RenderATL, a software engineering conference that fuses Atlanta culture with technology, announced Friday the keynote speaker and headlining musical artist for its multi-day June event.

NFL legend, sports commentator and podcaster Shannon Sharpe will give a keynote on organizational and executive leadership at the conference, to be held June 12-14 at the AmericasMart downtown.

RenderATL’s concert headliner will be DJ Pee .Wee, the deejay name of Grammy-winning R&B singer Anderson .Paak. Artists DaniLeigh, Rotimi, D Smoke, CoCo & Breezy and Kamaiyah will also perform.

The speaker and musical lineup for RenderATL, a software engineering conference that fuses Atlanta’s Black culture with technology. The conference will take place June 12 - 14, 2024.

Credit: Handout

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Credit: Handout

RenderATL was founded in 2021 by Justin Samuels, a senior engineer at Intuit Mailchimp. He wanted to create an inclusive community unlike what he was seeing at other tech conferences.

The first conference attracted 350 people — a number that grew to 2,800 attendees in 2023, Samuels told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Approximately 10% came from overseas, he said.

Last year’s conference featured workshops on topics ranging from artificial intelligence for JavaScript to building decentralized apps. Expert panels were offered on being a tech founder and how to be better product managers. Attendees could network with major companies that sponsored the event, including Delta, Netflix, Intuit, Zillow and Amazon Web Services.

This year, RenderATL is expecting more than 5,000 attendees. Tickets start at $700 and provide access to the conference, workshops and musical acts.

RenderATL will be taking place during Atlanta Tech Week, seven days of events hosted by different organizations around the city geared toward highlighting the Atlanta tech ecosystem.

Mayor Andre Dickens has a goal of making the city a top five tech hub in the nation. To do that, about 2,000 tech startups will have to be launched in Atlanta annually for the next three years for the city to enter the top five as measured by venture capital funding, according to a report conducted by the Boston Consulting Group.


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