Celebrating Martech’s Next Era of Innovation

It’s a banner year in more ways than one for Acquia’s Digital Freedom Tour. Not only is it the tenth birthday of the Engage Awards, which recognize the best examples of our customers’ and partners’ work, but it’s also a celebration of the next era of innovation in marketing technology (martech).

The tour, which showcases the innovators and technologies shaping today’s digital landscape, emphasizes a core value energizing Acquia and our work: digital freedom. We believe in an open web available to all and are thrilled to welcome Haben Girma as a keynote speaker who will inspire and provoke (in the best way possible) our shared work in making digital technologies inclusive and accessible to everyone.

Growing audiences while doing good

The first deafblind person to graduate from Harvard Law School, Girma is a tireless champion of disability rights whose advocacy has been honored by President Obama, President Clinton, and others. She’ll speak to the opportunity organizations can no longer afford to ignore: the chance to do right and to expand their audiences at the same time. By prioritizing inclusive design when developing digital experiences, companies honor the principles that animate the open web and grow their user base exponentially. That’s no exaggeration: At 1.3 billion globally, people with disabilities comprise the world’s largest minority group. Improving their digital experience benefits both disabled and non-disabled users, a goal that the builders, doers, and dreamers among us help achieve with innovations that continually power the online economy.

The inescapable — and thrilling — influence of AI

Key to those advances is the technology revolutionizing the world today: artificial intelligence (AI). From digital assistants like Alexa to chatbots and self-driving cars, AI underpins the experiences that signal a new future. Marketers, developers, technologists, creative and business leaders — all can capitalize on the opportunities that AI offers in the way they do their work and the digital interactions they fashion. Keynote speaker Paul Roetzer, founder and CEO of Marketing AI Institute, will address this potential at Engage Boston — what innovations might he or Girma spark for attendees?

Drawing power from community

But Roetzer and Girma aren’t the only leaders who’ll be serving inspo at the two-day event. Representing a range of industries and sectors, speakers drawn from our network of creative, cutting-edge customers and partners — the Rhode Island School of Design, Fannie Mae, New Balance, Fidelity, Mars, Hologic, and Bounteous — will share tactics and strategies that drive results.

Those tactics and strategies will receive a closer look at workshops that focus on the technologies — open source platform Drupal, digital asset management (DAM), and customer data platforms (CDP) — critical to surviving in today’s rapidly shifting digital environment. From incorporating AI into your Drupal site to taking advantage of DAM analytics and reporting, as well as evaluating whether your organization is ready for a CDP, the workshops draw the curtain back on the platforms that ensure business goals are being met — and exceeded.

The insights that attendees will be sure to walk away with are only possible through the community of innovators Acquia has had the pleasure of seeding and growing over the years. Let’s exchange ideas, share successes (plus hard-won lessons), and embrace the opportunities that the new era of innovation in martech offers. Join us at Engage Boston!