ATE-CON is now HI-TEC

A group of committee members convened in Phoenix, November 12-13, to conduct site visits to the venues under consideration and hold planning meetings. The following are the outcomes of these planning meetings.

New name and branding

The group spent a lot of time brainstorming potential names for the conference. After careful deliberation, the group has decided on the following name for the conference:
HI-TEC (High Impact Technology Exchange Conference)

The group has decided on the following tagline for the conference:
Educating America’s Technical Workforce

Here are some logo ideas that were suggested:

The new URL for the conference will be http://www.highimpact-tec.org/. Website content is still under development. Also, the new blog for this conference will now be at http://www.highimpact-tec.blogspot.com/. Be sure to bookmark those two pages for conference updates.

Location

The group ranked the three potential venues as follows: 1) Fairmont Scottsdale, 2) Westin Kierland, and 3) Sheraton Downtown.

The group recommends the Fairmont Scottsdale as the venue of choice. There were many reasons for this decision, among these are:
- Resort atmosphere would encourage attendees to bring their families and make it a vacation in addition to professional development
- Attendees would be the only group in the hotel, so there would be lots of networking opportunities throughout the hotel since all the other guests are there for the same purpose
- The meeting space is all in one area and can accommodate the exhibits, keynotes, and workshops/sessions
- Free Internet access in guest rooms

The next step is to aggressively negotiate with the Fairmont and the Westin for the best deal, preferably for the week of July 27 with the weeks of July 20 and August 3 as alternatives in that order of preference.