L.A. Tech Week held at the Business Technology Center in Altadena is one of the gems of tech events held in Southern California in my opinion.  Why a gem?  Well for one its held in Altadena and two it's a fresh change of scenery.  TechZulu has been attending the L.A. Tech Week event going on 2 years now.  For those past two years it was consistently a new crowd of folks that you wouldn't consider being part of the "L.A. Tech Scene".  Why is that?  Maybe it is too far of a drive for most or chances are they have never heard of Altadena, which was the case when I told a handful of people where I was going that day. One person even said "Where the milk comes from?"  Regardless of what it may be this is one event I definitely suggest you checkout next year.

There is always a solid crowd and fantastic guest speakers and panelist.  This year there was a panel whose focus was centered on the video game industry.  We found this really interesting because this year alone we have attended at least 5-7 events whose focus was purely on the video game industry.  Besides aggregation video games has been another big part of 2009.  We sat down with a few panelist from the "Game On!" panel held during the event and asked them why there has been such a huge explosion of interest within the video game industry and where they see it going in 2010.

We also took some time out to talk with NASA about some new developments they are working on. Also they have this crazy stuff called Aerogel we got to take a hands on look at.

Here is an event video we put together showcasing our interviews and Amanda in front of this massive screen they had setup.  Definitely would love to play some L4D 2 on that thing:

Music provided by AudioMicro

Interviewees:

Amir Rahimi, Senior Producer, EA Casual Studios, Electronic Arts

Chris Hewish, Head of Global Interactive, Dreamworks Animation

Kellee Santiago, Co-Founder, President, thatgamecompany

Shirin Tahmasebi, Innovative Technology Asset Management Program & Innovative Partnerships Program