Self-driving car headed to CdA tech fest
Editor's note: This story appeared in the March issue of North Idaho Business Journal, which was distributed throughout the region on Feb. 24. For more stories like this, go to: nibusinessjournal.com
By JEFF SELLE
After a successful launch in 2014, organizers of the Think Big Festival are thinking even bigger this year.
“We will have a self-driving car here,” said Nick Smoot, co-founder of the Innovation Collective. “The group that is bringing it up said they will provide rides.”
While Smoot said he has verbal agreement locked in for the car, he did not want to release the company’s name until he has a signed contract.
The format of this year’s event has changed to a three-day festival, and attendees will have something to do every day.
Smoot said the first day, a Thursday, will start like last year with an invitation-only brainstorming session among the robotics specialist that will be presenting during the open sessions the next day. But later that evening all ticket holders will have access to a party.
On Friday the day will be packed with presentations and other activities, followed by a pub crawl that evening.
The third day will focus on a hands-on robotics demonstrations. Smoot said there will be rides in a self-driving car, aerial drones and underwater robots.
“Saturday will be a robotics experience. Our goal is to have 10 stations,” Smoot said. “We are trying to become one of the top five robotics conferences in the world.”
Smoot said he is still lining up some “very notable” speakers.
“I asked some of the speakers last year who they would like to see attend this year’s event,” Smoot said. “And we’ve been engaged in dialogue with some of them throughout the year.”
One such notable presenter will be Robert Scoble, from Rackspace.com. Scoble is well known in the tech community for his video blog “Scobleizer,” where he has interviewed some of the top tech companies in the Silicon Valley.
Smoot said Scoble has agreed to do some interviews while he is here and may even act as the keynote speaker for the event.
Smoot said a North Idaho robotics company called Harbrick, from Moscow, will also be presenting at the festival. They’re getting ready to launch a new software operating system for advanced autonomous vehicles.
The software is called PolySync, which is a set of software tools and services that can be customized with various add-on applications.
“Think of PolySync like Android,” their website explains. “We handle the nuts and bolts like sensor drivers, data management and fault tolerance while you write apps that make your vehicle do amazing things.”
Smoot said organizers are talking with four other groups to present their technologies as well.
Two of them are local, he said. Gizmo-Cd’A will present its robotic submersible perch and Brent Regan will demonstrate some of his robotics.
Smoot said he’s trying to recruit the U.S. Navy out of Bayview.
“They are saturated with underwater robots up there,” he said, adding they may be interested because they’re always looking for more local talent in robotics.
Smoot said the website is up and running at: thinkbigfeastival.com. They will be listing all speakers on the site as soon as they are confirmed. Tickets will also go on sale as soon as organizers finalize the event sponsors.