NECINA 2011 - 2012 Tech Conference -- Social Local Mobile (SoLoMo)

Cost: 
Free to NECINA members and VIP guests, $15 non-members
Location: 
MIT Building E51 (Tang Center) Classroom 315.
Register Here: 
NECINA 2012 Tech Conference -- Social Local Mobile (SoLoMo)
Description: 

Online Registration at acteva

As a one-time promotion, any student who attends the SoLoMo conference via online registration will receive a free 2012 NECINA membership. To leverage this promotion, register for the SoLoMo event online at acteva (choose the "new student member" option), and bring your student ID to the MIT event venue on April 28.

Direction to the Venue

Overview

SoLoMo is a fast growing start-up space with products that combine social, location and mobile functionality. Thanks to the prevalence of smart phones and tablets, SoLoMo products can be found everywhere on the mobile internet. e.g. Many social apps are incorporating location functionality in order to deliver better experiences to their mobile users. SoLoMo is clearly becoming an important trend of the mobile Internet, and is starting to make a fundamental impact on people’s digital lives.
 
In this NECINA's tech conference, we will discuss some interesting SoLoMo use cases from start-ups and established enterprises, the cutting-edge technology underneath this movement, and the landscape of innovation in the decade to come.
 
Agenda
 
9:00 - 9:10 Opening remark
9:10 - 9:35 Talk #1: “How to make money in SoLoMo?” by Farah Giga, Principal at Valhalla Partners
9:35 - 10:00 Talk #2: “The Lo in SoLoMo” by Dan Xiao, VP Digital Product Platforms at Yell Global
10:00 - 10:25 Talk #3 “Viral Spaces – New Perspectives on SoLoMo from Research at MIT” by Dawei Shen, Researcher at MIT Media Lab, Viral Spaces group
10:25 - 10:50 Talk: #4 “Predictive Market Analytics over Social Networks” by Dejan Duzevik, CTO at Concentric
10:50 - 11:15 Break and networking
11:15 - 11:55 Panel discussion
12:00 - 1:00 Lunch and networking
 
Talk and speaker info
 
Talk #1: How to make money in SoLoMo?
In this talk we’ll focus on major trends, innovations, and the landscape of companies in SoLoMo including companies in Valhalla’s portfolio. If Michelle Bachman can use SoLoMo techniques to kill a tax on fried foods, then anyone can find ways to use advancements in mobile and hyper targeting to benefit their businesses.  
 
Farah Giga
Principal at Valhalla Partners
Speaker bio
Farah Giga is a Principal at Valhalla Partners. She joins with corporate M&A experience in technology companies focused in data center infrastructure and an academic background in interface design in mobile.
 
Talk #2: The Lo in SoLoMo
Local is at the center of SoLoMo. The rapid growth of social and mobile channels provided tremendous opportunities as well as challenges for small-medium sized businesses that are local in nature. We will examine the evolution path of the local marketing channels from print yellow pages, to local search, and to SoLoMo, aiming at finding insights for the best way to connect consumers with SMBs.
 
Dan Xiao
VP, Digital Product Platforms at Yell Global
Speaker bio
Dan Xiao is currently serving as VP, Digital Product Platforms at Yell Global.  Dan built a new technology center for Yellowbook, a Yell Global company in Waltham MA from the ground up, and expanded the organization with an offshore operation in Shanghai, China. His team has been focusing on developing mobile apps, advertising and eCommerce platforms that connecting local consumers and small-medium sized businesses.
 
Talk #3: Viral Spaces – New Perspectives on SoLoMo from Research at MIT
This presentation seeks to bring new perspectives to the domain of SoLoMo by introducing research projects conducted at the Viral Spaces group of MIT Media Lab. Existing SoLoMo products or services are primarily built on top of existing platforms such as social-graph APIs (Facebook, LinkedIn), GPS/Wifi-based location APIs, and mobile OS platforms (Android/iOS). Other interesting aspects of SoLoMo are sometimes neglected, such as indoor scenarios, new network/communication technology, face-to-face social interactions, and market-based exchanges, etc. Several research projects at Viral Spaces can fill this gap and provide new angles looking into the SoLoMo domain.
 
Dawei Shen
Researcher at MIT Media Lab, Viral Spaces group
Speaker bio
Dawei Shen is a Ph.D. student at the MIT Media Lab, Viral Spaces group. He has conducted a wide range of innovation-based research projects on knowledge markets, mobile platforms for face-to-face interactions, social transactional systems, and software-defined radio. His Ph.D. research was a recipient of NSF i-corps grant, and the runner-up of MIT $100K contest. Dawei joined the MIT Media lab in 2006. He obtained his B.Eng in Electronic Engineering at Tsinghua University in 2003. In addition to his academic experiences, he has spent time at industry labs and firms such as Institute for Infocomm Research, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, IBM Research, and Facebook.
 
Talk #4: Predictive Market Analytics over Social Networks
How do we analyze and forecast dynamics in the SoLoMo industry?  Our experience with social, local, and mobile media is already extensive, but do the analytical approaches we use for each one apply to the combination of the three?  In this talk, we give a brief overview of approaches to analyzing social systems by using network theory, behavioral economics, complexity theory, and computer simulation.  We then point out the opportunities and challenges in analyzing SoLoMo dynamics.
 
Dejan Duzevik
CTO at Concentric
Speaker bio
Dejan Duzevik is a pioneer in Agent-Based Modeling, always seeking better explanations of the complexity of social dynamics and decision-making.  He is currently the CTO of Concentric, where he helps people and companies around the world in their pursuits for better analytics, strategy, and knowledge.
 
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