Mary Wisniewski

36 Hours at Fintech Meetup: Three Themes from the Las Vegas Event

It happened this week: Fintech Meetup, one of the newer trade events that brought 4,000 or so fintech and banker types to Las Vegas. The striking thing about the conference was not the magician hired to walk around the booths during Monday’s reception or the illustrator seated right next to a sign created by artificial intelligence on Sunday’s welcome gathering, it was the event’s meeting pit: a section in the exhibit hall that was dedicated to taking short meetings that the mobile app assigned you to ahead of the conference. The experience felt akin to entering a mosh pit but instead of musicians, you are in it with bankers and entrepreneurs and there are chairs. The speed dating meetup setup helped contain what would have otherwise been overwhelming with so many attendees. From panels to keynotes to hallways, here are a few things that caught my attention: