User:Starhawk/sandbox

The Houston Techfest is an annual one day conference that has been held since 2007 at the University Center on the University of Houston's main campus. The 2011 Houston Techfest had over 80 sessions and was attended by over 900 people. In 2012 the Techfest will be moving to Reliant Center

The original idea was advanced by Michael Steinberg who was the president of the Houston .Net Users at the time. The sponsoring organizations for the first year of Techfest were The Houston .Net Users Group and the Houston Java Users Group.

The Houston Techfest has been a 501c3 organization since 2010. The Founder and Executive Director is Michael Steinberg.

Website - www.houstontechfest.com

2007 - The keynote speaker was Brad Abrams of Microsoft. Over 500 people attended The Diamond sponsor was Robert Half.

2008 - the original date 2008 Techfest was scheduled for Sept. 25 which was the weekend Hurricane Ike came through Houston. The U of H campus was closed and the Techfest was rescheduled and held on Jan. 24 2009. The Keynote speaker was Sang Shin of Sun. The Diamond sponsor was Oracle. There were 12 tracks with over 60 sessions.

2009 - The Techfest was held on Sept. 26,2009. The Keynote speaker was Sam Gazitt whose topic was The Shortest Path From Ideas to Software. There were over 70 sessions in 14 tracks. Diamond Sponsors were Microsoft and Sun.

2010 - Keynote speaker was Venkat Subramaniam There were over 80 sessions and 950 people in attendance. Diamond Sponsors where Microsoft and Improving Enterprises.

2011- The 2011 Houston techfest was held on Oct. 15,2011. Keynote speaker was Jeffrey Richter and the topic was .Net Nuggets There were over 80 sessions in 18 tracks including, .NET, Sharepoint, Mobile, Agile, Cloud Computing and Rails. Attendance was over 900. Diamond sponsors were Ctrek Hilton and Pason Offshore.

2012- The 2012 Houston techfest will be held on Sept.8,2012. Preliminary plans are for 80+ sessions in 14 tracks.