RenderATL bringing Atlanta music stars to this year’s tech conference
Atlanta music icons Killer Mike, Dallas Austin, Lloyd, Yung Joc, D4L and Dem Franchize Boyz will all be featured next month at RenderATL, a technology conference that has created a distinctive mix of tech and Atlanta culture.
“We try to do everything to represent what this region has,” Justin Samuels, founder and CEO of RenderATL, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in an exclusive interview.
“That’s all things culture, tech, taste,” he said.
RenderATL is the anchor of Atlanta Tech Week, which runs Aug. 9-14 and features tech-focused events across the metro region. The hottest topic in tech this year — artificial intelligence — will be prominently featured.
RenderATL will take place at the AmericasMart in downtown Atlanta on Aug. 12-13. This marks the conference’s sixth year of bringing tech workers from around the globe to Atlanta.
At the event, attendees can listen to in-depth talks by speakers from Zillow, Google, Uber and other companies, and then go hear DJs play R&B and Afrobeats. In a crossover of the two, Grammy award-winning producer Dallas Austin is one of this year’s speakers.
Rapper Killer Mike will give the opening keynote, speaking on the intersection of AI and culture, and how that ties back to the music industry as a whole, according to Samuels.
“We’re going to talk about how it isn’t designed to replace you. It’s help — it’s designed to enhance you and help bring out what your next level could be if you had an extra superhuman there to help you,” Samuels said.
New Relic, a multibillion-dollar AI web monitoring and analytics company based in San Francisco, is one of RenderATL’s partners this year and will host a miniconference during the event.
The Atlanta AI Expo, in partnership with Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens’ office, will also take place at the conference and highlight AI-focused businesses from the city.
On the culture side, R&B singer Lloyd and rapper Yung Joc will perform concerts the evening of Aug. 12.
Rap groups D4L and Dem Franchize Boyz will face off the night of Aug. 13 in the newly renovated South Downtown neighborhood, going song for song to battle over which group has the better catalog. RenderATL recently opened its first office in the neighborhood.
Ultimately, Samuels says he sees the conference as an event that can move things forward for Atlanta by bringing increased attention from major tech companies to the city’s industry and talent.
The companies that partner with the conference have to be either hiring in Atlanta or allowing their employees to work remotely in the city so as to not promote a migration of talent, Samuels said.
“This is a much bigger opportunity than just me,” he explained.
“ATL became the epicenter of doing big sporting events … World Cup, Super Bowl, the Olympics, right? We have the same opportunity now to do Big Tech events, and when they start happening, boy, they start happening.”