2017: Our Favorite NJ Tech Photos Part One

The NJ tech community held hundreds of meetings. meetups, and tech talks during 2017 and NJTechWeekly.com visited many of them. We also went to numerous open houses, product launches, and ribbon cuttings. And we took photos. Lots and lots of photos. As we looked back on 2017, some of the photos stood out. We either caught panelists in the moment, or we witnessed intense networking at an event, or we were in awe of some great architecture in a building we were visiting. The photos here are not necessarily representative of the year, but they are some of the most interesting photos we took. This is part one of our photo essay.

1. January 2017

Who knew there was an abandoned factory where Nikola Tesla had a business called Tesla Electric Light and Manufacturing Company in Rahway? We visited the space for a virtual reality conference run by Lex Dreitser in January 2017. The building was just being developed. This photo depicts Samuel Mason, CEO/Founder Tesla Community Incubator Space (TCIS) and President of the Tesla Science Foundation NJ Chapter with Tarah Hadel, a member of Tesla Science Foundation NJ and TCiS. The Tesla STEAM painting was done by New Jersey artist Michael Indorato. | Esther Surden

2. February 2017

At this NJ Tech Council event, Kathleen Coviello, of the NJ EDA spread some optimistic news about funding companies in New Jersey. If you follow the national news, you see that investments are down, said Coviello. However, "I have a micro view of what is going on in New Jersey, and I can tell you that the community in New Jersey is extremely active. We [EDA] committed to two new venture funds at the end of the year [2016], the Tech Council Venture Fund and Newark Venture Partners, and that is going to put more money to work in the state of New Jersey." We like this photo because all of the participants were visibly anxious to get their points across. | Esther Surden

3. April 2017

We visited Indiegrove coworking space in Jersey City in April with members of the NJ EDA. Look at the great view behind the folks working here! Indiegrove is home to a number of tech startup companies. | Esther Surden

4. May 2017

We snapped this photo of Beatie Wolfe playing for a small group of invited guests in the Nokia Bell Labs anechoic chamber, surrounded by augmented reality illustrations that changed as the music changed. It was a fabulous experience! Since very early on in its history, Bell Labs has collaborated with artists at the intersection of tech and art or music. | Esther Surden

5. May 2017

A trip to Nokia Bell Labs in Murray Hill is always filled with wonder, and this visit in May was no exception. We were able to experience some of the work Bell Labs is doing with light paintings. | Esther Surden

6. May 2017

This is a photo of judges and investors networking and looking at posters at the May New Jersey Entrepreneurial Network Posters and Pitches event at Princeton University's Frick Chemistry Laboratory, one of many beautiful buildings on the Princeton campus. We liked this photo for how the participants were framed by the architecture. | Esther Surden

7. May 2017

We took so many photos at Propelify, the regional tech and entrepreneurship festival that happened on the Hoboken waterfront in May, that it was hard to pick just one. We chose this one, of Brooklyn 3D printing startup Arfona, winning the pitch competition to illustrate the day. | Esther Surden

8. June 2017

During 2017, there were many opportunities to take photos of drones, as this N.J. industry literally took off. Here we see a member of the Drone Users Group flying a drone at the NJ Innovative Etailer meetup in June at Kean University. The Etailer group explored the use of drones in the future for e-commerce deliveries. | Esther Surden

9. June 2017

There were many panels featuring women in tech and women tech entrepreneurs through the year. Here is a photo from the Million Women Mentors conference in June. The panel was talking about mentoring success stories. | Esther Surden