Image Gallery: CompTIA 2017 Annual Member Meeting

More than 350 attendees gathered in Chicago the week of March 20 for the 2017 CompTIA Annual Member Meeting (AMM).

Key trends and themes addressed during the three-day event included career planning, business relevance, diversity, the role of IT in business transformation, and of course, IT security and cloud.

Click through our image gallery for highlights.

To read more about the key takeaways from CompTIA AMM, check out CompTIA’s blog.

During the session, Bagrin also demonstrated how ransomware works and encouraged members to take ransomware seriously and take action.

Photo courtesy CompTIA

During a CompTIA AMM Power Talk session, Carolyn April, senior director of Industry Analysis for CompTIA, moderated a panel featuring industry “change agents” including Matthew Hahn, vice president of Technology of Network Services for SWK Technologies; Nate Olsen, managing director of Business Development for Insperity; T.C. Doyle, senior content director at Penton Technology Group; Rochelle Coleman, director of Partner Strategy & Marketing for Concerto Cloud Services; and Marc Monday, vice president of Global Business Development at Concur. The panel explored “new competition” and the challenges and opportunities that traditional IT channel companies face as firms in adjacent industries such as accounting, human resources and marketing begin leveraging cloud and other technology solutions to expand their businesses.

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That’s CompTIA’s Cloud Community leadership.

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As a result of members’ efforts, CompTIA is experiencing record growth, with revenue up 35 percent over the last five years.

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CompTIA members participate in the keynote workshop.

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Now that’s a big number — more than 115,000 engaging with CompTIA over the last five years.

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Toward the close of the event, CompTIA SVP Nancy Hammervik thanked the members for their support and advocacy.

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CompTIA also debuted its Advancing Diversity in Technology (ADIT) Community. One of the community’s top priorities is to empower people of color with information and give them access to the training and programs CompTIA offers its broad membership. Another is to lead by example and inspire others in their communities to pursue careers in IT.

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CompTIA’s IT Security Community presented some alarming stats on the current state of cybersecurity and beamed down some entertaining references to Star Trek to prove the point that despite what you see in the movies, you can’t jet around space and ignore security.

Moderated by Ron Culler, CTO of Secure Designs, the lively discussion between Ian Trump, global cybersecurity strategist with SolarWinds MSP, and Lysa Meyers, security researcher with ESET, focused on “Scary Security Facts” and revealed a seemingly unfair balance of economy of scale when it comes to breaches and business size.

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Panelists discuss smart cities.

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This year, the keynote address for CompTIA AMM was delivered by Tom Wujec, Autodesk fellow, TED speaker, author and Singularity University professor. Wujec challenged the audience to think about the rapid pace of technology change and how it is affecting industries, as well as the ability to come up with creative solutions to the challenges and problems faced by businesses today. One of his tactics: sticky noting!

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Here, CompTIA CEO Toss Thibodeaux recognizes Tracy Pound, CEO of MaximITy, the U.K.-based IT consultancy, as CompTIA’s 2016 Member of the Year. Pound has been active with CompTIA since 2012, initially as a trustmark assessor, faculty member and member of the UK Community Executive Council. She was elected to the CompTIA Board of Directors in 2016.

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