An annual gathering of technology professionals called "Hawaiian Telcom University" is coming up on St. Patrick's Day. This year's theme is "The Innovation Universe," and the free event offers workshops, exhibits, networking, and both a continental breakfast and lunch.

I'm not crazy about the "university" branding, but I'll give Hawaiian Telcom credit for keeping it going for four years now. By 2013, more than 400 people attended (you can watch presentations from that year on YouTube). Last year, the theme evolved from "Connecting with Hawaii" to "Hosting a Resolution," and over 600 registrants signed up to hear a keynote address by Gary Hall of Cisco Systems.

"We’re living in a time of incredible technological innovation," reads the introduction for this year's event. "How can your business take advantage of these innovations to optimize efficiency and productivity? We invite you to gain insights from industry leaders."

The keynote speaker this year is Rodrigo Flores, Managing Director of Ireland-based Accenture, a $30 billion international tech firm. He will speak on "The Power of Cloud Driving Business Innovation." The other presentations are:

• "The Modern Workplace" by David Totten, Office 365 Solution Sales Director at Microsoft

• "Don’t Let a Breach Make You Famous" by Stephan Tallent, MSSP Director at Fortinet

• "Virtualization of Today's Network Connectivity" by Jordan Elbaum, Technology Acceleration Specialist at Avaya

• "Winning Strategy for Hybrid Cloud Environments" by Carl De Groote, VP of Architecture at Cisco

• "Making the Decision To Move To the Cloud" by Marcus Yano, COO of SystemMetrics

• "Enterprise Mobility Management" by Ben Schreiner, Global Director of Enterprise Mobility at Dell

Hawaiian Telcom University 2015 runs from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Tuesday, March 17, 2015 at the Hawaii Convention Center. Attendance is free although tickets are required. For more information, visit the Hawaiian Telcom event page.