9/12/2016 Mike Koon, Marketing and Communications Coordinator
For the second straight year, the tech component at the annual Pygmalion Festival will have an Engineering at Illinois vibe to it. The popular festival, which started in 2005 with bands playing local venues in Champaign-Urbana, added tech events in 2015, aligning itself alongside several of the top festivals of its ilk.
Written by Mike Koon, Marketing and Communications Coordinator
For the second straight year, the tech component at the annual Pygmalion Festival will have an Engineering at Illinois vibe to it. The popular festival, which started in 2005 with bands playing local venues in Champaign-Urbana, added tech events in 2015, aligning itself alongside several of the top festivals of its ilk. Based on feedback from last year, the tech events have moved mostly to evenings and weekends around other festival activities. The Pygmalion Festival runs from Sept. 16-24 in downtowns Urbana and Champaign, and on the U of I campus.
Events with Engineering at Illinois alumni and faculty include:
• Friday, Sept. 16, 4:30-6 pm – NCSA 30th Anniversary Party
• Monday, Sept. 19, 6-7:30 pm – “Incubators and Midwest Start up Culture,” Sipyard, 204 West Main, Urbana. Presenters include Laura Weisskopf Bleill from the University of Illinois Research Park; Matt Cho, who holds a master’s degree in civil engineering from Illinois and operates [cho][lab]; and Jennifer Bechtel, the program director for the Innovation and Sustainability Living-Learning Communities at Illinois
Thursday, Sept. 22, 4:30-9:30 pm, Tech Demo Krannert Center Lobby. Those sharing in the demo include Illinois startups Cast21, MakerGirl, Petronics, PhiOptics, Psyonic, and Rithmio. It includes a drone demo from students in Materials Science and Engineering, and ones from the Beckman Institute Illinois Simulator Lab, the Beckman Institute Self-Healing and Sustainability and the UIUC Virtual Reality Lab.
• Friday, Sept. 23, 5-6:30 pm, “Tech in Champaign-Urbana, ” The Accord, 51 E. Main Street, Champaign featuring Lori Gold Patterson, a mechanical science and engineering graduate and the CEO of Pixo; Ryan Singh, lead coordinator of the iVenture Accelerator; and Sanjay Patel, professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and CEO of Personify.
• Saturday, Sept. 24, 2:15-3:30 pm, “Versatility of Drones and Robotics,” Memphis on Main, 55 E. Main, Champaign, featuring Naira Hovakimyan, W. Grafton and Lillian B. Wilkins Professor of Mechanical Science and Engineering, and Derek Hoiem, associate professor of computer science and CTO of Reconstruct.
• Saturday, Sept. 24, 4-5:30 pm, “Virtual Reality and Immersive Technology”, Memphis on Main, 55 E. Main, Champaign, featuring Alan Craig, research scientist for NCSA, Anna Yershova, lecturer in the Department of Computer Science and a former research scientist with Oculus VR; and Simon Venchtain, CTO at Personify, Inc., who holds both a B.S. and M.S. degree in computer engineering from Illinois.
All the tech events are free. For more information on the festival, visit thepygmalionfestival.com.