PICMET 2016: simply amazing!

My name is Miriam Falcone. I am a former student of the WU Msc Marketing during the a.y. 2014/15. I wrote my master thesis under the supervision and expert advice of Hon. Prof. Dkfm. Dr. R. Hasenauer. The thesis is named ‘The pre-adoption process of a new technology: the study of the artificial skin for medical diabetes treatment’.

At the end of this beautiful chapter of my life in Vienna, Prof. Hasenauer told me about the Portland International Conference on Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET). PICMET was established in 1989 as a non-profit organization to disseminate information on technology management through an international conference. It is governed by a Board of Directors and an Executive Committee. The Advisory Council provides advice and counsel on the global issues and critical dimensions of technology management and assists the president in the selection of key speakers. Advisory Council members deliver plenary speeches at the Conference.

The first PICMET was held as PICMET’91 in Portland, Oregon in October 1991. The theme was “Technology Management: The New International Language”. Since 2004 Picmet has become an annual conference, held at different locations in the world. We decided to send the abstract to their attention and here the adventure started. Our work fit the scope of the conference so we were invited to submit the full paper for the next PICMET conference. There were some months of mutual work reviewing the content and tailoring it for presenting. It was absolutely worth.

I had the honor and pleasure to present the final content at the PICMET 2016 conference. PICMET took place from September 4^th to 8^th in Waikiki, Hawaii. The president and CEO of PICMET Board, Dr. Dundar F. Kocaoglu is a very friendly person and so was his event: since the first dinner, the positive energy of the environment was tangible. There where people from all over the world who enjoyed the stay together in that side of paradise (it really is!) and discussed about so many interests within the technology management.

It was the perfect stage to build contacts’ network with prestigious researchers but also to meet very funny PhD’s students from Germany, Korea, China and many others. I met professionals looking for collaboration and people who came listening to my speech. They asked for my opinion about possible development on their works according to my studies. This made me feel incredibly proud and worth all my efforts.

The conference day was organized starting with Plenary Sessions where Advisory Council Picmet members gave their speeches. During the 2016 conference, they told about Social Innovation, Creativity and Genius: Inside the mind of Leonardo (this was my favorite!), Big Data and forecasting Innovation pathways. After these bigger ones, many sessions divided by topics were held in a very specific manner. My speech was under the topic ‘Technology management in health’. Each session lasted 1 hour and 30 minutes, with three to four speakers presenting their works. All the guests could decide what to listen to according to the program of the day.

I left the conference with new friends, new papers to read, new topics to investigate and with unpayable feeling of pride: being part of the PICMET guests has been an honor and meant as reward for all my path. I really want to thank Hon. Prof. Dkfm. Dr. R. Hasenauer for this experience and his strong support. It is a very valuable meeting to inspire your brain, for networking and creates real opportunities in the field of research and universities.

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