Fixing Event Ticketing w/Blockchain + Insights from Consensus Conference 2018

Join us Wednesday, May 23rd at Ann Arbor SPARK to connect with the Ethereum community, hear from local startups and learn about blockchain technology!

Presentation #1: FIXING EVENT TICKETING WITH BLOCKCHAIN
The event ticketing industry is broken. This is especially true of secondary (resale) ticketing markets. Fees are ridiculously high, fraud is rampant, and the people putting on the event don’t get a cent of secondary sales. PassageX is fixing all of that with an open Ethereum-powered network that facilitates low fee, fraud free, 100% transparent, and fully customizable secondary event ticket sales with smart-contract controlled fee-splits back to artists, events, and venues.
In this talk Alex Linebrink and Douglas Drouillard will share their journey and approach as well as an overview of their solution.

PassageX is being built in Detroit, MI by Passage Inc: a tech startup that powers ticketing and payments for over 3,000 events and $20M in ticket sales every year.

Speaker Bios:

• Alex Linebrink - CEO. Alex has been leading financial technology and event ticketing companies for the last 10 years, handling hundreds of millions of dollars in transactions. Alex sold his previous company, Core Merchant, after leading it to profitability within one year by landing enterprise clients like Quicken Loans, Fathead, and the Cleveland Cavaliers. More recently, Alex has led Passage Inc to over $1M in annual revenue.
• Douglas Drouillard - Blockchain Lead. An accomplished blockchain developer, Doug currently runs Shrine Development: a boutique blockchain development firm in Ferndale, MI. Doug previously served as the CTO for the campaign of the Governor of MI and has a B.S.E. in Computer Science from the University of Michigan.

Presentation #2: KEY INSIGHTS FROM CONSENSUS 2018
Despite Vitalik’s boycott, Consensus (by Coindesk - May 14-16) remains one of the largest blockchain conferences in the world, featuring 250+ speakers and 8,000+ attendees from various industry startups, investors, financial institutions, enterprise tech leaders, and academic and policy groups who are building the foundations of the blockchain and digital currency economy.
Dave Mehi and Shamir Ozery attended, took notes and will share some key learnings and insights (trying to sift out value from the BS) from the three day event.

Speaker Bios:

• Dave Mehi is a Cloud Architect for Google that specializes in helping companies build their API programs and get to the cloud. He has been involved in the Detroit tech scene for years and aims to help support the community. He is also a blockchain and cryptocurrency enthusiast, both as an investor and on the tech side.
• Shamir Ozery creates growth using digital tools. As a Growth Marketing Strategist and Educator, Shamir helps entrepreneurs, startups and businesses build, plan and execute digital marketing initiatives that focus on growth, business impact and ongoing optimization, while making the most of existing resources. He also teaches Entrepreneurial Marketing at University of Michigan's Center For Entrepreneurship.
  With extensive international agency experience, including McCann and other leading agencies working with various Fortune 500 clients, Shamir has spent the past 10 years focusing on branding, messaging, digital marketing strategies, and execution to help clients of all sizes attain impactful and measurable growth.

Schedule:
6:00 PM - Arrival/networking with refreshments compliments of SPARK
6:15 PM - Presentation #1
7:00 PM - Presentation #2
7:40 PM - Introductions, Projects + Public announcements
8:00 PM - Post-MeetUp at local restaurant/bar

RSVP Info:
Please be aware there's limited room for this meetup. If you plan to come, please be sure to RSVP right way. If your availability changes and you cannot come, do change your RSVP to make room for others!