Update: 9/17 - check out the action! Unacast's Video Recap is live:

Yesterday, the top 80 Industry Leaders shaping the future of Proximity Marketing came together to create the First Annual ProxSummit, presented by Unacast. We’ve been working with Unacast, the largest proximity marketing platform and global network of proximity sensor companies, to host ProxSummit 2017 - an event highlighting the shift in location data usage to help people understand their connection with the world around them. If that mere concept doesn’t get you excited, the list of top industry speakers certainly will.

This was the inaugural summit bringing in innovators from the advertising and marketing field that were seeking to understand the surge in investments and interest in location-based marketing technologies. The conference advocated for transparency in this specific field, and attendees had a chance to understand the psyche behind accurately approaching innovation through a location-based lens.

Fun fact: The predicted estimate for location-targeted ad spending in 2021 will be approximately $32.4 billion. Our outlook on our day-to-day interactions with places and spaces is about to drastically change as we see growth in technology utilizing location-based data. Yet, what is the value of location-data? What are marketers prioritizing? What does the future hold for this sort of access to knowledge in terms of privacy? All these questions were open for discussion at this year's ProxSummit.

With four separate sessions dedicated to understanding the relevance of location and proximity, one of our favorites had to be “Do You Know Where Data Comes From?" moderated by Street Fight’s David Card. Jeff White (Founder & CEO of Gravy Analytics), Harry Dewhirst (President of Blis), and Brian Handly (Founder of CEO of Reveal Mobile) discussed the role of transparency around the source for data collection in accurately targeting and catering the market.

ProxSummit was held at the beautiful Midtown Loft & Terrace in downtown Manhattan, a rooftop venue overlooking the skyline. Check out some of our favorite highlights: