Few other regions in the United States hold the exalted status of the Hamptons on Long Island; there, the rich and powerful from many different industries often intersect for both business and pleasure, making the eastern end of our island one of the most important pieces of real estate in the entire country.
That being said, it makes the perfect location for Hamptons Tech Week (HTW), an event where thought leaders from both Long Island and across the globe meet up annually to discuss the latest developments in business and technology and how they can be best applied to generate synergy and success for all involved.
This year’s HTW will be a three-day event held amid the lush gardens and sculptures of the Longhouse Reserve in East Hampton on June 4-6; prospective attendees are encouraged to purchase tickets as soon as possible before it sells out.
HTW founder Stephen Sabo – a Hofstra University graduate – said that he was inspired to start the event in 2022 after attending several large-scale conferences that left him feeling underwhelmed.
The idea for a smaller, more intimate affair sprang into Sabo’s mind, and he then set out to make that vision a reality.
“Just as soon as COVID-19 restrictions started being lifted, I had been going to a bunch of conferences down in Florida, and I thought that they were really too big for me to get any value out of them,” he said. “When I started Hamptons Tech Week, one thing that was really important to me was to keep it small and very curated. We are branded as a micro-conference, which means we will never have more than 350 people attend on any given day across the three days of the event.”
HTW is essentially a meeting place for opportunity and thought leadership, Sabo said, collecting leaders from every industry and putting them on a stage to discuss current technological trends in layman’s terms.
“Our speakers discuss tech on a very macro level…we encourage speakers to avoid detail on the tech itself because it’s not meant to be a developer’s conference,” he said. “It’s the type of conference where anybody can walk in the room and understand what’s being discussed on stage. The conference is about the future of each industry and looking at the technology that’s driving innovation.”
Each year HTW focuses on specific areas of new technological development; at its inaugural 2022 event, emphasis was placed on Web3 and blockchain technology, whereas last year there was a great deal of attention paid to artificial intelligence (AI) and other key trends. This year, Sabo noted, the focus remains on AI, in addition to several other important topics.
His goal with HTW, Sabo said, is to curate the event with an intersection of three very specific populations that can function in a healthy, symbiotic business relationship.
“A third is ‘the fuel,’ for innovation such as investors and private equity groups, who can bring resources to opportunities. The second third is the actual opportunities, such as founders or employees in leadership positions of these companies that are on the rise,” he said. “The final third is comprised of the advisors for all of those companies, as well as those from the sports and entertainment worlds just to keep it fresh, light and exciting.”
“HTW is really an eclectic group, a very interesting and curated group that we focus on, and that’s where the pride comes from,” Sabo added. “That’s really what we hear about the most in the feedback we get, it’s about the quality of the people and the conversation.”
As the profile of HTW rises, Sabo said that he nonetheless intends to maintain his steadfast rule to keep it a micro-conference; the growth will not come from increasing the scope of the event, but its frequency and reach.
“I never want to get bigger than 350 at any HTW, but this year we held our first ‘stopover’ event, which is what we’re branding them as,” he said. “We just did one in January, called HTW at Lake Nona by Orlando, Florida, which was amazing. It was an even smaller gathering at 120 people, but it focused on the local flair and businesses in that are thriving in the area such as sports and healthcare.”
HTW will have at least two other stopover events in 2024: one in Napa, California, on September 16 and 17, and London, England, on October 13 and 14.
Despite being situated on Long Island, Sabo said that HTW is truly becoming a global phenomenon, with speakers coming from Ireland, England, and many other countries, in addition to representatives of the U.S. and local Long Island business and tech scene as well.
The event itself is designed to ebb and flow in such a way that it is equal parts informative and entertaining for attendees, in some ways very much resembling the cutting-edge tech conference it aspires to be but in other ways, a full-on shindig.
“The first day of the conference is an opening party. We’ll have a world-famous chef – Dennis Prescott – curating our menu, and we’ll be bringing a number of brands there to activate at the party to really elevate the experience,” Sabo said. “The whole point is to connect people in a comfortable setting.”
The next two days, Sabo noted, are broken down to a themed morning session, followed by a break for lunch, and then a themed afternoon session, followed by a happy hour each day. One evening is capped off by a VIP dinner, and the final evening is celebrated with a closing party.
Notable speakers at previous HTW events include the Anish Melwani – CEO of LVMH (North America), Michael Burke -managing director of Google, local philanthropist and investing legend Carol Suchman, leAD Sports & Health Tech Partners CIO Thomas Rudy, and many other industry leaders, truly cementing HTW at the forefront of business and tech innovation, not just on Long Island but globally as well.
This year’s lineup to grace the stage at Long House Reserve will be better than ever. There will be themed blocks consisting of 30-minute conversations around sports, media and entertainment, emerging technologies, and culture.
Some featured speakers include Kevin Fried of Google, Carrie Rebora Barratt- Director of Long House Reserve, Derrick Mitchell- Meta, Jamian Polk- Microsoft, Lynn Smith – MSNBC Anchor alum, Anthony Hogrebe- Director of Communications of NY, Ian Epstein- Republic, Sankeetha Selvarajah- Investor, Mitch Baruchowitz- Merida Capital, Chris Van Dusen- Solyco Capital, Ashley Battle – Boston Celtics, Zoe Wilson- Skratch/PGA Tour, Ray Mate- HypeGolf, Cary Grossart- NFL Players Inc. and Craig Schmell – Four Dimensional Partners, Melina Scotto- Cyber Security at Hilton, Rory Herron- Invest NI, Trace Cohen- NY Venture Partners, Kyle Martino- Football Cafe, Neal Wadhwa- Legacy Capital, Darragh Fitzpatrick- Tabush and many, many more!
Sabo also said “I wouldn’t have been able to do any of this and scale this event to the level it has achieved without the help of my incredible team: Gary Adelman, Sarah Matz, Simon Bailie, Weston Woodward, Ray Mate, Maxwell Cohen, Dennis Prescott, and Scott Garber. I also am forever grateful for my wife Jaclyn and children, Nate & Sutton.”
To find out more about HTW and purchase tickets to attend, please visit https://hamptonstechweek.com.
