Privacy, confidentiality, safety and security: learning from the frontlines, from both good and bad experiences
Track: When Things Go Wrong: GDPR, Ethics, & Politics
Location: Windsor, 5th flr.
Day of week: Monday

Track Host: Douglas Talbot
Doug Talbot is a passionate technologist. He has worked in technology forever, from coder to VP. He is most at home leading technology groups and has lead tech in startups, science, banking, government, and retail. He has spent 15 years driving technology improvement through innovation, agility and culture. He is obsessed by organisational dysfunctions and how to create the most amazing organisations from technology teams to C-level. When not VP/CTO he leads a small independent consultancy, and has provided expertise to everyone from Science startups, to Ocado and international governments. He is an editor for InfoQ on Culture and Methods and is a thought leader and conference speaker on Agile and Organisation Dynamics. Doug is a New Zealander currently living in London and travels as much as possible to see the world the way other people see it and climb rock faces.
10:35am - 11:25am
Climate Change & Tech, Good and Bad Bedfellows
Climate Change is the current talk of tech. There are VC funds and investors talking about investments that are going to make a big impact. Big tech is shouting about it’s green credentials with big promises about going green and hitting ambitious goals. But what is actually going on? Are we actually on the right side of the debate on this one? Do we get to be on the side of “good” simply because we work in tech? Are we actually the baddies in this story? In this talk Paul will explore the impacts of climate change, what kind of impact technology companies are actually having, some strategy tools we can use, look at the changing world of business continuity and disaster recovery and show how to identify high and low impact interventions. This talk will be good for anyone grappling with how to understand issues around the environment, tech and strategy at all levels.
11:50am - 12:40pm
How We Built a Generative Culture at Redgate
Creating an environment where teams have a high sense of ownership and aren’t afraid to take risks is one of the keys to creating a fantastic Product-centric culture. This talk will introduce you Westrum model of culture and (more importantly!) we’ll share some practical steps that Redgate has taken to improve the way we build products by building a generative culture.
2:55pm - 3:45pm
Managing for Mental Wellbeing in the Tech Industry
How many employees are in your company? Multiply that number by 2,300. Now put a pound sign in front of it. That’s how much your business is losing to mental ill-health annually. Technology is the easy part, it’s the human beings behind the tech that are tricky. The pace at which the tech industry moves and the pressure to deliver, can leave staff struggling to keep up. Long hours and high levels of critical decision making take their toll. A project may be delivered today at the expense of tomorrow. There is a pressure sweet spot that can keep staff engaged at a sustainable level, optimising their performance and wellbeing. You don’t need to be a therapist to influence a person’s mental health for the better. In this session delegates will learn about the impact of mental ill-health in the workplace, how to manage mental ill-health as an employer, and how to engineer occupational psychosocial factors for optimal performance.
4:10pm - 5:00pm
When All The Things Go Wrong
What happens your tiny online game becomes one of the world's most played MMOGs and your operations budget is zero? Bad things. Many bad things. All going wrong at once. We take a look at just how bad life can get, and what we can learn, when your plan isn't reality, your team isn't a team, and your users are furious.
5:25pm - 6:15pm
DevOps Is More Complex and Harder Than You Think. Personal Lessons.
Patrick pioneered the concept and actually wrote the book on DevOps, but it hasn't all been simple even for him. DevOps is inherently complex and with some many things to consider there are many risks and things that can be missed or go wrong. Patrick lets us in on his personal lessons and stories to help you not make the same mistakes.
Last Year's Tracks
Monday, 2 March
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Next Generation Microservices: Building Distributed Systems the Right Way
Microservice-based applications are everywhere, but well-built distributed systems are not so common. Early adopters of microservices share their insights on how to design systems the right way.
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Streaming Data Architectures
Today's systems process huge volumes of continuously changing data. Hear how the innovators in this space are designing systems and leveraging modern data stream processing platforms.
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Driving Full Cycle Engineering Teams at Every Level
"Full cycle developers" is not just another catch phrase; it's about engineers taking ownership and delivering value, and doing so with the support of their entire organisation. Learn more from the pioneers.
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When Things Go Wrong: GDPR, Ethics, & Politics
Privacy, confidentiality, safety and security: learning from the frontlines, from both good and bad experiences
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JavaScript: Pushing the Client Beyond the Browser
JavaScript is not just the language of the web. Join this track to learn how the innovators are pushing the boundaries of this classic language and ecosystem
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Modern CS in the Real World
Head back to academia to solve today's problems in software engineering.
Tuesday, 3 March
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Architectures You've Always Wondered About
Hard-earned lessons from the names you know on scalability, reliability, security, and performance.
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The Future of the API: REST, gRPC, GraphQL and More
The humble web-based API is evolving. This track provides the what, how, and why of future APIs.
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Building High Performing Teams
There are many discussions outlining the secret sauce of high-performing teams. Learn how to balance the essential ingredients of high performing teams such as trust and delegation, as well as recognising the pitfalls and problems that will ruin any recipe.
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Machine Learning: The Latest Innovations
AI and machine learning is more approachable than ever. Discover how ML, deep learning, and other modern approaches are being used in practice.
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Bare Knuckle Performance
Crushing latency and getting the most out of your hardware.
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Modern Compilation Targets
Learn about the innovation happening in the compilation target space. WebAssembly is only the tip of the iceberg.
Wednesday, 4 March
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Growing Unicorns in the EU: Building, Leading and Scaling Financial Tech Start Ups
Learn how EU FinTech innovators have designed, built, and led both their technologies and organisations.
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Kubernetes and Cloud Architectures
Learn about cloud native architectural approaches from the leading industry experts who have operated Kubernetes and FaaS at scale, and explore the associated modern DevOps practices.
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Chaos and Resilience: Architecting for Success
Making systems resilient involves people and tech. Learn about strategies being used, from cognitive systems engineering to chaos engineering.
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Leading Distributed Teams
Remote and distributed working are increasing in popularity, but many organisations underestimate the leadership challenges. Learn from those who are doing this effectively.
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Scaling Security, from Device to Cloud
Implementing effective security is vitally important, regardless of where you are deploying software applications
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Evolving Java
JVM futures, JIT directions and improvements to the runtimes stack is the theme of this year’s JVM track.