BigPanda blog

BigPanda at Evolve

The Evolve Leadership and Technology Conference, hosted by our partner Trace3, saw over 1,300 IT execs gathering at Caesar’s Palace for two days of world-class keynotes and insights into the latest trends and technologies of the IT landscape.

Initially invited to be one of three participants in the Pitch Stage event, we decided to set up a booth as well, and as you will soon read – got more exposure and visibility than we could have hoped for. Not to mention getting the chance to meet many of our partners, customers and leading figures in our space.

The event was kicked off by Tyler Beecher, CEO of Trace3, with a very engaging keynote discussing how “All Possibilities Live in Technology”, during which he frequently got off stage and connected closely with the audience.

He was followed by Magic Johnson. Inspiring, extremely humble and actually quite imposing in person –  Magic talked about his journey from his childhood all the way to becoming a successful entrepreneur. He spent most of his talk off stage, mixing with the crowd, taking selfies, and doing chest pumps with various IT execs… it was charming, and the audience loved it. Later in the day, Jocko Willink took to the stage. He described his experiences as a Seal Team Platoon Commander and his takeaways from those years, which he translated to business leadership.  

The IT Innovation keynotes and sessions that followed were on-spot and provided valuable insights into the industry and its future.

Gamiel Gran, VP Strategic Development for the global VC  Mayfield Edge, discussed innovation and how AI and Machine Learning were maturing in the marketplace. Gamiel also  specifically mentioned BigPanda as a key mover in this space. Katherine Johnson, Director of Emerging Technology at Trace3, presented some very astute observations on the current state of the industry. And Marc Campbell, CIO of Trace3, delivered a captivating presentation about the emerging trends in AI. We were very glad to see the way he presented the key players in the field during his talk. We were very glad to see the way he presented the key players in the field, and we’re sure that he would agree with our perspective on how to get started with successful AIOps.

But the highlight of Evolve was certainly the Pitch Stage event. Hosted by Bill Miller from Netapps, three startups were invited to present their value proposition in five minutes, focusing on the problem they solved, their secret sauce, their differentiation, and one key takeaway.  Voting by the audience would determine the winner.

The three contenders were Portworx, Balbix and… wait for it… you got it!  BigPanda. Bryan Dell, our CRO, killed it with his presentation on BigPanda, highlighting how we solve the challenges of growing IT Operations complexity with our unique Open Box Machine Learning technology.  Bryan cleverly used one of our leading customers as a use-case, demonstrating how quickly BigPanda was deployed, how MTTR was reduced by over 40% and how BigPanda proactively surfaced incidents before they became outages.  Dashingly dressed-to-kill and delivering a truly compelling pitch, it was clear that Bryan was the winner. And in fact, it ended up being a landslide.

The last event of the night was the Outliers Award Dinner and Gala event.  The theme was James Bond Las Vegas style, with lights, music, dancers and magicians entertaining the 1,300 strong crowd.  The Award aims to acknowledge a chosen customer who shows true innovation within the workplace. This year’s winner was Morgan Reed, CIO, State of Arizona.  Congratulations Morgan.

The Trace3 2019 Evolve Leadership and Technology conference was world-class.  

As I walked through the hallways, proud of BigPanda’s visibility and achievements, I was also very much aware of the overall consensus between the attendees on the high value of the various sessions and of the conference overall, and  how much focus was put on knowledge and innovation, rather than “selling” the host or sponsors.

Trace3 should be very proud of what they achieved.