10 Reasons

Published Jan 25 by Christina, Reading time: 4 Minutes

Many amazing tech conferences are happening in 2019. The sheer amount can make it difficult to decide which one to attend. Here are 10 simple reasons why you should come to the Think About! Conference this year.

1. Our Unique Combination of Tracks

What differentiates us the most from other technology conferences is that we not only focus on tech but also on design and their social impacts. We believe that every person in the tech industry has a responsibility towards our society.

Our speakers will talk about current technologies as well as help you to become more conscious about the consequences your daily work might have on others.

2. Our Magnificent Speakers

We do not offer pay-to-play speakers slots at our conference. We personally believe that a diverse group of people can only be achieved by careful handpicking of talks and speakers.

Selecting people ourselves allowed us to ensure a balance between familiar experts in their fields and newcomer speakers who deserve the chance to share their perspectives. In the end we are happy to have reached a wide range of topics from people with diverse backgrounds and distinct professional expertise.

3. The Technical Focus

More than two-thirds of our talks will focus on technology-related topics additionally to contemplating the effects tech and design can have on our society. Our speakers cover topics from front- and back-end technologies via DevOps through to IOT and security.

We are delighted to host speakers from companies such as Mozilla, Travis CI, Adesso, ThoughtWorks, Capgemini, Deutsche Telekom and many more.

4. Fight for Diversity in Tech

Our belief is that the tech industry - among others - needs more diversity in order to continue a healthy and critical dialog. As we are focusing on gender diversity in the first edition of our conference we are happy to announce that 60% of our speakers are female/non-binary.

Simultaneously we are working together with communities such as the Digital Media Women, speakerinnen.org, FemTec, and others to strengthen the network of women and LGBT+ communities in the technology industry.

5. Amazing Organic Food

There is already enough greasy trade fair food at conferences. As food is supposed to be one of the most important things in our lives we picked a caterer that can provide us with amazing regional and organic food for two days.

We tested this caterer over and over again and the results were always the same: exceptionally yummy and tenderly cooked meals.

6. A Cinema as the Event Location

We chose a program cinema in Cologne Ehrenfeld as it is cozy and at the same time provides amazing acoustics and a great atmosphere for talks. Who wouldn't want to sit in a puffy cinema seat, eating popcorn (yes - we have a popcorn-flat-rate) and watching amazing human beings talking about interesting topics?

Additionally the Cinenova provides us with an outdoor area and offers plenty of possibilities for seating and socializing.

Entwurf: Kalhöfer-Korschildgen, Köln; Foto: Carsten Gliese, Köln

7. A Full-Time Awareness Team

To create a pleasant, safe and respectful atmosphere for all participants of our conference we will have an awareness team available during the entire event. “Awareness” in this case means the recognition or perception of verbal, psychological or physical violations of personal boundaries. Read more about the awareness team and our Code of Conduct here

8. Having a Family-Friendly Event

To make it easier for parents to attend the conference we will offer child-care for the duration of the event. We will have a dedicated area where children can play, paint and nap.

Additionally we plan to locate a comfortable nursing area as well as installing baby change units in the restrooms.

9. Equal Payment for all Helpers & Speakers

For our conference we decided on an equal-compensation-concept for everyone who helps us to make the conference possible. That means everyone gets the same compensation, be it a (keynote-)speaker or a person doing child care.

In addition to that all attending speakers get a hotel room and travel compensation. This is unusual for a conference as most events simply pay for their keynotes and a few very high profile speakers. We personally believe this approach to be inequitable and anti-social.

10. Our Solidarity Tickets Concept

Allowing to offer free or reduced solidarity tickets supports the overall diversity of the events as people from "outside the tech industry bubble" get access to the conference as well.

Offering a basic stock of solidarity tickets is a distinct position in our budget. Additionally every supporter ticket we sell enables us to offer even more solidarity tickets.

11. Eleven?

But wait, didn't we promise you 10 reasons? We saved the best for last: Reason 11 is YOU!

Without people such as yourself we could never manage to make this conference happen in the first place. Even if you can't attend the conference yourself knowing that you just read through all the reasons shows us that you truly care.

THANKY YOU for your support and for being such an amazing human-being. You just earned yourself a lifelong stock of hugs and cookies!