Hi-tech is not always about meeting deadlines and quotas (though admittedly, there’s a lot of that). Sometime it’s just about mixing business (or algorithms in our case) with pleasure: Rubbing shoulders with your peers while getting better acquainted with your company in more casual surroundings. Like a lovely hotel surrounded by beautiful grounds.
ARX’s annual company conference, which was held on February 16, was just such a day. It was a perfect balance between number crunching and leisure. During the first half of the day, department heads presented overviews about achievements in 2013 including the launching of CoSign Web App application, which enables users to sign digitally on any device, anywhere; and exciting strategies for 2014 such as expansion into new vertical and geographical markets.
After a leisurely lunch, ARX boarded a boat for Antarctica. Well, figuratively speaking. Dandan Bolotin, modern-day explorer, gave a fascinating lecture about how he reenacted the first courageous voyage of British polar explorer Ernest Shackelton to Antarctica a century ago. Photographs show Dandan and his young children eyeballing dancing baby whales and strolling among thousands of tuxedoed penguins in a penguin colony. Not to mention a blow-by-blow depiction of the albatross mating ceremony.
A video clip brought the stark beauty of Antarctica to life, with amazing glimpses of towering ice glaciers, teeming wildlife and nature in its purest, untouched form. But you’d better be warned – the Antarctica is definitely addictive. Dandan keeps on going back for more, and ARX employees are already pushing for a company trip to a location where the temperature is below zero even in the height of summer.
