Catch me if you can!
The "infamous" competition returns for ARM TechCon 2014 with 21 competitors (representatives) from the event's medalist sponsors as well as some folks from ARM vying to be the grand champion of the ARM Step Challenge. Armed with an ARM-powered FitBit (see Fitbit Flex Teardown by iFixit), each competitor's steps will be precisely tracked from 12:01 AM October 1st to the end of October 2nd and projected on a live leaderboard via ARMStepChallenge.com (note: website will be live once the expo floor opens on October 1st). Each competitor has a daily goal of 10,000 steps, but the winner of the ARM Step Challenge at 51st DAC averaged nearly 20,000 a day which equals out to be 10 miles a day! So in short, you won't see competitors taking elevators, escalators or taxis to their next engagement.
For everyone else, if you don't yet own a Fitbit, I encourage you to jump on the wearable fitness bandwagon. Besides tracking your steps, the wristband can also track calories burned and your sleep quality. Personally, it quickly made me realize how few of steps I was walking since I'm in an office majority of the day and has forced me to take a nightly run (the only way I can keep up with my wife's steps who is busy chasing two young toddlers all day).
Now let me introduce you to the competitors:
From ARM, we have Ian Drew, CMO and Executive VP Marketing and Business Development, and John Heinlein, VP Corporate Marketing
Altium: TBD
AppliedMicro: Rohit Pai, VP Business Development
Cadence: Brian Fuller, Editor-in-Chief
Cavium: Gopal Hegde, VP and GM, Data Center Processor Group
Express Logic: John Carbone, VP Marketing
Freescale: John Dixon, Director, Corporate Marketing
HP: TBD
IAR Systems: Martina Brehmer, U.S. Marketing Manager
Lauterbach: Jerry Flake, Western Sales Manager, USA
Mentor Graphics Corporation: Colin Walls, Embedded Software Technologist
Qualcomm: Adam Klein, Senior Manager, Marketing
Rambus: Frank Ferro, Senior Director, Product Management
Samsung: Kevin Low, Senior Director, Foundry Marketing
STMicroelectronics: Alec Bath, Field Applications Engineer
Synopsys: Phil Dworsky, Director, Strategic Alliances and Publisher, Synopsys Press
TSMC: Lluis Paris, Deputy Director, Worldwide IP Alliance
Xilinx: Dave Tokic, Senior Director, Partner Ecosystems and Alliances
Xively: Chad Jones, VP and Internet of Things Strategy, LogMeIn
UBM, the ARM TechCon Event Organizer, has Brian Gillooly (VP and Editor-in-Chief, Events) as their representative.
Best of luck to everyone and I look forward to seeing all the friendly banter via the community and social media (#ARMTechCon on Twitter)!