The fourth annual Grand Rapids Confluence Festival was held Friday and Saturday, Sept. 20 and 21, at Rosa Parks Circle. The free festival was part of the city’s Tech Week, and merges art, music, science and technology exhibits and other activities.
Confluence was originally created in 2020 by Brian Cohen, the festival’s executive director, as a positive initiative during the COVID-19 pandemic, focusing on innovation and technological overlap.
“Myself and other like-minded producers got together and said, ‘Instead of cursing the darkness, let’s look at this as an opportunity to create something new and interesting and important for the region,’” Cohen said. “Confluence grew out of that effort.”
Confluence offers a broad range of categories that cater to people of all ages– kids, students and adults. Cohen said that this is intentional, as he believes education becomes more important with age.
The festival serves as a hands-on culmination of Tech Week Grand Rapids, which offers keynote speakers, exhibits and networking opportunities for people in STEM fields.
“(Confluence) is bringing innovation and tech down to the street level,” Cohen said. “(It’s) an opportunity for folks to really experience things in person. Robots will actually be there. Advanced manufacturing will actually be there. Folks can talk to these different program partners, and see, in action, what might have been talked about in the week leading up to the event.”
This year, the festival focused on the developmental technology of artificial intelligence and featured a variety of weekend events. The event kicked off with AI-integrated musical performances on Friday, and ended on Saturday with esports and robotics expos. There was also an activity zone, the Future Innovators Zone, co-sponsored by Grand Valley State University.
The Future Innovators Zone was a hands-on area where kids of all ages could work with high-tech drones, robots, rockets and other STEAM and AI activities. Another sponsor of the activity zone, School of Rock, is an organization that offers youth music lessons and student band opportunities. School of Rock not only worked with kids in the Innovators Zone, but a group of their students performed at Friday night’s event.
“Our mission is to teach students beyond just (playing instruments in their) bedrooms, and get them playing live together,” said Jake Duvner, School of Rock’s music director and teacher.
Cohen highlighted involvement from the Grand Rapids’ collegiate community.
“We have great involvement from the collegiate community,” Cohen said. “We have programming that would be of interest to college students, esports especially, but also robotics and those seeking careers in advanced manufacturing.”
Cohen added that many current and future college students interested in tech careers can find a plethora of information and contacts at the festival, which he believes is the reason many local colleges have partnered with Confluence.
“We wanted to create an event that was for the whole community,” Cohen said. “One of the ways to really ensure that is to make sure there are no barriers to entrance.”
Looking ahead, Confluence hopes to continue hosting the free festival with the help of local sponsors. He wishes that anyone interested in broadening their technological knowledge and education will attend in the coming years.
