By Stacey Orlick, Director of Community and Conference Content, IWCE

If you registered for an exhibit-hall pass at IWCE 2017 but did not purchase a conference program, there are still plenty of educational opportunities—and most of them happen when the exhibit hall isn’t open.

During the afternoon of Tuesday, March 28—the day before the exhibit hall opens—hear representatives of the National Public Safety Telecommunications Council (NPSTC), the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the NG911 Now Coalition speak during our FREE Town Hall Meetings. These sessions will be conducted in Room S229, which is located in the south hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center.

At 1:30 p.m., NPSTC will provide an update on Public Safety Broadband. At 2:45 p.m., DHS’s Office of Emergency Communications will present “DHS and the Nation’s Governors Partner to Strengthen Interoperability Nationwide.” At 4:00 p.m., the DHS Science & Technology Directorate will give a presentation entitled “Connect with DHS: Help Design the Next Generation First Responder.” At 5:15 p.m., the NG911 Now Coalition of iCERT, NASNA and NENA will talk about efforts to further the cause of nationwide adoption of next-generation 911.

Before the exhibit hall opens on Wednesday, Dr. Preston Marshall—Google’s Principal Wireless Architect, Spectrum Access Technology—will present the Opening Keynote Address at 8:30 a.m.  Dr. Marshall will provide insights about deploying shared spectrum services in the 3.5 GHz Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) band. To hear Dr. Marshall talk in greater detail about the CBRS band during Thursday’s all-day workshop, “Building an Ecosystem for the CBRS Band,” upgrade your registration to a one-day Conference Pass for $519 by using code BLOG.

Immediately following Dr. Marshall’s keynote, FirstNet CEO Mike Poth will give an update on the status of the proposed nationwide public-safety broadband network from 9:15 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. At 1:15 p.m. on Wednesday, Poth and other members of the FirstNet leadership team—TJ Kennedy, Jeff Bratcher, and Richard Reed—will conduct a Town Hall Meeting at 1:15 pm on the Keynote stage. Finish off Wednesday by celebrating at IWCE’s 40^th Birthday Bash, which will begin at 5:30 p.m. in Ace’s Restaurant.

Finally, before the exhibit hall opens on Thursday morning, a panel of industry experts—Paul Steinberg, CTO of Motorola; Kirill Tatarinov, CEO of Citrix; Verizon Wireless Director Justin Blair and Morgan O’Brien of PDV Wireless–will examine the applications, devices, networks, technology and connectivity that will shape the future of critical-communications technology. Donny Jackson of IWCE’s Urgent Communications will moderate the session.

IWCE’s exhibit hall, with 380 companies showcasing communications technology products and services will be open from 10:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Wednesday and from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Thursday.

To register for a free exhibit hall pass, use code BLOG at www.iwceexpo.com/register. See you there!