Going down to the Silicon Bayou: Scenes from Collision 2017

Nathan Mattise

NEW ORLEANS—Just as "space" may not be the first thing to come to mind about New Orleans, "tech" typically doesn't arrive high on the list, either. But for three days every spring in recent years, the Collision Conference has aimed to change that by raising the national profile of Silicon Bayou. The US-spinoff of the European Web Summit event gathers a wide variety of disciplines—national security to space, performance enhancing drugs to autonomous vehicles—and an even wider array of personalities.

Throughout this year's event, attendees could hear and interact with chief executives from the likes of Coca-Cola, Amazon, Cisco, Facebook, Wells Fargo, and Bitmoji. Shark Tank's Chris Sacca sat on the same stage as future NFL Hall of Famer Terrell Owens, WWE legend Ken Shamrock, olympic swimmers, and presidents of organizations from GLAAD to Twitch. Look for some interviews on site over the course of the next week (not so subtle hints available here and here), but we had a pair of quick highlights stand out.

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