Gear up to Think Big
<p>Erik Finman, 16, will be a co-host of this year’s Think Big Festival. Finman, who dropped out of high school as a sophomore, developed an interest in technology at a young age, is the founder of Botangle and was named one of the 20 most influential teens of 2014 by Time Magazine.</p>
COEUR d'ALENE - Big names and big minds in robotics, artificial intelligence and technology will visit Coeur d'Alene next month when the Think Big Festival comes to town.
From Aug. 20-22, inventors and visionaries from a wide variety of companies, educational centers and more will be sharing thoughts and experiences while exploring the endless possibilities the future holds as technology advances.
"It's a great networking opportunity," said Nick Smoot, chairman of the Innovation Collective and host of the Think Big Festival. "This is one of those things that is changing the face of Coeur d'Alene."
The festival will begin with an invite-only summit where attendees will enjoy a cruise on Lake Coeur d'Alene followed by a visit to Duane Hagadone's personal estate. Smoot said the summit members will include experts from BMW's Designworks, Johns Hopkins University, Uber, Microsoft, Boeing and more who will discuss one question "everyone should wrestle with for the next year," which will be released to the public at a later time.
The summit will be followed by a dinner and a Rhythm Dawgs concert in downtown Coeur d'Alene. Smoot said public admission to the concert will be $5.
Conferences and panel discussions will be held at North Idaho College during day two of the festival. The panels will include topics such as the future of transportation, or robo-transportation, and how robotics will affect the health industry. The opening speaker will be Christine Fox, assistant director for policy and analysis at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory.
"She is the highest-ranking official in the history of the Pentagon as a female and oversees all ethical and legal policy for robotics and the eye inside of Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab," Smoot said. "Originally, she was the U.S. deputy secretary of defense, so she oversaw a lot of the big policies about war. Now she oversees 6,000 researchers that have all this breakthrough in robotics, and she has to look at the legal and ethical ramifications of everything. If it's a new thing that could kill people or save lives, or save lives and kill people, what are the ethical ramifications of that? Which do you go with? And the legal side of 'are there laws that need to be changed' or 'how will this bump up against certain laws potentially?' And she was the inspiration for the woman that Tom Cruise falls in love with in Top Gun, so she has a long, storied history in the military."
Erik Finman, 16, of Rathdrum, will serve as a festival host. He was named one of Time magazine's 25 most influential teens of 2014 for turning $1,000 into $100,000 by investing in Bitcoin digital currency. He is the founder of Botangle.com, an online video chat tutoring service for teens who want to expand their learning experiences. He has employees all over the world and has plans to move to Australia.
"There wasn't much technology here (in Idaho) when I was little, and I think the festival is really helpful for people who haven't gotten a taste of robotics and companies like Uber and Tesla," Erik said. "I spend a lot of time in San Francisco, so I see that firsthand."
Day three of the festival will bring a robotic experience to Riverstone, similar to a robotics carnival, from about 9:30-11:30 a.m. Smoot said admission for the public will be $15 per person and a special family rate will be available.
"We'll have virtual reality headsets, 3D printers, drones, self-driving cars, Tesla cars for people to test drive," he said. "I know we'll be the first conference in the world to give self-driving car rides."
Smoot said his goal in bringing everyone together for the Think Big Festival is to "create the world's leading conference in robotics and AI here in Coeur d'Alene to complement the economy that we're building around innovation and robotics, and it's happening."
"We're going to have 40 of the brightest people on a boat, floating around Coeur d'Alene Lake. These people are building self-driving cars and mind-controlled flight and the Microsoft Kinect system."
Smoot said conference tickets for locals will be $20 for students, $45 for adults or $60 for two adults, otherwise tickets are $175 for students, $250 for general admission for all three days or buy two for all three days for $375. Tickets can be bought online at www.thinkbigfestival.com, at the Coeur d'Alene Chamber of Commerce or at the NIC Workforce Training Center in Post Falls.
"I believe that it doesn't matter what size of town you are, that software's eating the world, and if you don't figure out how to belly up to the table and either eat your small little portion of the meal, then you're going to be consumed like every other town that's not prepared," Smoot said."Thanks to sponsors like NextIT, University of Idaho and others, I'm able to offer some fantastic deals to keep the prices incredibly low. By using these codes on the website you can get tickets at local pricing. "IThinkBig" for a single ticket to all three days for $45, "WeThinkBig" for two tickets for $60 or "ImTheFuture" for student tickets at the price of $20. "