Wrap-Up: The 2018 Alexa Conference

The 2018 Alexa Conference is now in the books. The conference combined higher-level talks aimed at providing big-picture takeaways with voice technology, alongside a selection of technical talks designed to provide specific insights and best practices.

Kevin Old covered serverless deployment and Jackson Stone spoke about Lex integration, while Brian Roemmele spoke about the concepts of continuity and proactivity that will take voice assistants to a higher plane of performance. Ilana Shalowitz delivered a fantastic talk about the deep psychology involved within conversation design, while Katie McMahon shared insights on connected cars and what her company, SoundHound, is doing within the voice tech realm to make them reality. Mark Eichorn of the Federal Trade Commission provided guidance on COPPA and other regulations related to privacy, keynote speaker Ahmed Bouzid challenged the audience with a message of pushing back against technology's encroachment in our lives, and many other speakers rounded out an incredible amount of voice-first technology thought leadership and best practices.

Panels on privacy and voice technology in healthcare provided an opportunity to open up discussion across the entire room.

Evening entertainment included the VoiceFirst.FM Reception at the Songbirds Guitar Museum (pictured above) and the VoiceXP One-Year Birthday Party, held at nearby Southside Social. A special reception on Wednesday night kicked the event off for speakers and special guests - hosted by Chattanooga success story and Alexa Conference sponsor Skuid - and Friday featured an excellent Chattanooga tour through the business and technology districts of the city, alongside some of the more popular and typical attractions, presented by Alexa Conference sponsor EPB.

The full list of sponsors included: EPB, VoiceFirst.FM, Skuid, VoiceXP, Bespoken, Tellables, Strafire Media, SoundHound, Blue Cross / Blue Shield of Tennessee, and Alexa.bio. Thanks to all of them for the incredible support!!

Awareness of The Alexa Conference was driven locally by a mix of local media and well-known Chattanooga-based podcast The Startup Show (produced by Strafire Media), and was driven nationally/internationally by the wildly successful #AlexaConf hashtag.

Some of the local news coverage during the event window can be found here:

The Alexa Conference: Making History (Jan 12)

The Startup Show, w/ guest Bradley Metrock from The Alexa Conference (Jan 15)

The Alexa Conference Begins In Chattanooga (Jan 18)

Alexa Conference Brings Participants From Around The World To Chattanooga (Jan 21)

Tweets containing the #AlexaConf hashtag were seen by 350,000 unique Twitter users, garnering an amazing 1.9 million impressions, during the conference window.

This exposure was preceded by coverage on VoiceFirst.FM (listened to across 46 countries) and voice technology news site Voicebot.AI leading up to the event, and will be followed by exposure on Germany-based podcast All About Voice and Canadian podcast Alexa in Canada: The Voice Experience.

#VoiceFirst thought leaders, such as Leor Grebler (here), Amy Stapleton (here), and educator Julie Davis (here) authored write-ups with their summaries of The Alexa Conference, further extending the conversation.

The Alexa in Business lab - a full enterprise-grade lab experience produced by former Amazon technical evangelist Liz Myers (pictured above with Orbita President/COO Nate Treloar) - was a success. Groups learned about Alexa in Business, the implications for Amazon's initiative in this area, and how to actually develop Alexa skills which leverage this new technology.

The Alexathon, a 48-hour hackathon in which budding Alexa skill developers create an Alexa skill related to civic engagement, hacking, multimedia, or other tracks, was also a success. Some who developed Alexa skills had never even developed before! Prizes were donated by a number of sponsors, including EPB, Mozilla, the City of Chattanooga, Botmock, and Mojo Networks.

Winners included:

First Prize: PickleRick by Anna Sherman - Inspired by the hit TV show Rick and Morty, this skill lets you interact with Alexa as Rick with some of the best known lines in the show.

Second Prize: Game Ratings by Wil Wade - Easily find out a board games rating through BoardGameGeek

Third Prize: Deaf Trivia by Cheryl Zuckerman - Trivia to promote education about the deaf using Alexa.

Honorable Mentions:

Pupr by John Nelson - Voice enabled digestion output tracking for newborns, inspired by his role as a new father.

TreeID by JoeSherman - Tree ID allows you to list different species of trees for a certain category, such as evergreen. Tree ID also provides in depth descriptions for tree species.

Drop Viewer by Josh Leverette - Searches Imgur for images to display on Echo Show. Echo Show, Raspberry Pi Kit

The Alexa Conference will return Jan 15-17, 2019, to the Chattanooga Public Library. Capacity will be roughly doubled over the previous capacity in 2018, providing more opportunity for more people to attend. An exhibit hall will also be added to the event. You can register here for next year's Alexa Conference - don't wait too long, as it will sell out! - and watch AlexaConference.com for exhibitor information beginning in February.