Research Park Hosts Inaugural PygTech Festival

Category : Research Park
Posted on: September 24, 2015

The first Pygmalion Tech Festival is underway at Research Park. From Thursday (9/24) to Saturday (9/26), the top minds in tech from around the Champaign-Urbana community will converge to host panels, discussions, product demonstrations and more.

The Pygmalion Tech Festival has already generated plenty of buzz with local media, including The Daily Illini, WAND17 and ChicagoInno.

Associate Director of the Research Park, Laura Bleill, explained the significance of the festival to The Daily Illini:

“‘The idea of the tech conference is to showcase what’s happening in Champaign-Urbana as it relates to tech innovation, and (Research Park) is probably the hub of that. A lot of what the panels are about, reflects the topics that (Research Park’s) clients and community are interested in,’ said Laura Bleill … ‘Student employment, tech innovation strategies and tech-talent. We want to utilize this opportunity to get our messages out there, but to also showcase what’s happening in tech in our community and some of the challenges and opportunities that exist for others to get involved.'”

ChicagoInno likened the Pygmallion Tech Festival to Champaign-Urbana’s own SXSW:

“Adding a tech focus to Pygmalion was a natural fit for the festival, as the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has been a technology and innovation powerhouse over the years. The school has one of the best engineering programs in the world, and UIUC has produced tech visionaries like Netscape founder and notable VC Marc Andreessen, PayPal co-founder Max Levchin, Oracle founder Larry Ellison, and YouTube co-founders Steve Chen and Jawed Karim.”