Dive Brief:
- After dropping out of the Indy Big Data Conference after controversy over Indiana's Religious Freedom Restoration Act, many sponsors are returning to the event now that some changes have been made to the legislation.
- The conference started lobbying for changes in the act after it caused a wave of sponsors to pull out of the tech conference. Some wording was changed to eliminate the law's ability to supersede local ordinances banning discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation.
- Cloudera, HortonWorks, Information Builders, Platfora, EMC, Pivotal, and Isolan have all returned as sponsors now that the legislation has been changed, while two big sponsors—Amazon and Oracle—have yet to return.
Dive Insight:
Many brands feel strongly about discrimination and do not want to be perceived as supporting legislation that could be used to discriminate against certain sexual orientations. Although the Indy Big Data Conference isn't very large—it attracts about 1,000 people—it still added to the pressure on lawmakers to make revisions to the controversial law.