Monday 05.15 pm – 06.00 pm

What Separates Successful, Real Digital Projects From ‘Digital Theatre’?
Carlo Pacifico and Ken Gavranovic, New Relic

According to IDC “by 2021, at least 50% of global GDP will be digitized”. In times of hyped buzzwords, it seems everyone is working on ‘digital’ initiatives. But what is ‘Digital Business’? How do you define it? Why should you care? An idea & will to succeed is only the beginning, in reality it is very hard to master it. What are the roadblocks preventing companies – especially those with existing culture, tech stack & organisations – from operating fast, innovative, cost effective & customer focused?

In this session we will provide actionable advice covering all of the above-mentioned challenges.

Tuesday 11.00 am – 12.00 pm

Open Bionics: Turning Children With Limb Differences into Bionic Superheroes
Samantha Payne, Open Bionics

Open Bionics is a robotics company developing affordable, assistive technologies that enhance the human body. Open Bionics has spent the past four years working with upper-limb amputees to create an affordable multi-grip bionic hand. Together with Disney, Open Bionics has created 3D printed multi-grip bionic hands in the style of superheroes from the worlds of science fiction, turning a disability into a superpower.

Tuesday 03.00 pm – 03.45 pm

20+ Years of Tools Development - and Still Loving It...
Erich Gamma, Microsoft

Having spent over twenty years on developer tools I was convinced that Eclipse is the last development tool I work on. I was wrong… The story continued seven years ago as an experiment to see what is possible when it comes to developing in the browser using modern JavaScript, HTML, and CSS. Seven years later Visual Studio Code is a popular code editor that is extensible with lots of extensions, is open source, runs cross platform, and supports many languages. It is fascinating to see how many things have changed since working on Eclipse. It was a fun and interesting journey, where we sometimes have gone full circle. In this talk I look back on this journey, describe the design and technology decisions, the pivots, the circles, and what we learnt along the way. Finally, I look forward where we want to go from here.

Wednesday 12.00 pm – 12.45 pm

Quantum Computing – a Revolution of Information Technology
Florian Neukart, Volkswagen Group

With the computers we use today, some of the most important problems will never be solved, among these simulated chemistry, drug discovery, transportation, and artificial intelligence. Practical quantum computers herald a new era in information technology, and it’s happening right now. Wedevelopers must be aware of it, understand why and when quantum computers are more powerful than classical computers, and develop knowledge about architectures, algorithms, and programming languages. It’s an exciting field, of which it is clear that despite the progress made, many hurdles still have to be taken. The audience will understand the potential of near-term quantum computers and learn about their strengths and weaknesses in the most practical way.

Wednesday 03.45 pm – 04.30 pm

Evolutionary Architecture and Governance: What's the Future Like?
Rebecca J. Parsons, ThoughtWorks, Inc.

The techniques of evolutionary architecture provide a mechanism for automating many of the governance activities performed by Enterprise Architects, and not just at the scale of static code analysis. This talk describes some of these approaches and the tools used, including discussions around communicating standards and handling exceptions. We then examine what governance can look like as techniques in AI and ML continue to advance.