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Realcomm 2018: What Happened in Vegas

Posted by Brendan Canny in: industry news, Real Estate, Realcomm, Automation

The Open Box team looks forward to the Realcomm & IBCon event every year, as it offers a great opportunity for us to catch up with current clients, meet new prospects as well as keep up to date with the latest trends (be they cutting edge, or simply pain points being experienced by the industry).

This year's Realcomm was a special event, as it saw the company celebrating its 20th year in style at The Cosmopolitan. Whilst the venue provided a great setting, the sheer volume of attendees, sponsors and vendors provided the buzz.

The three key technologies to watch: Big data, AI, IoT

The celebrations were officially kicked off by Jim and Howard as they ran the crowd through the past 20 years of Realcomm events, including examples of the past people, tech and discussions.

A new addition to this year's conference was the introduction of the Realcomm "Lifetime Achievement Award". An honor bestowed upon 20 deserving attendees. It was great to see a number of our clients up on the stage. Even more entertaining was seeing their mugshots from 20 years ago.

The Keynote delivered by Bob Sulentic (President & CEO of CBRE) was a breath of fresh air, as it was not a speech about all kinds of "out there tech", but rather focused on how they as a company have managed to navigate in the "Age of Acceleration" through acknowledging that IT and technology should get a seat at the C level table and should be involved in steering the company.

IT and technology should get a seat at the C level table

If anybody needed more proof of the wave of investment hitting the Proptech world, Mihir Shah's (serial investor / entrepreneur and advisor who is now heading up the JLL Spark team's) speech did the trick. Mihir and his team at JLL Spark are looking to invest up to $100 million into companies focused on tech. What is even better to see is that times have changed from simple cash investment, into more of an incubator and advisory

It was also good to get some thoughts from one of the lifetime achievement award winners, Anant Yardi. Anant believes that three key technologies to watch out for are:

  • Big data
  • AI
  • IoT

He went on to point out that whilst these areas should be investigated, the focus on these technologies should be directed to operational performance. Anant also shared an interesting view in that he believes that "Blockchain is a solution looking for a problem".

Risking the ever treacherous live demo, Chong Huan of the Inland Group braved a live demonstration of how their group is allowing the business to interact with their data through the use of voice via the Amazon Alexa platform. I am happy to report Alexa behaved - impressive stuff.

Vegas would not be Vegas without a party

The event saw the usual plethora of valuable sessions. A good problem for the organizers was the view that many attendees simply didn’t have enough time in their schedule to attend the panels they would have liked. On that note Dustin Strydom, our head of automation, moderated a great case study panel on Robotic Process Automation. Watch out for some more video footage from that panel.

Vegas would not be Vegas without a party and the evening festivities did not disappoint. The various events provided ample opportunity to catch up with clients, prospects and partners. The dancefloor at the Chateau Nightclub providing a stage for a certain CIO to show off his skills outside of a boardroom - but as we all know, what happens in Vegas…

Thanks to everyone involved at this year's event

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