Over the past few years Atlanta’s tech scene has grown at a rapid pace. There was no better place for proof of this than at RenderATL 2024.
When I’d previously attended RenderATL in 2022, there were 1,400 attendees. For a conference that began in 2019, that was a pretty big deal.
As I walked around the convention center, it was obvious that RenderATL, like the city of Atlanta, is still growing. I thought the city “is full” but I guess not.
This year almost 5,000 people were in attendance. In addition to the main stage, there were six stages graced by over 100 amazing speakers. Though I didn’t attend the workshops, there were several to choose from. The feedback I heard from those who did have a chance to go was positive.
The official #RenderATL2024 recap is here! Covering every day, every session, every speaker, partner, and entertainment act, we can confidently say this year was one for the books! With over 100+ speakers, 70+ partners, 4500+ attendees, and 5 A+ musical acts including Rotimi,… pic.twitter.com/4NSKRjtSJW
— RenderATL 2025 | June 11 - June 13, 2025 (@RenderATL) June 20, 2024
This year’s conference schedule featured an array of AI talks. Considering what we do here at Rotational Labs, this was a fantastic opportunity for me to learn what organizations truly think about AI and how other developers are working with AI tools.
How the City of Atlanta is Embracing AI
One of the first talks I attended was Leveraging AI and Technology to Solve Public Sector Challenges in the City of Atlanta. This was a panel featuring city leaders discussing how some departments have begun implementing or how the ways in which they could benefit from it.
For example, Atlanta’s 311 service now utilizes a chatbot as a way to help residents obtain 24/7 access to non-emergency services. It was also mentioned how Atlanta Department of Transportation (ATLDOT) hopes to be able to use AI help eliminate traffic fatalities.
Throughout the talk it was mentioned that Atlanta wants to become a top 5 tech hub. I strongly believe the city’s embracement of AI will help them get there.
Innovating with AI
Over the past year, we’ve seen a lot of AI hype spread across the web. At times this has led to self-deprecating talk about how close we are to the end of software engineering as we know it.
Personally, I like to take the opposite approach and focus on how AI may be used to provide assistance. A great thing about technology is that it has and continues to allow us to build innovative tools that can be of great use to others.
This is likely why Expanding Open Source in the Age of AI by Demetris Cheatham was a highlight for me. Demetris’ talk was centered on how the use of AI can lead to increased development in the open source community which could continue to help break barriers globally.
LangChainJS and AI Agents
The AI Stage was dominated by talks with examples of tools useful for building AI applications. Two that I found interesting were Building AI Applications with LangChain and Node.js by Julián Duque and The Prompt Engineer and the AI Agents in Javascript by Ron Dagdag.
I have a keen interest in machine learning libraries written in JavaScript so both talks were right down my alley. I appreciated the examples Julián and Ron displayed during their talks. They definitely helped spark some ideas that will hopefully turn into future blog posts.
RenderATL 2024 Wrap Up
My second time at RenderATL was a great success. It was a jam packed couple of days full of learning from some of the brightest minds in the tech industry. I look forward to seeing what’s in store for 2025!
Photo taken by Danielle Maxwell
