Lissette Mendez, a Miami Beach native who serves as the executive director of the Miami Book Fair, describes herself as a “tech optimist” – seeing the benefits that technology brings to people, especially book enthusiasts.
She said tech has provided convenient options for how people read, and credited tech with the rise in people streaming video talks with authors and with people self-publishing their work. “Ten to fifteen years ago, we didn’t have a bunch of platforms where people could self-publish,” she said, “and now there are millions of self-published books.”
“I think whether it’s through tech or a novel or anything else, creativity and the ability to communicate come first,” she said, adding when the book fair first launched, in 1984, TV and radios were the tech of that time, and over the decades, the internet and social media made their marks in people’s lives.
“We still are and will always be a festival that really revolves around storytelling,” she said of the Miami Book Fair, one of Miami’s biggest events of the year produced annually by Miami Dade College. The fair returns to Miami Dade College’s Wolfson Campus from the 15th to the 22nd of this month. She said that over the past five years, the fair’s roster of authors who’ve penned books about tech have become more of a permanent part of the annual lineup.
This year’s fair includes authors who will be speaking about their books covering AI, tech, business and economics at MDC’s AI Center.
On Saturday, November 21, attendees can listen to a talk about “Our Future with AI: Where Technology & Humanity Meet,” with author Robert Wright, who wrote The God Test: Artificial Intelligence and Our Coming Cosmic Reckoning. Tim Padgett, the Americas editor for WLRN and host of The South Florida Roundup, will be joining the discussion.
Dr. Nima Schei, the author of The Human-Agent Orchestrator, will lead a talk on how to organize work across humans and AI agents “when people need to remain in charge,” on the 21st at 1 p.m.
On November 22, at 11:30 a.m., Dr. Robert Wachter, M.D. will talk about his book, A Giant Leap: How AI is Transforming Healthcare and What That Means for Our Future, with journalist Tom Hudson.
Tech journalist David Pogue will talk about his book Apple: The First 50 Years on Sunday, November 22, at 12:45 p.m. “It’s the history of Apple, with photography and facts, and ideas that became products,” said Mendez.
Apple will offer programing for kids at the fair, showing how to use features on its products, like iPads and iPhones, to illustrate, use music features and edit videos to help kids use these tools to put their creativity to use, said Mendez.
The Children’s Alley, from the 20th to 22nd, will also feature STEM activities, science shows and workshops from the Frost Museum of Science, live music performances, author readings, art stations and other hands-on activities.
“We try and bring a lot of different kinds of things, tech included,” Mendez said of the fair, “because whether it’s Miami or anyplace else, that’s such a big part of our lives.” The always popular Street Fair will be Nov. 20-22 this year.
For ticket information, parking and other details about the fair, visit miamibookfair.com.
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