TALK, the Technology Association of Louisville Kentucky, has selected Andrew Swartz, Director of Experience Research at Sutherland Labs and an expert in customer and brand experiences for technology and healthcare to keynote for its inaugural Techfest to be held on Aug. 20-21st this year. Swartz was raised in Louisville, Ky., and attended Waggener High School (Class of ’80) before continuing his education and distinguished career. He now lives in the UK, and works internationally, out of the London office.
With a degree from Yale University, nine years at Apple, and many years in the research lab setting, Swartz is now an enthusiastic and seasoned researcher and advisor, with clients within some of the biggest names in healthcare and financial services, home entertainment, and mobile devices. “Brand, customer experience, financial goals, and technology – it’s easy to get any one or two right, but making them into something harmonious, that’s beautiful,” he points out. His keynote tentatively titled, “The Human Equation in Technology,” will draw on his experiences with healthcare and technology brand experience research at Sutherland, as well as his time at Apple. His career grew up alongside the UX field. Those who work on UX, like Swartz, often evaluate user perceptions, technical utility, interface acceptance and usage, web design elements, testing standards for product development, including benchmarking of measurement and evaluation criteria. This may encompass information architecture, user experience, usability engineering, ethnography, design methodologies, and heuristic evaluation.
Sutherland Labs is a division of Sutherland Global Services which has a long history of enabling innovation in services, technology, processes and people practices for leading brands. The company headquartered in Rochester, New York, is a global provider of business process and technology management services. Nearly 40,000 staff, operating out of 14 countries, works closely with many of the world’s most famous brands. http://www.sutherlandlabs.com and http://www.sutherlandglobal.com/
About TALK’s TechFest 2015
TechFest 2015 is a two-day summit—August 20-21, 2015–where those professionals living and working in technology circles in Kentucky and the surrounding regions, come together for learning, and collaboration. This inaugural event will be held in Louisville, Kentucky brought together by the Technology Association of Louisville Kentucky (TALK), part of TECNA and CompTIA’s family of US tech councils, with a regional interest in workforce and economic development. Activities will begin on August 20th at the Henry Clay Building in Louisville with four focus tracks: IT Management Healthcare, Internet of Things, and a General Session. Workshops and other presentations will take place there as well and in nearby locations on August 21st. For more information on sponsorship, speaker opportunities, and attendance, go to: www.techfestlou.com or contact TechFest Chair Dave Mattingly at dave@techfestlou.com. Up to 600 attendees are anticipated to participate. TechFest includes a TechJam fundraiser for the Technology Association of Louisville Kentucky on Aug. 20th, which is open to the public and to be ticketed separately.
About TALK
The Technology Association of Louisville Kentucky (TALK) supports our local technology-oriented corporations and organizations as well as technology professionals navigating workforce development. The tech council further defines its role as advocacy, economic development, networking and knowledge delivery through education. For more information on area events and opportunities in the field, go to www.talklou.com. For more information, contact Dawn Yankeelov, Executive Director/CEO of TALK at dawny@talklou.com. TALK has recently opened a Linked In profile page for updates and news of interest.