Techfair by Connie H. '15

Techfair is here! Held right before classes start in the Spring semester, Techfair is a student run career fair that showcases some of the biggest names in technology, student designers, innovators and entrepreneurs.

It’s a day long ordeal, with the actual career fair running from 10am to 3pm and then the banquet and afterparty following in the upcoming hours. Techfair isn’t just any career fair — you dress for the job you want, which in most cases involves your favorite t-shirt and jeans, and you leave the paper resumes at home in favor of “dropping them” online at Umeqo.

I went with my friend and old roommate Anji after tucking in our salmonella…

and we were immediately greeted at the door by BarBot, “a drink mixing machine that can build a custom mixed drink with robotic efficiency and precision”. Looks incredibly useful!

Right next to Barbot was Dropbox, one of MIT’s favorite startups. Just ask Tim!

I was spotted with my camera and asked what I used to upload my photos. I said Dropbox and immediately realized that was the best answer I could’ve given.

Next, Anji and I immediately turned our free notebook radar on and fatefully encountered the guys at Codecademy, an amazing site that helps you learn to code interactively for free. We didn’t get away with the notebooks without some friendly recruiting (60% engaging material, 40% hand gestures), which Anji and I ended up enjoying thoroughly. Leng (middle) created the Javascript course that Anji and I love so dearly while Jimmy (left) works on Groups, a great way to connect with other beginning programmers from Missouri to Mexico.

We kept walking to find Fitbit to check out their new gadgets before turning around to check out what companies like Bloomberg and Intuit were up to..

and we made a brief stop at Synaptics to check out their amazing touchpad technology. This little guy is incredibly sensitive and scuttles around to center himself around your touch.

We made sure to take a look at more MIT projects, like Sifteo (an interactive game system) and FormLabs (desktop 3D printing) before going back to find more student exhibitions.

The Solar Electrical Vehicle Team was showing off their latest work across the fair from Charles Hsu, an MIT junior who decided to pick up designing and building his own violins just three years ago. Talk about craftsmanship!

Finally before we left, we couldn’t help but notice Palantir’s dominating… presence. :)

Techfair is one of my highlights of the spring semester and it was fantastic this year. It’s definitely something to look forward to :)