We all live and work in our own bubbles. Attending a conference or event can help us pop those bubbles and discover new ideas.
For the second year in a row, we asked Lab Report readers to share their must-attend events. Our crowdsourced list has doubled in size, with new additions to every category. The result: more than 200 events across eight broad topic areas.
If you want to learn more about tissue engineering, ethnographic research, cellular agriculture, cybersecurity education, applied spectroscopy, transportation technology, or wearable art, there’s a conference for you. You could talk about conversational AI at multiple voice tech conferences each month — and some are focused exclusively on specific industries like healthcare.
But the most popular events explore concepts with broad appeal: culture and society, innovation and technology, money and influence. Many respondents aspire to attend well-known conferences such as TED, TEDMED, SXSW, MIT Technology Review’s EmTech series, and the World Economic Forum’s annual summit in Davos. And similar to what we heard when we crowdsourced a list of email newsletters last year, many respondents want to attend a conference that’s a mashup between existing events, a partnership between interesting organizations, or an international version of a popular U.S. conference. This makes sense — we subscribe to publications and attend events to connect the dots and gain access to fresh insights.
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The full crowdsourced list is below. Did we miss an important event? Email editor@luminary-labs.com to let us know where you’ll be this year.
Health & life sciences
- Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy (AMCP)
- AIMed
- America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP)
- American Association of Clinical Chemistry (AACC) *
- American Medical Group Association (AMGA)
- American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO)
- American Society of Hematology (ASH) *
- Arab Health *
- Aspen Ideas: Health
- BIO
- BioData World Congress
- Bioprocess International *
- Bioprocessing Summit Europe *
- Biotech Week Boston *
- Boomer Venture Summit
- Cambia Grove 5 Points of Health Care Conference *
- Clinical Research As A Care Option (CRAACO) *
- CNBC Healthy Returns
- CNS Summit
- Connected Health Summit
- Digital Health Summit at CES *
- Digital Orthopaedics Conference
- DPharm *
- Drug Delivery West *
- Drug Discovery Chemistry
- Drug Discovery Summit
- DTx East *
- ELSCEO Forum
- End Well Symposium
- European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) *
- Exponential Medicine
- Frontiers Health
- Health 2.0
- Health Datapalooza *
- Health Evolution Summit
- HIMSS
- HLTH
- INFORMS Healthcare Summit
- International Council on Active Aging
- International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes *
- J.P. Morgan Healthcare
- Kidney Week *
- Medical XR Public Workshop *
- MedInfo Lyon
- Medtech Conference
- MM&M Hall of Femme
- MM&M Transform
- Mobile in Clinical Trials *
- National Association of ACOs (NAACOS)
- Optum Forum
- Patients as Partners US *
- Pharmaceutical Management Science Association (PMSA)
- Quality Talks
- R/Pharma
- Rock Health Summit
- StartUp Health Festival
- TEDMED
- The Beryl Institute Patient Experience Conference
- The Voice of Healthcare Summit *
- Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine *
- Virtual Medicine
- Vision Monday *
- Voice.Health Summit
- World Medical Innovation Forum
- World One Health Congress (WOHC) *
- World Preclinical Congress
- World Vaccine Congress
- WSJ Health Forum
Design & digital
- Adobe 99U
- AIGA Design
- Brand New Conference
- Confab
- Design + Diversity
- Design Content Conference
- Design Management Institute
- DLD Munich
- Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference (EPIC) *
- Experience Design Week
- Figma’s Config conference *
- Financial Experience Design (FXD)
- Health Experience Design (HXD)
- ServDes Service Design & Innovation Conference *
- Service Design Global Conference *
- Social Media Week
Tech
- 4YFN
- AFCEA TechNet Cyber *
- AfroTech *
- All Tech is Human
- CES
- Collision *
- EmTech
- EmTech Digital *
- EmTech Next
- Fortune Brainstorm Tech
- Founders Forum
- Global Robot Expo (GR-EX) *
- infoShare
- InsurTech Connect *
- Lesbians Who Tech *
- Money 20/20 *
- Morgan Stanley Tech, Media & Telecom
- National Cybersecurity Summit *
- New Harvest
- Photonics West *
- Project Alpha Startup Summit (PASS) *
- Project Voice *
- Recode Code Conference
- RISE
- RStudio
- Slush
- Society of Women Engineers *
- TechConnect World *
- TechCrunch Disrupt
- The Vision Show *
- IBM Think 2020 *
- Tough Tech Summit *
- Viva Technology *
- Voice Summit
- Web Summit
Education
- ACTE CareerTech Vision *
- ASCD Empower *
- ASU GSV *
- Aurora Institute Symposium *
- CLASS Annual Summit
- Coalition on Adult Basic Education (COABE)
- CoSN *
- ED Games Expo *
- Faculty Summer Institute in Illinois
- InstructureCon
- International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE)
- Lincoln Land College OER conference *
- Nation of Makers NOMCON *
- National Forum for Education Policy *
- National Forum to Advance Rural Education *
- National Science Teacher Association (NSTA) *
- NICE K12 Cybersecurity Education Conference *
- SXSW EDU
- The Global Education Innovation Festival (Ed Tech Week) *
Space & science
- American Geophysical Union
- ASTC Annual Conference *
- Biophysical Society *
- Columbia University Energy Symposium
- CubeSat Developers Workshop
- European CubeSat Symposium
- FAA Commercial Space Transportation Conference *
- IEEE Aerospace Conference
- Innovation and Opportunity Conference (IOC)
- Inter-Planetary Small Satellite Conference *
- International Astronautical Congress (IAC) *
- International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE) *
- International Science & Engineering Fair (ISEF) *
- International Society for Plant Molecular Farming (ISPMF) *
- Living Planet Conference
- Machine Learning in Heliophysics
- MIT New Space Age Conference *
- National Geographic Explorers Festival *
- National Science Teachers Association
- NewSpace 2020 *
- Pittsburgh Conference on Analytical Chemistry and Applied Spectroscopy (PittCon) *
- Science Talk *
- SciX *
- Small Satellite Conference
- SmallSat Symposium
- Space Symposium
- Space Tech Expo *
- SpaceVision *
- The Economist’s Space Summit *
- World Bio Markets *
- World Science Festival *
Civic innovation & smart cities
- CoMotion LA *
- NYC Open Data Week
- Personal Democracy Forum / Civic Hall
- Smart Cities NY
- Tom Tom Summit & Festival *
New ways of working & doing
- Abundance 360 Summit *
- American Association for Access, Equity and Diversity *
- Crowdsourcing Week
- Culturati Summit
- Enterprising Women *
- Frank *
- Horizons: JFF’s National Summit *
- Innovation Academy at the University of Notre Dame *
- Innovation Leader Impact
- NewCo
- Open and User Innovation Conference *
- Project Management Institute Global Conference *
- Skoll World Forum *
- Slack Frontiers
- Solve at MIT
- SwitchPoint Conference *
- Venture Atlanta *
- VentureWell OPEN *
Culture & futurism
- ArtPrize
- Dodge Poetry Festival
- Future of Storytelling
- HUBweek
- Idea Week *
- Maker Faire
- New Yorker Festival *
- PopTech *
- Speculative Futures PRIMER
- SXSW
- Sydney Writers Festival
- TED
- The Atlantic Festival
- TW:21 *
- Wisdom 2.0 *
- World Economic Forum
- World of Wearable Art
- WSJ Future of Everything
* Events marked with an asterisk are new to this year’s list.
Photo by ål nik on Unsplash.
