By Fred Tannenbaum, Gould & Ratner, Chicago USAThe Americas Region has consistently hosted an annual conference since 2009.  Chicago is proud to host its third regional conference on July 26 and 27, 2018.The event promises to be spectacular. We have enticed several fascinating speakers to present to us. These include clients who have founded a world class private equity fund (speaking about how family offices are a major contributor to private equity), a serial entrepreneur will discuss his new venture which links law firms and lawyers on an assignment by assignment basis and possibly disintermediates the way legal services are discharged in the future, and finally a leading speaker on empowerment and engagement explains how to build world class organizations. One of our colleagues will also share his expertise on cryptocurrency and review the unfolding legal issues and structure of this fledgling industry. Ample time will be available for sharing ideas on LEI business, improving the meetings, organization and preparing for the future.One additional unique feature of this conference will be its coinciding with Gould & Ratner’s hosting of Barracuda Boardroom. This has been a very successful event attracting 75-100 investors, deal people, bankers, entrepreneurs and others. We will present three early stage Chicago based technology companies (one is a 24/7 pet help line, one reducing latency in video streaming from an average of 2 seconds to 30 milliseconds, and the third has created a novel system to allow gamers to actual compete against each other physically (and not through a game console) using VR.You do not have to be from the Americas to join us at the Americas conference or at Barracuda Boardroom or both!  Please join us.