6th Philly Hardware Meetup @ NextFab

The Hardware Meetup community is excited to announce the next Philly Hardware Meetup on June 13th. Hardware Meetups happen across 20+ cities monthly and help bring together hardware professionals to meet and connect.

Come join us to hear from our guest speakers as well as share what’s on your desk. We always have time for an open mic. We’ll be hosted by NextFab, a membership-based makerspace, product design firm, and early-stage hardware investor at the heart of Philly's hardware community.

We have a great group of guest speakers

• August Lilley and Jake Williams, co-founders of Switch AI, a company focused on developing precision language models that can be localized to devices with no internet connectivity. They are entering the market with a lamp that learns from normal interaction and predicts if the user wants the light on or off. August Lilley is also the founder and CEO of AugustHaus, which has made hardware products for vaporization since 2015. Jake Williams is professor of Information Science at Drexel University and has expertise in natural language processing.
• Jonathan Knauer, VP Policy and Market Strategy at ConnectDER. ConnectDER meter socket adapters (MSAs) allow solar panels, batteries, or EV chargers to be connected to a home at a fraction of the typical time and cost. As VP of Policy and Market Strategy, Jon oversees ConnectDER’s market opening process and works to expand the number of states and utilities where MSAs can be installed.
• Nick Widmann, Founder & CEO of Wild Man Drinking Company and inventor of their flagship product, the Krak'in, an innovative tool designed for shotgunning beer and other canned beverages. Under Nick's leadership, the Krak'in has sold over a quarter million units and gained a substantial following, with over one million social media followers. Before dedicating himself full-time to Wild Man Drinking Company, Nick graduated from Drexel University and worked as a biomedical engineer at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

Agenda

• 5:00-5:30pm: Arrive, mingle, grab some food and a beverage
• 5:30-5:45pm: Opening remarks
• 5:45-7:00pm: Guest Speakers + Q&A with the audience
• 7:00-7:30pm: Open Mic.
  Anyone in attendance can give a demo or short presentation on their hardware product, startup, or project.
• 7:30-8:00pm: Mix, mingle, and close out the night.

Thank you to our partners

NextFab provides the resources to help innovators build and scale hardware-based startup companies. Through their makerspaces, product development services, and ventures group, NextFab supports hardware entrepreneurs from ideation through commercialization.

If you want to help support the next meetup, please reach out to nate@informal.cc for sponsorship inquiries.