Staff
Editors note: The NCIA Northeast Business Conference advertises on GMR.
Next week is the National Cannabis Industry Association’s first Northeast Cannabis Business Conference. This two-day event will be held in Boston on February 19-20 and features over 150 exhibitors and over 100 speakers.
As Massachusetts has the most advanced legal adult-use market, the Boston location is ideal for the cannabis community to meet and discuss the key topics concerning the industry. The agenda is also regionally focused to help those in the northeast corridor get more involved. Also, since this is a legal state, this expo floor will represent true buyers and sellers of products.
This conference is all-encompassing. There is a seed to sale track that is covering the topic of artificial intelligence and its role in extraction. Andy Joseph and Nick Prystash from Apeks Supercritical are going to be discussing what diminishing returns means to the operator, the black hole inside the equipment, and how continuous batch can help overcome some of the challenges faced in extraction operations today. If that isn’t your speed, consider sitting in on a panel about public consumption. Emmett Reistroffer, the Director of government relations at Lighthouse Strategies will be speaking on a panel about the newly emerging sector of the industry, centered around hospitality and entertainment; demonstrating how responsible consumption can integrate into dispensaries (tasting rooms), local coffee shops and lounges, breweries and even major music festivals, such as Northern Lights and Outside Lands.
The first day’s keynote will be about a pathway to diversity. Entrepreneur Derreck Kayongo will be telling his courageous story of survival, social entrepreneurship, and humanitarianism, and the life lessons he learned along the way. He went from being a Ugandan refugee to a successful entrepreneur, CEO, and renowned human rights activist. He was named a 2011 CNN Top Ten Hero and a 2014 TED Talks speaker. His speech is expected to be very inspiring.
Looking ahead for the rest of the year, Kate Senzamamici from BDS Analytics will be looking at how Massachusett’s first full year of legal, adult-use cannabis sales is looking and how Maine’s adult-use retail market is starting to take shape. She’ll use incorporate insights from BDS Analytics’ Retail Sales Tracking, Consumer Insights, and Industry Intelligence data to explore key cannabis industry trends for 2020, and will look to mature markets to unpack how these trends will manifest in the Northeast.
In addition to these sessions, CannaVest is the only official industry-sponsored trade association investment forum where single and multi-family offices, institutional investors, cannabis companies looking to showcase their products/services and investment funds looking to raise capital will convene. CannaVest East has created and agenda specifically with the needs of the institutional investor and sophisticated accredited investor in mind and will provide an in-depth look into the industry and show attendees how to evaluate investment returns and achieve investment returns uncorrelated with the equity markets.
Tickets are still available at https://www.mcisemi.com/necbc2020.
