt Boyd — Co-founder of Sqwiggle Matt Boyd is a co-founder of Sqwiggle and an avid designer, marketer, and biz/dev hustler among all the other things required from a startup founder. When he’s not on the phone with customers, he can be found writing content pieces to capture his nomadic lifestyle in which has afforded him to “not really live anywhere” for the past two years. He’s constantly on the road and enjoying every second.