Feature Story

SID Displayweek 2020 is Going to be Virtual This Year, Here’s What to Expect

The SID DisplayWeek 2020, the premier event for the display industry, will be held on August 3-7, 2020. The entire experience will now be online. While SID says that attendees can enjoy a full exhibition and conference, we wanted to reach out to our friend Sri Peruvemba, a board director and VP at SID, to learn more about what a virtual event means for SID.

Thanks for your time Sri - can you explain to us how does this virtual event work?

An exhibitor or attendee registers themselves like they do each year; upon completion, they will get access to the virtual forum. When you click on the event platform, you will be greeted with a reception area and have the choice of going to a talk in one of the various rooms that are organized by sessions just like the physical event, or you can walk the exhibits where each booth will have product details, images, videos, downloadable materials etc; you can attend the Business Conference, the CEO Forum, or the Women in Technology; you could attend classes and training sessions or just hang out in the networking area.

We have tried to mimic the look and feel of a physical event while providing tremendous access without missing any parallel sessions or walking for miles to get to a destination and most importantly, we save you maybe 90% of your costs in airfare, hotel, taxi, food & beverage, etc., while providing a safe environment to learn, connect and enjoy the benefits of SID’s DisplayWeek. SID volunteers have done a tremendous job setting up the event and I believe there is something for everyone.

What are the advantages of the virtual event over physical? What are the disadvantages?

First, there is the advantage of not missing anything. In a physical event, there are usually conflicts and we don’t get to attend everything. Now you don’t miss anything. Coupled with recorded talks and forums etc, we will also have Q&As and the ability to interact with exhibitors, speakers, analysts and industry experts and SID staff and volunteers.

CEOs can now send multiple people in different geographies, reward top performing staff, send more women engineers and junior team members to the event since the cost is a fraction of what it would be if you were to fly someone from overseas, pay for a week’s hotel, factor in local transportation costs, food and beverage, etc. These attendees will learn, network and put your company ahead compared to someone that is waiting for the pandemic to end.

You can attend the event at your leisure, from your home or office, be organized and focus on your area of interest, learn, interact and absorb some amazing technology that will hit the streets in a few years from now. All of this is done in a safe environment; you can focus on the content rather than on someone coughing nearby.

There are some things you will miss of course as nothing replaces the physical presence, the interactions and camaraderie, and live demonstrations, being able to try a demo (and sometimes break it – I have been guilty more than once), the many corridor conversations and San Francisco’s fine cuisine. Not to worry, we hope to be back with a physical event in the future. But please don’t wait - the industry will pass us by if we stand in the sidelines waiting for the virus to be vanquished.

Why should someone sign up for the virtual event?

If someone spends their lifetime inventing a technology, building a product, creating amazing applications, able to teach a topic of interest, and you get the gift of learning all this in a few hours, you should grab that opportunity now. Your company can now send 10 people for the cost of one since you aren’t spending on air, hotel, transport and food which are usually the bigger costs; and 10 people learning, understanding the trends and technology and acting on this knowledge ahead of the competition will put your company ahead of someone that is sending just one person. The event offers the same quality of presentations from the same experts as before. And we have the best and brightest minds in the world that will teach you and share with you their knowledge of display and associate technologies.

Our business conference hosted by DSCC is the biggest of its kind in the world, from world class speakers that can tell you about companies and technologies that you might not be familiar with to the challenges they faced in bringing a product to market and the global trends they are seeing that will impact all of us, there is something for everyone.

The Women in Technology and CEO Forum panel sessions featuring some of the best role models in our industry will help you learn how to overcome hurdles in your career, how to raise money as a startup, learn from the clues that successful people leave behind, and join hands in creating a better industry for all of us.

Who will be there?

We will have a significant representation from the entire industry. Unlike in previous years when a majority of the attendees were from North America due to cost reasons, this year we expect a greater percentage of attendees and exhibitors from Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan, Germany, UK and elsewhere.

More than 80% of exhibitors are already signed up, we have had a great response to our I-Zone initiative where we offer free booth space to startups, and we hope to have “virtual standing room only” situation with some of our events.

Now to answer your question broadly. Everyone in the industry is expected to be there. From end device makers like Samsung, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Alibaba, Google, Sony, Lenovo, Panasonic, Sharp, LG, HTC to display makers from China, Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Europe and North America to materials and subcomponent suppliers worldwide. There is virtually no other event of its kind in the world! SID’s DisplayWeek for over half a century has been the most prestigious and deeply concentrated technology event for scientists, engineers, marketers, supply chain managers, sales personnel, academics and students.

What are the benefits for companies vs individuals?

Companies can showcase the work they did over in the past year. This work will enable them to get funded and sell to customers with the ability to write big checks. This work will allow them to benchmark against the competition. This work will allow them to attract the best minds in the world to become their employees and collaborators.

For individuals, it’s an ability to learn about display technology, understand the various options in the industry, plan ahead for the trends that will impact their careers, learn from the brightest minds share their own learning, to teach, contribute to the industry (we are always looking for volunteers to join the 400 of us at SID), understand where you competition is at, and understand what your customers expect to launch in 2022 and what they expect from you. Once a year, you have the ability to shine and once a year you have the ability to bask in the glow of industry colleagues, who, like you, have accomplished quite a bit in advancing display technologies.

What are your expected takeaways from the event?

Understand the state of the art for each of the display technologies
See trends before they manifest themselves in products and technologies
Learn from the experts on various panels, find those clues they are leaving behind
Showcase to the world about your company, your technology and yourself
Advance your career; hire the best from the industry
Contribute, teach, share, make our industry thrive!
Have some fun at the event, you don’t have to dress up, no lines at registration or at the restaurant
Show up and show off your company and technology
Do some business, meet people, make some money
Leave your company’s imprint on the industry! And allow the industry and DisplayWeek to leave an imprint on your memory!

Thanks Sri! Looking forward to meeting you too soon online at DisplayWeek!

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