Skip to main contentJust like in kindergarten, sharing suddenly seems like the most important thing in the world. And with the possible exception of the legalization of marijuana, the new sharing economy may bring about the biggest change to the fabric of Portland in this decade.
On Thursday, April 30, at 4 pm at OMSI's Empirical Theater, TechfestNW will bring together food, drink and some of the sharing economy's brightest lights to discuss what the future will look like.
The idea behind this budding sharing
economy is simple: Everybody has a lot of resources—beds, cars, bikes, parking
spaces, spare time—that don't get used to their full potential. So instead of
letting your bike just sit around, you can rent it out to somebody else for the
week. And instead of leaving your parking space empty all day while you're at
work, you can rent that out too.
The sharing economy is a fundamentally utopian and libertarian ideal, a vast marketplace of free-flowing goods and services without the need of central regulating body: The world becomes one big haggling bazaar. (To be sure, there are some who think that calling this a "sharing" economy is a misnomer.)
Though this economy represents a bold new vision, it isn't without risk. How we manage the transition to this new paradigm is going to help define us: Allowing companies such as Lyft and Uber into Portland (as City Hall did on Tuesday night) offers a lot of opportunity, but it will most certainly disrupt the existing taxi industry, and has caused a lot of heavy questions at Portland City Hall about the role of public transportation in our city.
Among the companies assembled at next Thursday's event, you could hail a private car with your phone, board your dog with a good home, rent out your bike while you're gone, have groceries delivered to your home and rent out your parking space. They'll be joined by Portland Mayor Charlie Hales to talk about our shared future.
Among the speakers will be Aaron Easterly, a Microsoft alum now running Rover.com with matches dog boarders with dog owners.
The most controversial company is, of course, Uber, in the personage of President Obama's former campaign manager, David Plouffe, now Uber's senior vice president in charge of strategy.
Speakers:
- David Plouffe, SVP, Policy and Strategy for Uber and former campaign manager for Barack Obama
- Steve Gutmann, CEO of Stuffstr
- Aaron Easterly, CEO of Rover
- Marcelo Loureiro, CEO of Spinlister
- Sarah Mastrorocco, Business Development, Instacart
- Charlie Hales, Portland mayor
- Sohrab Vossoughi, founder of Citifyd
Go here for tickets or more info.
WWeek 2015