The question is whether the last two to three years, during which places like San Francisco, New York and Boston have enjoyed stronger STEM growth than their peripheries, represents a paradigm shift or is just a cyclical phenomenon.
It signaled, perhaps, a slight shift away from the days of huge companies dominating the event's headlines -- a phenomenon helped along by the recent attention-grabbing successes of a number of crowdfunded projects, many of which were present at the show.