Which means any healthcare related company isn't likely to attend, since this "free hardware" is against gift restrictions relating to healthcare related businesses.
I don't see why it would be -- couldn't you characterize it as development kit? I assume it belongs to the employer not to the attendee, but that's just a company rule. I thought the rule was you couldn't pay "kickbacks", not that you couldn't receive them, and a phone is hardly a healthcare service itself anyway.