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It just got cheaper to Think Big

by JEFF SELLE/jselle@cdapress.com
| August 6, 2014 9:00 PM

COEUR d'ALENE - A large anonymous donation to the Think Big Festival just made admission prices to the event much more affordable.

The ticket price for the day-long robotics conference has now been cut from $35 to $10.

Co-organizer Nick Smoot said a local individual who has been involved at times with the Innovation Collective - the group that is organizing the event - offered to be the title sponsor for the event.

"It is someone who had heard about what we are doing and really believes in the vision," Smoot said, adding the donor wanted as many people as possible to be able to attend.

"He said he would like to be the title sponsor as long as we were willing to cut the admissions price by at least half," he said. "He also wanted to remain anonymous, so now we have an anonymous title sponsor."

About 90 ticket holders who purchased at the $35 price will receive a $25 refund at the event if they have not received a refund already. Smoot said the event, which will be held at North Idaho College on Aug. 15, is taking shape.

"We have four great startup companies pitching their ideas," he said, adding they will be mixed with presentations from a lineup of world-class robotics experts.

The event is designed to "mix together a beautiful lake town, thought-provoking speakers, live startup pitch sessions, Segways, robots and tech parties around town."

"We also have a lot of local sponsors for the pub crawl," Smoot said. "That $10 includes access to the event and the pub crawl too. That's cheaper than a movie."

Speakers will include Brad Templeton, of Singularity University, who writes for robocars.com. He also serves as a part-time member of Google's self-driving car team.

He will be joined by Guvenc Ozel, who is the technology director of IDEAS at UCLA, among many other tech- and art-related ventures.

Kathryn Myronuk has spent the past decade teaching and doing research on exponential technologies at Singularity University.

"She is coming to talk about how humans and the economy will respond emotionally and fiscally as robots outpace them in the workforce and we can't retrain quick enough," Smoot said. "These speakers can see it coming and they are talking about this from a strategic standpoint."

Dragomir N. Nenchev - who holds a Bachelor of Engineering degree in computer science, and a Master of Engineering and a Ph.D. in robotics - will also speak. He is currently a professor at the Department of Mechanical Systems Engineering at Tokyo City University.

And locally, Brent Regan, founder and president of Regan Designs, will round out the speakers list.

Tickets to the festival are available online at www.thinkbigfestival.com. The cost is $10.