Agenda

There are many solutions that companies can explore in order to create more flexible work. Depending on the type of position and responsibilities, there is a flex strategy that will fit nearly every employee’s needs. During this presentation we will examine just what ‘flexible’ can mean, with a look at different work strategies, and some of the companies that employ them.

Key takeaways include:

Being a leader in 2020 means ensuring you’re able to keep up with the pace of technological change and advancement. Furthermore, today’s leaders also need to understand the impact of these technological changes in terms of soft skills adaptation and development – both for themselves and their teams! During this session, we’ll consider the impact of digital transformation on the modern leader and just what the DNA of today’s managers includes.

Key takeaways include:

• How to truly embrace a holistic approach to communication to become innately collaborative?
• The importance of unwavering commitment to achieve the right outcomes
• Becoming and industry-insider – Why this matters in forming a 360 degree view?
• The importance of continuous learning
• How to never underestimate the value of authenticity
• Assessing the power of inspirational leadership

Blockchains and related distributed ledger technologies are fast evolving technologies with huge potential to disrupt many sectors across business, government and society. The concept of a blockchain was first introduced as the technical backbone of the digital currency Bitcoin but is fast evolving into mainstream applications far beyond its initial purpose. Today, blockchain technology is showing great potential to disrupt industries including finance, healthcare, supply chain management, legal, asset ownership, and many more. During this beginner’s guide we’ll delve into both how blockchain works and its potential for business.

Key takeaways include:

• A brief history and evolution of blockchain
• Where are the industries applying it now and how?
• How will this impact your industry in 2020 and beyond?

During this presentation we’ll consider how blockchain technology is set to evolve and its applications for businesses. When most people think of blockchain, they immediately consider finance and banking as the main industries where it’s being applied, but there are in fact for more wide-ranging example, and some may well surprise you! During this presentation we will study a showcase of blockchain applications across varied sectors and industries.

Key takeaways include:

You need a web developer but does the perfect candidate really have to have an MBA, video and post-production, business development experience, product marketing skills and C#, Ruby, SQL, Java, Mad CapFlare, whiter-than-white teeth and the ability to mind read? Oh, and don’t forget the 2-15 years’ experience and a degree in English or Communications or Computer Science. Job ads and descriptions jammed with wildly divergent skills, responsibilities and requirements are an increasingly common phenomenon. If you haven’t been able to fill an open role for a long time, maybe it’s because you’re hunting for “unicorns” – the person with an exactly matching skill set doesn’t exist. During this session, we’ll assess how tech sector recruitment in 2020 needs redefining to bridge the skills shortage.

Key takeaways include:

• Getting over ‘What if I train them and then they leave’ mindsets!
• Being open to the ‘near fits’ you may have previously dismissed and re-reviewing
• Focus job descriptions around company culture, projects on offer, progression opportunities
• Ensuring your clear on what you need – Correctly scoping job descriptions with accurate skills mapping

As much as diversity is a hot topic in the world of corporate governance, and as much as board directors are in agreement about the benefits of a diverse board, it’s ironic that diversity is catching on at a snail’s pace. The lag in creating diverse boards causes some to wonder how such a prominent issue continues to be ignored. The answer to this issue lies in putting together the pieces of what the board’s duties and responsibilities are and what they need in the boardroom to make that happen. During this session we’ll consider this and more.

Key takeaways include:

• Understanding how diversity can affect the role and environment of the board?
• Making board selections based on capability of thinking and communicating diverse thoughts and opinions vs. Diversity of people!
• Leveraging board appointment to enhance corporate governance
• Assessing how creating an accurate reflection of shareholders and stakeholders at board level if a good thing!

We all know that there’s a need for more diversity in the tech sector – but what would be the impact of having more women in technical and leadership roles in the cyber security and risk side of things? Why do we see women so well represented in the field of privacy, yet so desperately lacking when it comes to areas like infsecurity - truly essential to the safe operation of any organsiation?! During this discussion we'll consider why women are so under represented, what the barriers are to their entry and how we can change this.

If spend all of your time constantly trying to avoid failure, you’re unlikely to ever take any risks that could ultimately lead to success. It’s a tricky road to navigate as a leader, but if it happens you shouldn’t see it as 100% negative.

Many great leaders we see today got there on the back of failure – sometimes often more than one failure and it made them better for the experience. During this presentation we will look at how not to fear failure and to turn it to your advantage when it happens.

Key takeaways include:

• Why failure should be embraced to shape you as a leader?
• How failure teaches resilience – A much valued quality in all leaders!
• Trial and error is the cornerstone of most new ventures, therefore accepting a degree of failure is important in pushing teams to try new things
• Honest failure can in turn improve your team’s morale!
• Adopting the tools to see failures as learning opportunities than setbacks

Pretty much every modern device and piece of machinery contains some element of code, making the ability to write code and programming exceptionally valuable today. The number of jobs for coding and programming has also grown to match this exponential coding explosion, with many people already into their careers now looking to learn to code. During this presentation we’ll review where to look to get started, how to find the best resources to fit around current role and life commitments, and how-to priories what to learn.

Key takeaways include:

• Examining the benefits of learning to code in your current role and for opening up opportunities
• Navigating language selection: Java, Python, Ruby, HTML, Javascript and more!
• How to find useful learning resources to help you learn?

Comparing programming languages is a very complex thing, and it is also somewhat influenced according to programming trends too. During this presentation we’ll consider the trends of top programming languages which will continue in 2020, with a view to helping you decide to either switch to or add additional languages to your arsenal!

Key takeaways include:

• Reviewing popular programming language trends over the last 5 years and why?
• Pinpointing the current market-leading programming languages and why?
• Assessing why Python has risen in the rankings?
• The pros and cons of current programming languages
• Understanding the programming job market: Demands and needs into 2020 and beyond

Without realising it, biases can manifest themselves into our design decisions. Considering diverse teams from the outset is so important as we create work for cross-cultural products and services targeted toward diverse, global audiences…. So how can we create systems that respond to diversity and measure the impact it will have on the end user?

Key takeaways include:

• Ensuring your design teams reflect the total audience you’re trying to attract
• Assessing how to truly test our biases – Recognising your blind spots
• Actively seeking to consciously broaden your perspectives
• How to create diverse design teams in any situation?

Here's a stat for you: 96% of illnesses are invisible. From depression to arthritis, most chronic illnesses aren't visible to the untrained eye. And, because we aren't looking for such things, we often don't see them. Of people suffering with a chronic invisible illness, 60% are between the ages of 18 - 64. Not only does this age range start surprisingly young, but it is also the typical working age range too - which means it is vital that employers cater for any needs necessary.

Key takeaways include:

• Discrimination and invisible illnesses
• How can employers accommodate invisible illnesses?
• When to disclose invisible illnesses and how to tackle this?

Sustainability needs to be on every organisation’s leadership table agenda, but should we be considering sustainability in the content of today’s diversity and inclusion agenda? Study after study has shown that people of colour face disproportionate risks from pollution, and that polluting industries are often located in the middle of their communities. This kind of research has given rise to the phrase ‘Environmental racism’ in recent times, leading to the bigger question around the role of sustainability in helping tackle some of the fundamental diversity and inclusion issues we face in 2020 and beyond!

Business culture is typically thought of as fundamentally extroverted, meaning that introverts can feel excluded, overlooked, or misunderstood. But being an introvert doesn't mean you can't be a great leader. There are examples everywhere of highly successful introvert leaders like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett! During this session we will consider how being an introvert shouldn’t put your off leadership, and in fact how you can build on your quiet strength to make it a source of great power!

Key takeaways include:

• Assessing the common challenges introverts face in the workplace: Stress, invisibility, perception gaps
• Understanding the balance and need in the business for extrovert and introverted leaders
• Examining how to communicate with extroverts?
• Tackling public speaking!
• How to become comfortable with managing up?

With the evolution and proliferation of AI, it’s important for businesses and the tech sector alike to better understand its potential for the future and where/if to invest. However, rates of adoption and tangible use cases are somewhat scattered. Between nations and within industries, there is a multitude of examples of success – and failures with current-day AI. However, as we move into 2020 we’re seeing new AI hardware and software come to the market, opening up new opportunities whilst also creating somewhat divergent futures too. During this presentation, we’ll consider the state of AI for 2020 and beyond.

Key takeaways include:

• Assessing adoption rates of AI across industries and countries
• Reviewing case studies that have worked
• Examining case studies that weren’t so successful and why?
• What lies ahead for the future of AI?

The future of AI relies on advances in the underlying machine learning technology, and an effective machine learning architecture for computing at the edge. However, before getting a pure tech conversation, we also need to consider if advancing AI and related technology systems are indeed going to enhance and empower our human capacities?

Key takeaways include:

• The ethics of AI and the importance of matching technology to human values
• AI’s capacity to make the world a better place – what examples are we already seeing today?
• AI’s capacity for make the world a worse place and why?
• Changes needed at a political economy level: Data governance regimes

When thinking about what the next 12 months might hold for businesses, it's easy to get carried away down technology-centric rabbit-holes, or new discoveries. However, businesses cannot afford to linger too long here – Instead they need to plan, anticipate and pivot to stay competitive and relevant. During this presentation we will consider what the next 2 months will hold in store for UK businesses

Key takeaways include:

• Radical disruptive innovation
• New paradigms around work/life balance
• Emerging market innovation
• Redefining business failure with a newer outcomes approach
• Redefined organisational structures around more agile working methodologies – Brexit!
• A Change in what business leadership looks like into the next decade

As we look ahead to what the next decade might hold in store for tech sector recruitment, there are some thing we can point to but ultimately still much that is unknown. During this presentation, we will seek to assess where the trans will lie in both pure tech and non-tech roles within the tech sector in the UK.

Key takeaways include:

• Overview of the major technological elements we’ll see in business: Automation, augmentation, AI, autonomous vehicles
• Understanding the impact of ageing societies
• The evolution of work: Flexible working, remote working etc
• The role of climate change
• Geopolitical factors to consider
• The increasing role of privacy and ethics!

In today’s digital business world, authenticity and ethics really count! In today’s ultra-competitive, high tech, interdependent business world, charisma without conscience and cleverness without character are a recipe for economic and personal failure of epic proportions. Competitiveness, ambition and innovation will always be important to success but they must be regulated by core ethical principles. It is to these core principles that we will focus during this presentation.

Key takeaways include:

• Ensuring honesty at the core of all you do: Communications and actions
• The importance of always maintaining personal integrity
• The value of promise-keeping and commitment fulfilment
• How to be loyal within the framework of other ethical principles?
• Why leaders must be accountable to uphold reputation and morale?

In today’s digital business world, authenticity and ethics really count! In today’s ultra-competitive, high tech, interdependent business world, charisma without conscience and cleverness without character are a recipe for economic and personal failure of epic proportions. Competitiveness, ambition and innovation will always be important to success but they must be regulated by core ethical principles. It is to these core principles that we will focus during this presentation.

Key takeaways include:

• Ensuring honesty at the core of all you do: Communications and actions
• The importance of always maintaining personal integrity
• The value of promise-keeping and commitment fulfilment
• How to be loyal within the framework of other ethical principles?
• Why leaders must be accountable to uphold reputation and morale?

During this presentation we’ll consider how to secure Web applications from the threats posed by hackers and a multitude of forms of malicious attack. We’ll consider how best to equip yourself with a security toolkit that will help you ensure that your applications are safe and secure.

Key takeaways include:

Can flexible working arrangements benefit both employers and employees? And, what are the barriers preventing our workplaces from adopting these practices on a much wider scale in 2020? During this presentation we seek to look beyond the obvious work/life benefits of flexible working and consider the wider advantages to business of adopting more flexible working conditions.

Key takeaways include:

• Improving work/life balance for improved productivity
• Reducing absenteeism through new approaches to ‘presence’
• Enhancing employee engagement and loyalty via broadened benefits offerings
• Bridging the skills shortage by improved attractiveness to candidates
• Improving staff retention of experienced and skilled staff
• Financial gains – how improved flexibility can negate the need for increased salaries

You've got several years of experience under your belt, you've put in your fair share of time, sweat, and tears, and by your calculations, it’s your turn to move up into a leadership position. So how to put yourself in the spotlight for those within your business that can help you move up – at any pre-existing level? During this presentation we will look at the top tips and tricks to helping you move up further in your career.

Key takeaways include:

• Understanding from the off who it is that has the power to promote you?
• Understanding how to show yourself to be an effective problem solver?
• Ceasing upon smaller management opportunities that might present themselves
• The importance of knowing your industry/company and being able to demonstrate it!
• Revisiting your work ethic and ensuring your acting professional
• Examining the importance of creating a personal brand!

Digital business transformation is happening on a scale and at a speed that managers find both threatening and promising. It is therefore crucial for any modern-day leader to understand where their organisation is on their digitalisation journey, how to navigate change and therefore realises your company’s digital transformation plan’s full potential!

Key takeaways include:

• Understanding the broad spectrum of current technological innovation: Analytics tools and applications, mobile tools and applications, social media and non-proprietary platforms for improved digital sharing
• Looking beyond the tech – understanding organisational change and its impacts as a leader
• Understanding how in the context of digital transformation to cascade information as a business leader?
• Finding the balance between new and established areas of the business able to leverage digital tools and technologies

Tech companies regularly promote sustainability. Some develop energy-efficient products made of renewable materials. Some incorporate sustainable practices into their business operations. And some go as far as encouraging consumers, employees and other firms to embrace sustainability. Sustainability is a good investment for a business in terms of business continuity, and during this presentation we will review how technology is specifically being used to promote sustainability through best practice case studies.

Key takeaways include:

• Cross-industry examples of tech for good in action
• Where are the biggest opportunities for sustainable tech?
• What is the market for sustainable tech?
• How to implement sustainable tech in your business?

There is a fast-growing demand to create experiences that keep your customers coming back – Step up personalisation tools to help test, target and optimise, but at a more advanced level businesses are now considering implementing personalisation engines, allowing them to experiment across all customer channels with greater analytics and insights powered by machine learning. During this presentation, we’ll take a look at best use case studies of personalisation engines in action, to help you make an informed choice!

Key takeaways include:

• Assessing how businesses are currently succeeding with personalisation?
• Assessing AI-powered personalisation engines and what is currently available on the market?

In the past, most people got ahead only by competing with their peers, however, the modern workforce now only progresses if people can work together – and work together well. This means that instead of getting ahead, professionals are getting together! Today, many professionals expect their company to have policies in place that include mentoring, teaching new skills, and the opportunity to participate in multiple roles within their organisation. But in where are we in terms of the 2020 meaning of collaborative working?

Key takeaways include:

• What does collaboration look like in team environments?
• An overview of the collaboration tooling landscape
• How to foster collaborative cultures and understanding what this sort of culture actually comprises?

The development of automation enabled by technologies including robotics and AI brings the promise of higher productivity (and with productivity, economic growth), increased efficiencies, safety, and convenience. But these technologies also raise difficult questions about the broader impact of automation on jobs, skills, wages, and the nature of work itself. That is why we will be taking a ‘state of the nation’, in terms of the UK tech sector job, opportunities and areas for growth into 2020 and beyond.

Key takeaways include:

• Assessing the state of underemployment and unemployment within the broader tech sector
• The state of tech sector salaries in 2020: Pure tech and non-tech roles
• Skills, jobs and locations: Limitations on opportunities in the tech sector
• Brexit: Forecasting and preparing for impact
• The impacts of automation on work

We often hear said to us, “just be yourself”- but in a work environment is that ever truly possible? Further, is it wise to “just be yourself” in an increasingly competitive and hard-fought industry such as the tech industry? It sounds like an amazing thing to do, but what does it really mean? What if someone is a rude to other people? Is it okay for them to just be themselves and go on being rude to everyone? How about people who are fearful of being around others, or those more introverted/extroverted? What if being yourself doesn’t fit with that company’s corporate culture? It’s time to examine what’s possible, what’s advisable and where the truth ultimately lies.

Middle leadership can be either transformational in your career or for some, where they top-out. So how can you create impact and awareness from a middle (or indeed any level) leadership position? During this presentation we will assess the tools and techniques to help you succeed both at middle management level and beyond.

Key takeaways include:

• Mastering the art of negotiation
• Feeling empowered to handle any and all difficult conversations
• Pinpointing how to identify toxicity in your team(s) and tackle it!
• Implementing effective change – Beyond the rhetoric!

Although not a new concept by any means, it seems many businesses are still deep into their personal tech legacy migrations, making cloud a hot topic for us to discuss in 2020! But just exactly who is doing what with cloud in 2020? What experiences have businesses had and are there any common pitfalls we should all watch out for – irrelevant of industry – when considering legacy migration, especially for those on the journey to 100% cloud migration!? During this presentation we’ll consider the state of cloud in 2020, look at adoption methods and benefits being reaped (as well as the war stories!).

Key takeaways include:

• Cloud adoption trends into 2020: Industries, geographies and everything in-between
• What are the common obstacles most organisations have to jump over during migration?
• What are people migrating and why?
• What’s next for cloud?

During research for the global Women in tech portfolio in 2020, cloud was without doubt the hottest tech subject in town! During this presentation we will look at the pragmatic side of cloud, from the point of view of those involved in day-to-day migration, assessing the cloud tooling landscape for 2020 and strategies that are most effective.

Key takeaways include:

• The state of the cloud tooling nation 2020: Who, what, why and where?
• Assessing total cost of ownership from what we’ve learnt from migrations to date
• What types of cloud migration are people undertaking and why?
• What’s the best routes from point A to B with cloud: Industry examples

Are you struggling to understand the meaning of the masses of data your business generates? Very often working out how to extract meaningful data from complex legacy management information systems can be challenging. You may find you don’t know who owns the data, let alone have agreement on how they want to measure performance. The value in data is its potential to generate insights that lead to better business. During this presentation we’ll look beyond the vendor tooling hype and assess real-world examples of how people have genuinely harnessed their data for insightful business reporting.

Key takeaways include:

• Understanding haw to prep the business to generate productive analytic outcomes
• Broaching how to tackle data creep into one single view
• Examining how to design-in flexibility for potential future demands

The last five years have witnessed a dramatic increase in the competition for attention. You must be able to develop a clear message that is relevant, and audience focused. This presentation will assess how to develop specific strategies to strengthen your personal brand in a manner that will distinguish you from your competitors.

Key takeaways include:

• How to create and manage your online presence (on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook)?
• How to listen to understand?
• Conflict styles
• Persuasion strategies

By taking responsibility for your own leadership critical thinking processes, you are taking action to analyse and adapt your approach to decision-making and problem-solving. You put yourself - and your company - in a much stronger position to lead and succeed. Critical thinking enables leaders at every level to understand the impact of their decisions on the business as a whole and ensures both alignment with organisational goals and accountability for results.

Key takeaways include:

• Thinking drives behaviour; behaviour drives results!
• What does critical thinking actually look like?
• Embracing discovery learning
• How to seek feedback on your critical thinking skills?

Automation, and specifically robotic process automation (RPA), has come a long way in the last year, from an organisational understanding point of view. RPA has demonstrated just how possible automation is, and its capacity to drive significant organisational gains. In addition, the desktop monitoring and reporting tools have matured significantly in recent times, leading to RPA increasingly being implemented for more customer experience operations than just purely transactional volume type tasks. During this presentation we’ll review the current day application of RPA and where significant gains are being seen?

Key takeaways include:

• Assessing adoption rates of RPA across verticals
• Understanding how RPA is being implemented and what gains are being seen to businesses?
• Evaluating the potential for RPA over the next 5 years?

Software Testing and Quality Assurance has today evolved from being an activity at the end of the development cycle to a strategy that will decide the fate of the application/software. With the need for digital transformation, software testing has taken a new spin. Today, organisations are increasingly considering approaches such as DevOps and Agile, which encourage collaboration between development teams and testing teams. During this presentation we will assess how to position yourself and your testing environments, with the top software testing trends for 2020.

Key takeaways include:

• Testing big data for effective decision-making
• Testing the DevOps way
• Digital testing for digital transformation
• Performance testing for performance engineering

Promoting mental health and wellbeing in the workplace is important for employees, their employers, society and the economy. This is because poor mental health impacts individuals' overall health, their ability to work productively (if at all), their relationships with others, and societal costs related to unemployment, poor workplace productivity and health and social care. Governments have given increasing recognition to the importance of workplace mental health, as have forward-looking employers who are creating strategies around workplace mental wellbeing. During this presentation we will take a look at some of these forward-looking employers, to see what works and what doesn’t.

Key takeaways include:

• What does a robust workplace mental wellbeing strategy look like?
• How to garner buy-in?
• What benefits have people seen (including the beyond the obvious!)?
• How to take stock and monitor a company’s performance?
• Understanding how to evaluate and properly communicate successes

Learning in the workplace begins from the moment a job starts and should remain consistent throughout the employee’s time with the company. This includes everything from how the organisation operates, to immersing oneself within the latest trends and researching new ideas. Unfortunately, for many companies continuous learning can often take a back seat due to increasing workloads and managerial or organisational shifts. Obviously, employees have to want to learn, but it is also the responsibility of management teams to encourage ambition and development in the workplace. Despite how challenging this may seem, placing an emphasis on the progression of your employees will pay dividends for your organisation in the long run!

Key takeaways include:

• Understanding how to create a habit of continuous learning within your organisation?
• Assessing employer expectations on their employees for levels of continuous learning
• Educating the business to the benefits (beyond the obvious) of supporting employees continuous learning

Due to rising pressure to appear egalitarian, subtle discrimination pervades today's workplace. Although its ambiguous nature may make it seem innocuous on the surface, an abundance of empirical evidence suggests subtle discrimination undermines employee and organisational functioning, perhaps even more so than its overt counterpart. So what are micro-aggressions and micro-discriminations exactly, and how do we start disrupting biases by the asking of simple, but often uncomfortable questions?