Philly should get a crew together for CES 2018: Mohamed Zerban

It was great to be at the Consumer Electronics Show this year for the first time and meet with smart people to talk about the future of my startup, Tern Water. My goal was to focus on retail, product development and strategic business development partners. I was admittedly excited for the 50th anniversary of the showcase as well as to experience the latest tech in fields such as virtual reality and artificial intelligence.

CES was very beneficial when it came to personally meeting with partners, move forward with relationships quicker, and get some firsthand experience with what was coming to market while having the opportunity to discuss ideas with likeminded people. I got to meet the team working on General Electric’s smart home products, which is right up my alley since I’m working on building a smart faucet, and John Vaskis, head of hardware, tech and design sales at Indiegogo.

It was fascinating to see some of the different companies and their new technological enhancements. From Toyota and its new self-driving cars to General Electric and their magic mirrors. It was beautiful to see what innovations are coming next to the world.  I was able to develop and deepen relationships with different companies around the world that would have been much more difficult to come in contact with outside of CES.

Ultimate my only regret while being at CES was the fact that we weren’t able to meetup with more of the companies from the Philadelphia area. I think the Philadelphia community needs to be better connected and do more as a group at CES 2018. (Editor’s note: Sounds like a job for Amplify Philly.)

I would recommend CES for all companies. The atmosphere alone is both motivating and inspiring. It was great to walk around and and immerse myself as a spectator as well as an entrepreneur. Although the booths were great, I appreciated not being tied to one since I was on my own this go round. This gave me the freedom I needed to experience the event the way I wanted to and most importantly for me more time for meetings.I would recommend this approach for most up and coming startups.