Photo: gener8tor

Old and young techies alike gathered on a cold Tuesday night at The Camp in MidCity to socialize during happy hour before a panel of local business heavyweights talked shop.

The occasion was the inaugural “Techs and the City’’—a play on the title of a popular cable television series—and was subtitled “Huntsville and the Future – Year 2035.’’ Techies networked with local industry leaders, government innovators, and entrepreneurs, and learned from top-notch panelists.

The low temperatures didn’t dampen spirits at the conversation-driven event, helped no doubt by numerous flaming heaters along with complimentary food, beer and wine.

“This is a tremendously awesome turnout considering how cold it is,’’ said Matt McKenzie of Alloy Digital, one of the sponsors along with First Horizon Bank, The Camp, Deploy, Apollo Foundation, Innovate Alabama and gener8tor.

“Techs and the City” was created by local entrepreneurs in Birmingham and Huntsville to foster connection and inspire innovation.

Chase Morrow, a Huntsville native and co-founder of Deploy Alloy, played a large role in bringing the event to the Rocket City. The group previously hosted six of these social affairs in Birmingham.

“I love the hell out of this town,’’ said the colorful Morrow, a Grissom graduate and current Birmingham resident who emceed the event. “Thank y’all for showing up.’’

He added that his hometown is a “fantastic tech capital and a great place to live and I’m thankful that we get to have this and really celebrate not only how far we’ve come as a tech city, but where we’ll go.’’

Matt McKenzie, one of the “Techs and the City’’ founders and Morrow’s business partner, recalled that during his first IT job in Tuscaloosa “they literally put the IT people in the basement. And that’s kind of how we were treated. We were treated that way for a long time.”

“Since that point, we’ve now got a name for ourselves and that’s because everybody realizes technology is the future. But technology is not what drives the future. What drives the future is people and people are nothing without community,” said McKenzie.

Among others addressing the crowd prior to the panel discussion were Sierra Pena and Rochelle Silveira of gener8tor, Joanna White of the nonprofit Apollo Foundation and Will Harbison of COIN Coworking.

The panel included: John Schmitt, iXpressGenes co-founder and CEO; Angie Sandritter, Rippleworx founder and CEO; Madison native Peyton McNully, a technology entrepreneur and cloud tech leader; and Steve Odom, managing director at Defense Tech Accelerator.

The panel was moderated by Valentina Iscaro. She has many duties at Alabama A&M University including Assistant Professor and Entrepreneurship Program Coordinator.

Highlights from the panel included the following statements from panelists:

Future of Tech:

“This year kicks off Generation Beta,’’ Sandritter said. “This next generation is gonna always be connected and AI as we know it today is gonna be a rudimentary type of technology to them. Does anybody know what a flip phone is? Like, that was cool right? When we had that technology we thought it was amazing. Well, AI is not even going to be a flip phone to this new generation.’’

Power Play:

“We’ll use a hell of a lot more electricity by 2035,’’ said McNully, later adding, “I wholeheartedly implore all of you to be more aware that everything you do in tech involves electricity and it doesn’t just magically arrive when you want to use it. And this is not ‘turn your lights off when you leave a room.’ If we’re going to be a tech center … centers of data use a lot of electricity. I can assure you we’ll need a hell of a lot of power.’’ He added, “Right now I don’t think we have a mechanism (to support the future demand).’’

Small business:

“I see so many faces of folks that have been on my journey from seeing the city kind of come up in the last decade—from music to tech to digital engineering to advanced manufacturing and biotech. It’s great to have this community together and have this conversation,’’ Schmitt said, adding that he didn’t think the big tech firms that handle large defense contracts will be key to future needs. “I think this is where only small businesses (with unique hardware) is gonna fill that.’’

Continued growth:

“I just see the community continue to evolve,’’ said Odom, a Huntsville transplant in his 18th year in town. “Since I’ve been here it’s been amazing. Can we always do better? Absolutely. But it’s been amazing how this city has evolved to and been given the opportunities to the companies here and we need it. It’s fostering the right thing.’’