The power of in-person industry events

If you've ever attended a trade show, you'll know the official agenda is only half the story. 

The meetings matter, of course. We spend weeks preparing for events, identifying companies we want to meet, conversations we want to have, and familiar faces we want to make sure we grab a coffee with. But after another busy month travelling across Europe, we're reminded that some of the most valuable moments happen completely by chance. 

This month, one of those moments started with the Stellar denim jacket. 

Our Stellar jackets have become very recognizable over the months. At an event in Stockholm, a partner spotted a member of our team across a crowded venue and came over to say hello. What started as a quick conversation turned into a fantastic dinner surrounded by ambitious founders, innovators, and technology leaders. A nice reminder that even when travelling far, we can count on crossing paths with someone we know. 

When the commercial team travels together, the journey itself becomes an extension of the office. Between flights, train rides, and long walks between conference halls, we fit in conversations about everything from customer pain points and product positioning to where we should go for our next team lunch and which new hobby each of us is attempting to pick up. 

One topic kept resurfacing throughout May. 

Many companies do not label their issues as an issue with connectivity. More often, they are trying to scale operations, monitor remote assets, improve customer service, or reduce operational complexity. Connectivity happens to sit at the center of all of those objectives, which either are enabled by internet that can be taken for granted, or blocked, because of connectivity which is simply not reliable enough. 

At events across smart cities, telecommunications, mobility, and aviation, we repeatedly met organizations struggling with unreliable coverage, fragmented provider relationships, or deployments that become increasingly difficult to manage as they scale internationally. Often, they are trying to solve operational problems while treating connectivity as an afterthought. 

One interesting example came during a lunch break at Portugal Smart Cities Summit. 

By complete coincidence, we found ourselves sitting next to a partner of an EV charging company we were scheduled to meet later that day. Before we even reached their booth, we were already discussing the opportunities and challenges of smart infrastructure at scale. 

Moments like these are why in-person events remain so valuable. 

When it comes to EV charging stations the opportunity we hear about a lot is that they want to remotely access the charging stations to support their customer if any issues arise, to maintain the devices regularly, and to keep track of their performance. For this, relying on one single network for devices that are sent throughout multiple geographies is not possible. This is where our multi-network SIM cards allow these providers to integrate one SIM solution for all their deployments. 

As a connectivity orchestration platform, Stellar enables resilient connectivity across networks by orchestrating terrestrial and satellite networks into a single continuous internet connection. Instead of relying on a single provider, organizations benefit from multi-network orchestration through aggregation and seamless switching, ensuring reliable connectivity wherever their operations take them. 

Looking back on May, the events themselves were excellent. But the conversations between meetings, over lunch, during dinner, and while wandering between booths are what we'll remember most. 

Because sometimes the most important opportunities aren't on the agenda. 

They're sitting at the next table.