Each year, hundreds of tech and IT conferences take the world by storm and promise to offer access to top professionals in the field, sneak peeks of the latest technologies, and unique networking opportunities that can help you advance your career. With so many available, however, how can you choose?
Every year, we research and curate a list of the top IT and tech conferences of 2020, and we’re excited to share this year’s top conferences with you. This list is ordered by date and will be updated regularly, so be sure to check back often.
Note: Some event information may be out of date due to COVID-19. Please confirm details with event organizers.
Feel free to reach out if you would like to add a tech/IT conference to the directory. To be considered, please email all details including the conference name, dates of the event, location, and a link to the event’s website to blogs@bmc.com.
For more topic-specific conference, check out our other conference round-ups, including Top DevOps Conferences, Programming & Software Dev Conferences, and CyberSecurity Conferences.
Top IT Conferences of 2020
Consumer Electronics Shows
Date: January 7-10, 2020
Location: Las Vegas, NV
Cost: $900- $1,500
For over 50 years, the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) has been the starting point for the newest technologies and innovations in the world. Held in Las Vegas, CES has been the global gathering place for all those involved in consumer technologies and the next generation of innovations, showcasing products in the areas of 3D Printing, Augmented & Virtual Reality, Computer Hardware/Software/Services, and more.
Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian will be the keynote at CES 2020, with more speakers to be announced. CES 2019 saw over 175k attendees and more than 1,000 speakers. Featured speakers of the 2019 event included LG Electronics President and Chief Technology Officer Dr. I.P. Park; IBM Chairman, President and CEO Ginni Rometty; and AMD President and Chief Executive Officer Dr. Lisa Su.
Oracle Openworld
Date: February 12-13, 2020
Location: London, UK
Oracle OpenWorld is an annual convention for business decision-makers, IT management, and line-of-business end users. Held in various locations around the world, the event covers everything from commerce, Cloud, social engagement and supply chain management, to IT security, scalability concerns, big data, and business analytics. OpenWorld aims to share the latest technologies and solutions with companies, including application development, Artificial Intelligence, ways to increase agility and efficiency, and using Oracle’s Data Cloud.
Whether your focus is in sales, service, marketing, or social, you will learn about various ways to deliver consistent and personalized experiences. Past speakers of the event include Larry Ellison, Executive Chairman of the Board and Chief Technology Officer of Oracle and Dr. Vishal Sikka, Chief Executive Officer, CEO of Infosys.
SHARE
Date: February 23-28, 2020
Location: Fort Worth, TX
Cost: $750 (one day badge), $2,500 full event ticket
SHARE is an event handcrafted by volunteers to help professionals expand knowledge, enhance skills and increase organizational efficiencies by focusing on SHARE’s three main tenets: Educate, Network, Influence. Your one-stop shop for Enterprise IT education, SHARE provides an opportunity for attendees to enjoy a longstanding tradition of advancing the enterprise technology industry through interactive meetups and networking events along with keynotes and sessions.
SHARE 2019 featured 500+ technical sessions, covering key topics such as Pervasive Encryption, Cloud Technology in the Enterprise, Data Privacy, API Economy and IBM Z topics.
O’Reilly Strata Data Conference
Date: March 15-18, 2020
Location: San Jose, CA
The O’Reilly Strata Data Conference is a unique opportunity for leaders, practitioners, and innovators in IT and business to connect. Some of the topics that will be explored in the 2020 conference include: cloud, compliance, AI, machine learning, security, privacy, streaming, and IoT.
You’ll dissect case studies, develop new skills through in-depth tutorials, share emerging best practices in data science, and imagine the future with some of big data’s most influential business decision makers, strategists, architects, developers, and analysts.
Gartner Digital Workplace Summit
Date: March 16-17, 2020
Location: Phoenix, AZ
Cost: $2,825-$3,175
Presented by the world’s leading research and advisory company, the Gartner Digital Workplace Summit will give attendees the chance to be the first to hear about emerging trends and latest predictions surrounding the future of work, provide an action plan to build the digital workplace of tomorrow, and offer real-world solutions for leveraging these technologies in their organization.
Some tracks of the 2020 conference include:
- Plan, Deploy and Manage Your Digital Workplace Program
- Drive Innovation with Effective Technologies and Applications
- Build Employee Experiences That Are Engaging and Inclusive
- Shape the Future of Work
MIT Technology Review Presents: EmTech Digital 2020
Date: March 23-25, 2020
Location: San Francisco, CA
Cost: $2,995 plus $105.80 fee
Join MIT Technology Review for the latest in its esteemed EmTech Events Series: EmTech Digital 2020, an annual conference designed to explore new emerging digital technologies and trends. Part of the esteemed EmTech Event Series, this annual conference convenes innovators, entrepreneurs, business leaders, and venture capitalists to examine the next wave of the digital revolution. EmTech Digital 2020 will explore the AI revolution and where this technology is headed in 2020. Join industry leaders, executives and experts as they examine last year’s amazing advances in AI and discuss the most pressing issues in AI adoption, ethics and trust.
Attendees will have the opportunity to hear from several industry leaders including:
- Ben Gesing, Senior Innovation Manager, DHL
- David Farhi, Researcher, OpenAI
- Sheldon Fernandez, CEO, Darwin.AI
- Danny Lange, Vice President of AI and Machine Learning, Unity Technologies
- Xiaomeng Lu, International Public Policy Manager, Access Partnership
- Frida Polli, Founder and CEO, pymetrics
- Delip Rao VP of Research, AI Foundation
- Apoorv Saxena, Global Head of AI, JP Morgan Chase & Co.
- Richard Socher, Chief Scientist, Salesforce
- Fiona Tan, Senior Vice President, Customer Technology, Walmart
- Vincent Vanhoucke, Principal Scientist, Google Brain
New this year, attendees can participate in the AI Strategy Studio, a pre-conference insight session to hear from and network with leading executives from organizations such as Walmart, JPMorgan Chase & Co, DHL, and LinkedIn about how they have integrated AI into their processes, products, and services. (Additional registration and cost.)
Gartner Data & Analytics Summit
Date:March 23-26, 2020
Location: Grapevine, TX
Cost: $3,150-$3,825 (Early bird pricing available through January 24, 2020)
The Gartner Data & Analytics Summit is recognized as the leading gathering for CDOs, D&A and Business Leaders who have a vested interest in how their organization realizes the full potential of their data analytics investments to drive revenue and reduce risk.
The Summit brings together a unique, global community of D&A leaders from a broad range of industries, specialist D&A technology visionaries and providers, inspirational guest speakers and respected analysts.
At the 2020 event, attendees will gain insight on:
- Closing the hype gap and deriving real-world, practical value from new initiatives and automated processes.
- Creating data and analytics products to drive new sources of innovation and revenue.
- Gaining real-world insights into initiating, funding and resourcing data and analytics projects, including AI, that deliver tangible business value.
- Being better equipped to overcome unique challenges and applying your findings, learnings and shared experiences to rewire your culture for an AI-augmented future.
- Topics such as cost optimization, blockchain, augmented data management, data warehousing, master data management, real time analytics, and much more!
Adobe Summit
Date: March 29-April 2, 2000
Location: Las Vegas, NV
Cost: $1,695 (Early bird pricing available through December 15, 2019)
Attendees at the Adobe Summit will gain valuable insights, tools, and techniques for making the most of Adobe Marketing Cloud. Thanks to this summit, you can learn how to bring all your content and data together in one place.
Some featured speakers of the 2020 event include:
- Shantanu Narayen, CEO Adobe
- Satya Nadella, CEO Microsoft
- Hubert Joly, CEO Best Buy
- Atticus Tusen, CIO Intuit
- Mindy Kaling, Actress/Writer/Producer
- Pam Oliver, FOX Sports
Google Cloud Next
Date: April 6-8, 2020
Location: San Francisco, CA
Cost: $1,499
Google Cloud Next is the conference to attend if you are interested in hearing more from Google executives about new and updated cloud services. Offering more than 200 sessions, as well as many keynote speakers, Google Next explores broad themes such as service scale and maturity, usable machine learning, and enterprise-friendliness. It also covers topics like embracing the cloud, open source, cloud native architectures, and deep dives on Kubernetes and TensorFlow,
Featured speakers from 2019 event included: Thomas Kurian CEO Google Cloud, Urs Hölzle SVP, Technical Infrastructure Google Cloud, and Aparna Pappu VP, Engineering, Apps Collaboration. Learn more in our Complete Guide to Google Cloud Next.
Dublin Tech Summit
Date: April 22-23, 200
Location: Dublin, Ireland
Cost: €259 (Early bird pricing)
The Dublin Tech Summit is a two-day event that brings together the top global leaders in technology, innovation, and business to help shape the future of trends and technologies. The tech summit saw over 10,000 attendees in its first year alone, quickly solidifying its place as one of the biggest newcomers in the tech conference space.
Sessions follow the eight core themes of the conference: The Internet of Things, Big Data, FinTech, Innovation, MusicXTech, Cloud Computing, Artificial Intelligence, and Cyber Security. There are typically over 250 expert speakers with past experts including global leaders such as Douglas Terrier, Chief Technology Officer at NASA; Cassie Kozyrkov, Chief Decision Scientist at Google; Mihai Alisie, Co-founder of Ethereum; and PJ Hough, Chief Product Officer at Citrix.
IBM Think
Date: May 4-7, 2020
Location: San Francisco, CA
IBM Think is IBM’s global flagship conference and is the premier conference for AI, cloud, security and IT infrastructure. The event is for anyone interested in transforming industries and creating better solutions, whether you are a developer, designer, architect, security executive, or analyst. The conference includes top keynotes, over 200 sessions, and plenty of opportunities for networking with topics that span the Cloud, Dev, Internet of Things, Mobile, Security, Watson, and IBM Research.
Some industry experts who spoke at the 2019 conference included: Ginni Rometty, Chairman, President and CEO of IBM; Joe Montana, Legendary NFL Quarterback; Dr. John E. Kelly III, Senior Vice President of Cognitive Solutions and IBM Research; Michelle Peluso, Senior Vice President & Chief Marketing Officer of IBM; and Tony Hawk, Legendary Skateboarder & Entrepreneur.
Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo
Date: May 11-14, 2020
Location: Toronto, Canada
Cost: $5,150 CDN + VAT
The Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo was designed to empower CIOs and IT leaders to adapt to all of the fast-paced changes in the ever-changing digital world. It features many top industry leaders and will teach you how to apply digital business concepts to real-world scenarios, how to put that theory into practice, ways to create agility within the enterprise, and how to best manage the top digital talent. It will also showcase cutting-edge technologies, applications, and approaches.
The 2020 event will cover topics like: Business Intelligence and Advanced Analytics; Customer and User Experience; Digital Business Transformation; Emerging and Disruptive Technologies; Leadership, People and Culture; and Security, Risk and Compliance.
Rise of AI Conference
Date: May 13-14, 2020
Location: Berlin, Germany
Cost: €499-1199
For six years, the annual Rise of AI conference connects up to 2,000 AI experts, decision-makers, opinion-leaders and game-changers to discuss Artificial Intelligence for society, politics and economy. This year the conference takes place on May 13 & 14, 2020 in Berlin.
Whether you are a CEO, developer, IT professional, customer, or simply an employee in the technology field, attending one of the above conferences can help you to stay current on the latest trends and up-to-date on the newest innovations and technologies. No matter which one of these you choose, you are guaranteed to walk away with increased personal and professional growth.
Digital Enterprise Show
Date: May 19-21, 2020
Location: Madrid, Spain
The Digital Enterprise Show (DES) by the Digital World Congress is the world’s leading event on Digital Transformation. The event showcases some of the most cutting-edge technology and aims to connect innovative companies in AI, IoT, Blockchain, Cloud, Cybersecurity, AR/VR, Big Data, and Marketing Automation.
The 2019 event hosted over 300 of the world’s top tech companies with more than 20,000 people in attendance. There are sessions for everyone whether you are focused on e-commerce, CRM, digital trust, social media, marketing automation, email marketing, digital marketing, or UX.
Citrix Synergy
Date: May 19-21, 2020
Location: Orlando, FL
Cost: $495-$895
Citrix Synergy is one of the top industry conferences on digital business transformation. The conference features strategic insights, business and technical training, and professional networking, all while providing opportunities for networking with peers and learning from some of the leading industry experts.
At Synergy 2019, attendees were inspired by the next-gen features of Citrix Workspace, which uses machine learning and simplified workflows to contextually put the right data at people’s fingertips.
Augmented World Expo
Date: May 27-29, 2020
Location: Santa Clara, CA
The Augmented World Expo (AWE) is the largest conference and expo on augmented reality in the world. Held each year in Santa Clara, California, this three-day event brings together a huge mix of industry leaders and enthusiasts, including CEOs, CTOs, designers, developers, creative agencies, futurists, analysts, investors, and the top media outlets. AWE brings together more than 5,000 attendees from all over the world, with a large percentage of them representing Fortune 1000 companies.
The 2020 conference is the 10th anniversary of the AWE so you can expect the speakers and sessions to be bigger than ever. Learn how startups are creating solutions and organizations are using AR & VR to drive economic growth, encourage empathy and collaboration, democratize healthcare and education, and change the world.
Big Data & AI Toronto 2020
Date: June 3-4, 2020
Location: Toronto, Canada
Cost: $357 CAD (super early-bird price)
This year, the Big Data & AI Toronto event is co-located with Cybersecurity Toronto and Cloud Expo Toronto. It will host participants from a plethora of industries and levels of technical expertise, including 6,000 attendees, 150 exhibitors, and 300 speakers.
Big Data and AI Toronto is Canada’s #1 Conference & Expo serving the data ecosystem. Join the Canadian data industry for two days full of education, networking, and product demos to master the 4 key pillars of the post-digital revolution. This year, Big Data and AI Toronto is co-located with Cybersecurity Toronto and Cloud Toronto to provide you with a unique 4-in-1 learning experience that is engineered to meet your data needs and challenges.
With 200 speakers and 100 exhibiting brands, Big Data and AI Toronto provides you with the tools, skills, and networking opportunities that you need success in an era of transformation and develop a true competitive advantage.
Digital Workplace Experience
Date: June 3-5, 2020
Location: Chicago, IL
Cost: $2,995
Digital Workplace Experience (DWX) is a three-day event produced by SMG/CMSWire that focuses on the strategies, tools and technologies large enterprises use to improve their processes. Discover how organizations like GE, Harvard, Google, Sony and Schneider Electric run their digital workplaces.
Featured speakers of the 2020 conference:
- Kate Matsudaira, Engineering Director at Google
- Nick Allen, Design and UX lead for GE Healthcare’s Global Service business
- Toni Vanwinkle, Senior Director of Digital Workplace Technology and Services for Adobe
- Karyn Prather, Enterprise Social Collaboration Program Manager at Kimberly-Clark
IDUG Tech Conference
Date: June 7-11, 2020
Location: Dallas, TX
Cost: $1,865-$2,295
The International Db2 Users Group (IDUG®) is the foremost independent, user-driven community that provides a direct channel to thousands of professional Db2 users across the globe. IDUG’s annual North American event brings Db2 professionals of all backgrounds together and features five days of education sessions, both half and full-day workshops, more than 100 one-hour technical sessions, and two expert panels on z/OS and LUW.
Attendees can expect to experience the latest in Db2 technologies, networking opportunities, and the technical content needed to be successful. Some of the tracks and topics covered:
- New Db2 releases: migrating and effective usage
- Analytics & Business Intelligence
- New Technologies: Mobile Applications, Cloud, XaaS
- Performance, Availability & Security
- Application Development and Data Modelling
Learn more in our Complete Guide to IDUG Db2 Events.
IFA 2020
Date: September 4-9, 2020
Location: Berlin, Germany
IFA is held in Berlin, Germany, and is the leading trade show for consumer electronics and home appliances. Known for offering an extensive overview of the international market, this six-day event attracts close to 240,000 visitors from more than 100 different countries. IFA serves as the main meeting place for key retailers, buyers, and experts from the industry, showcasing the latest products and innovations.
Previous conferences featured keynotes from global leaders such as: Jo Seong-jin, Vice Chairman & Chief Executive Officer LG Electronics; Dr. I.P. Park, President & Chief Technology Officer LG Electronics; Nick Parker, Corporate Vice President, Consumer and Device Sales, Microsoft Corporation; and Daniel Rausch, Vice President of Smart Home, Amazon.
TNW2020 (The Next Web)
Date: October 1-2, 2020
Location: Online
TNW Conference is a highly anticipated technology festival that brings together international technology executives, top-tier investors and promising startups for two days of business and knowledge sharing. Over the past 12 editions, TNW Conference has grown from a 200-person event to one of the leading technology events, bringing together 15,000 attendees a day and 3,500 companies from all over the world.
Some confirmed speakers for TNW 2020 include:
- David Cancel – CEO & Founder, Drift
- Ben Hammersley – Futurist, Wired
- Mary Gray – Senior Principal Researcher, Microsoft Research
- Mark Adams – Head of Innovation, Vice
- Purna Virji – Senior Manager of Global Engagement, Microsoft
IT Arena 2020
Date: October 2-4, 2020
Location: Lviv, Ukraine
Cost: $220-599
IT Arena is the largest tech event in Ukraine and Eastern Europe. The three-day conference, conducted exclusively in English, brings together more than 2,000 entrepreneurs, investors, developers, business analysts, and designers every year. Some of the previous speakers of IT Arena included representatives of Twitter, Uber, Facebook, Philips, Samsung, IBM, Google, and Microsoft. This conference is known for its daily after-parties, which are excellent networking opportunities.
ESPC20 Online
Date: October 14-15, 2020
Location: Online
Cost: Conference and tutorial packages available; starting at €59
ESPC20 Online offers you affordable, world-class Microsoft 365 learning at your fingertips, from wherever you are in the world. Tune in live or catch up on-demand across 100+ sessions from SharePoint, Office 365 & Azure experts including Microsoft team members, independent community leaders, RDs, MVPs & MCMs.
AWS re:Invent 2020
Date: November 30-December 4, 2020
Location: Las Vegas, NV
The largest gathering of the global cloud community returns to Las Vegas for the 9th annual AWS re:Invent. Join the global cloud computing community for an action-packed event. Last year’s event included keynote announcements, training and certification programs, over 750 technical sessions, energy hub-the partner expo, after-hours events, and more opportunities to educate, entertain, and engage with the best and brightest business and IT decision makers, hottest startups, and visionary technology leaders. Check out our Complete Guide to AWS re:Invent for more information.
