Over 60 technology industry leaders, market analysts and entrepreneurs agreed this weekend that things are looking up for the technology market.
The group converged on the University City Sheraton Hotel on Friday as part of the sixth annual Wharton Technology Conference.
The keynote speaker was Bruce Claflin, the president and CEO of 3Com, a telecommunications and computer networking company and former owner of the popular Palm line of handheld computers. Like many other technology companies, 3Com was hit hard by the technology stock collapse last year.
During his address, entitled "Running a Technology Business in a Time of Despair," he discussed how he came to power in January 2001, shortly after 3Com's stock dropped over 60 percent in two months, and how he kept 3Com alive against analysts' expectations.
In spite the title, the overwhelming attitude of Claflin's speech was optimistic.
"I have never been more optimistic about the technology industry than I have right now," he said, expressing his belief that the so-called "new economy" is merely the "burst of the bubble" created by public hype, a sentiment echoed by many other speakers.
Ten discussion panels ranging in topic from Genomics to Internet Privacy followed the keynote address. The NASDAQ market, the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the Enron collapse came up in many of the forums, but the presenters continually emphasized that the future of technology will be promising if we learn from its problems in the past.
Organizing the event also had its share of problems. When the team of students coordinating the event first met, the economic problems resulting from the NASDAQ collapse put their sponsorships at risk and a sudden drop in excitement over the technology industry threatened attendance levels and availability of speakers.
But when, one month later, the Mack Center for Technological Innovation joined the team, the financial burden eased somewhat.
"It was a co-production," said Greg Graceffo, a second-year Wharton MBA student and one of the three in charge of organizing the conference. "The day to day operations were still student-run, but [the Mack Center] helped a lot with publicity, funds and finding speakers." And though this year's attendance was not as high as peak levels for past conferences, it was still on par with last year's attendance.
Over 400 people attended this year's conference, titled "Bridging Business and Innovation."
"I'm particularly happy about the success of the conference despite the technology letdown," Graceffo said. "We may not have had the money to do everything we wanted to... [but] if you have the content, if you have good speakers, that's what's important. We had the things that were important, and we made it."
