I’ve never made it to Dell World before, but this year I volunteered to support the Dell World Live YouTube channel. Dell World is a dazzling event. I work alongside colleagues who develop Dell’s cutting-edge technologies, but seeing our solutions live and being able to speak with the people behind the technology added another layer of wonder to the whole event.
I managed a sneak peek of the event by arriving at the convention center the day before. The first thing I saw in the expo hall-turned-solutions showcase was a DeLorean set up in blinking glory in honor of Back to the Future Day. Cushy carpets were being placed around the solutions showcase hall, lights and sound systems were being tested. The social media garden screens hadn’t yet collated a waterfall of #dellworld content. Ducking through the curtains to the back of house area felt like seeing the innards of a sleeping giant.
Showing up for my first volunteer shift the next day felt completely different. The solutions showcase was alive with neon lights, music, food trucks and people. During breaks, I dropped by the Alienware booth and chatted with a member of our Dell Research team who has been working on facial recognition software for gamers that helps identify how the player is feeling. The idea is to scale the difficulty of games based on the player’s mood – angry, surprised, happy – to ensure maximum enjoyment of the gaming experience. I also got to check out a Alienware Steam Machine for the first time and play around with the funky controller (I didn’t test out the Oculus Rift, though – the line was crazy long).
Team members were officially invited to attend the closing plenary on the last day. It was a fascinating discussion moderated by NPR’s Aarti Shahani about all things IoT including the revenue potential within that market, adoption of IoT technology and even legal and legislative shortcomings when it comes to data security.
With closing remarks from Tom Sweet and Michael Dell himself, the theme was passion – both for what we do at Dell and what we bring to our customers. As a first-timer at Dell World, I can absolutely say that the passion of the 600+ team members and partners who worked tirelessly behind the scenes to make the event a success shone through and created an unforgettable three days.