The winners of this year's Salesforce DreamForce will get VIP passes, a booth in Startup Valley and the possibility to receive investment from the Salesforce Ventures fund. Image Source: Techno Faq

DreamForce 2016 will run from October 4-7 at the Moscone Center and 14 surrounding hotels in downtown San Francisco, California. Host Salesforce.com is expecting approximately 170,000 thought leaders, industry pioneers, and tech enthusiasts from 83 countries to attend its annual tech conference.

Considered one of the largest tech events in the world, this year’s DreamForce will feature more than 2,000 speaking sessions, including keynotes, breakouts, training and certification. These sessions will touch on 30 themes.

The San Francisco Travel Association estimates that the 14th edition of DreamForce will have a $263 million economic impact in the Bay Area. However, one of the event’s main attraction will be Salesforce’s Einstein machine learning tool.

Announced last month before rival Oracle’s Adaptive Intelligent Applications, it will provide Salesforce products with artificial intelligence (AI) and predictive capabilities.

Salesforce's Einstein puts smart into CRM
Salesforce’s Einstein puts smart into CRM. Image credit: Marketing Land.

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff will almost certainly speak about Einstein. Over the past two years, Salesforce spent about $650 million in the acquisitions of AI and machine-learning startups like Metamind and RelatedIQ to help develop and enhance Einstein.

DreamForce agenda and speakers will focus on philanthropy

The first day will see investors Mark Cuban and Chris Sacca, along with music artist, entrepreneur and philanthropist will.i.am hosting Dreampitch. The trio will help Salesforce find the next three great startups built on the Salesforce App Cloud.

The winners will get Dreamforce passes, a booth in Startup Valley and the possibility to receive investment from the Salesforce Ventures fund. One of them will also enter the Salesforce Incubator Program.

Two keynotes will provide closure to the opening day. One focuses on Supercharge Productivity with Quip and the other features entrepreneur, best-selling author, and philanthropist Tony Robbins.

Day two will have keynotes about Financial Services, Community Cloud, Salesforce for Growing Small and Medium Business, Analytics Cloud, and The State of IoT Keynote. Marc Benioff will host another one with special guests in addition to a Fireside Chat with businesswoman and philanthropist Melinda Gates and co-anchor of ABC’s “Good Morning America” Robin Roberts.

To close the evening, Irish rock band U2 will headline the gala concert Dreamfest as well as a Benefit for UCSF Children’s Hospitals at the Cow Palace in Daly City.

In day three, Salesforce will host keynotes for IT, Marketing, Developers, Sales, Service, and Admins. Further themes revolve around Women and Equality, the introduction to Salesforce’s newest Commerce Cloud, and DreamForce star Einstein.

Several partner parties and social events like AppBash will follow ahead of the last day, in which DreamForce 2016 will conclude with a keynote called Day of Compassion.

DreamForce has already sold out despite expensive tickets

Dreamforce full conference passes are now sold out. Those interested in attending had until October 3 to get a Dreamforce pass for only $1,799. On-site registration for Dreamforce costs $1,999.

Free Expo+ passes have sold out, too. They granted access to select keynotes, the Dreampark and the Cloud Expo. However, sponsors and press can still register with a code.

Source: Salesforce.com