Agenda

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 realise 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

Over the last few years, most discussions about the next year’s digital transformation trends had begun to feel a little repetitive: Cloud, Edge, IoT, AR… however, many predict that 2020 will be a departure from the old tech radar. While the same core technologies that dominated previous forecasts will continue to be foundational to general digital transformation, 2020 will be defined by a fresh new class of technologies ready to graduate from the side lines to centre stage. Among them: 5G, AI, advanced data analytics, but also some that may surprise you! During this presentation, we’ll consider what the most significant 2020 tech trends are likely to be.

Key takeaways include:

• Explore the progress of Wi-Fi 6 (alongside 5G): Processing and connection speeds
• Understand how analytics will be the business differentiator: Creating insights from customer data
• Learn the next phases of AI and machine learning: Powering the data analytics engine

With business technology rapidly advancing, companies large and small all stand to gain a competitive advantage if they can stay ahead and current on the IT trends all aimed at driving business efficiencies. With so many IT trends around, how do you sort out the strong from the weak to consider where you should be investing as a business for the future? Emerging tech adoption has always varied greatly industry to industry, and during this presentation we will assess industry-to-industry, trend to trend where people are adopting and who the early adopters are.

Key takeaways include:

• Review the adoption of tech trends across the industries
• What are the key technologies to watch: Gigabit Wi-Fi, IT automation technology, AI, Quantum, Edge, Serverless computing, containers, VR/AR, containers
• Understanding the importance of not forgetting adaptive security alongside all new technology roll-outs: Emerging security 2020

Presentation details coming soon...

When you think of jobs in tech, you might imagine a developer, engineer or data cruncher. Companies aren’t just hiring technical people though, they’re also hiring for non-technical roles. Glassdoor actually found that 43% of roles advertised by tech companies were non-technical. Whether in a ‘tech or non-tech role’, this is your opportunity to join the digital revolution. Fact is: women are underrepresented in the technology sector. Only 17% of those working in technology in the UK are female. With the Fourth Industrial Revolution disrupting almost every industry and sector as we know it, this is your future investment in your career. This presentation will explore taking the leap in to becoming a woman in tech through non-tech routes.

Key takeaways include:

• How to sell your non-STEM skillset to a tech company
• How to step outside your comfort zone and join the likes of Google, Salesforce and Co
• How to communicate with 'the other side'
• How to sell the value of marketing and commercialising technology
• How to be taken seriously as a non-techy in a techy world

Like any career, being a founder requires some specific skills and the right preparation is therefore essential! During this presentation, we’ll hear from people that have already made the leap to becoming founders, and the advice and guidance that they would give to aspiring founders.

Key takeaways include:

• How to create a founder network to source experience through an internship or work experience
• Steps to finding yourself a mentor or maybe even two
• How to take advantage of either free or taught classes on entrepreneurship

For those women who do break into the technology field, a startlingly low retention rate is evident. In the tech industry, the quit rate is more than twice as high for women as it is for men. But what exactly is attributing to their decision to move on? What can businesses do to support women and encourage them to fulfil their whole careers in the industry?

It's time to turn this whole topic upside down. During this presentation, we will share why empowering women today requires educating leaders to become 'gender bilingual'. You will find out why it's time to stop decades of well-meaning but ineffective Fix-the-Women programs and understand why the focus should be on adapting leaders, cultures and systems to 21st-century talent and market realities.

Key takeaways include:

• Why gender balance?
• What is going on? A deep dive into why gender balances are seemingly so hard to shift.
• How to gender balance?

Often, progression in an engineering role means moving into line managing people. However, this is not for everyone nor is it the only available option. In this talk we'll look at several choices for progression, and explore what the day to day of each of those looks like. We'll also discuss the hurdles and challenges that you may face in undertaking this personal growth, such as dealing with imposter syndrome or measuring your impact now that you're not writing so much code.

Key takeaways include:

• Understanding of what career options there are available beyond Senior Engineer
• Learn what kind of responsibilities and expectations are required of those options
• Hear some practical tips for self development and lessons learned from this journey

Digital technology permeates every aspect of our daily lives – more people, more connectivity equals more data. This coupled with an exponential rise in data breaches and rules-based algorithms, has eroded trust. In this presentation I am going to explore the concept of ‘trust-by-design’ and the imperative to operate with empathy and ethics to protect brand reputation.’

Key takeways include:

• How to build trust
• How to maintain trust when it all goes wrong
• How to rebuild trust once it’s lost

The scary part of AI isn't the robots; it's the people. During this insightful talk, Claire will deconstruct AI and explore it through the lens of human psychology.

Looking at how AI could be one of the greatest tools humankind has ever had access to, and how you can take advantage of this.

Key takeaways include:

• A greater understanding of what AI is
• How to make it work for you
• Why we are at a technological inflexion point right now with AI and what this means for you

Pretty much every modern device and 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 your current commitments and keep a healthy work/life balance, and how to support yourself while you learn.

Key takeaways include:

• Knowing where to start - how to pick your way through the fast paced and ever changing language maze.
• Having the right mindset - what to expect and how to get a support network while you learn.
• Finding the right resources - There’s a variety of ways to learn, find out what mix of resources suits you.

This practical session will explore what it really means to go about designing and implementing foundational services. Microservices give you a way to modernise or retire legacy systems and give you the scalable, flexible technology foundation for rapid digital transformation. This session will help guide you with top tips from the business perspective such as starting from the outside in, future proofing, keeping it simple and how to guard against simply rebuilding the legacy systems all over again.

Key takeways include:

• How to go about shaping a foundational microservices strategy and ecosystem
• How to use microservices to strangle and ultimately retire old legacy systems
• Defining a microservices MVP that delivers early business value and gets everyone on board

Leaders of tomorrow will be those who act as inspiring coaches rather than traditional managers. This interactive session introduces key coaching skills and techniques that will enable you to have better conversations with your colleagues, increasing your ability to collaborate and lead others (suitable for beginners).

Key takeaways include:

• Knowledge of key coaching concepts and approaches
• Practical techniques for active listening and effective questioning
• How to use coaching in collaborating and leading others

This workshop is targeted at participants of the conference who are looking to raise funds for a new or existing business. Many tech companies will need to raise seed capital to support their operations and a major way to do that is through venture capital funding. This workshop will equip women with business knowledge on how to raise funds for their startups. Raising capital from investors can be very challenging and time-consuming. A bad pitch can cost you missing out on funding. Therefore, it is crucial to equip ourselves with the necessary skills to deliver a good pitch that tells a compelling story of the business and the team. The format of this workshop will be a 30 minutes presentation on creating an elevator pitch and what a pitch deck consists of. Participants will create their elevator pitch in 10 minutes, then 5 of them will present a 1-minute elevator pitch each and receive feedback.

Key takeways include:

• Script an elevator pitch to create a first impression especially during networking sessions.
• Know the different types of investors and how to tailor their pitch decks to suite them.
• Build a pitch deck as an exciting and compelling story to present to investors.

Cybersecurity is a CEO-level issue. The risks of cyberattacks span functions and business units, companies and customers. Given the stakes and the challenging decisions posed by becoming cyber-resilient, making the decisions necessary can only be achieved with active engagement from the CEO and other members of the wider management team. How can you as a business leader achieve 100% visibility of your entire business including cloud, network and IoT environments and make them secure?

Key takeaways include:

• Why every manager should ensure that they are actively engaging in strategic decision making
• How to incorporate security into product, customer, location decisions, human-resources and procurement decisions
• Understanding your role as a leader in pushing through user behaviour change

Current-state AI is playing and eve-increasing role in our personal and professional lives, in fact you may not even realise just how much AI and machine learning you already have present in your day-to-day. From developing chatbots utilised by marketing and sales departments, to natural language processing designed to help machines like Siri and Alexa. So, what exactly is AI, how does it relate to machine learning and even more specifically: Why should you care? During this presentation, we will take a look at the basics of AI and machine learning to help you in your role when you go back to the office.

Key takeaways include:

• As a subfield of AI, just how does machine learning work and where did it come from: Supervised/Unsupervised learning and reinforcement learning
• Who is using machine learning in their products and services today: Google, Uber, Lyft, Spotify, Amazon ….
• Examining where deep learning comes into the mix and what deep learning actually means

AI is often spoken about in future-tense, and true AI is still a future-aspiration for the tech sector, however despite its infancy there are several examples and applications of current-state AI in use today. The current AI-market is very much anchored around advanced machine learning software utilising adaptive behavioural algorithms. During this presentation we will assess some of the most popular examples of Ai usage in 2020.

Key takeaways include:

• Review AI’s growth through voice-enabled technologies: Siri, Alexa
• Discover the disruption of retail: Amazon and transactional AI
• How media is being revolutionised through OTT TV: Netflix and predictive technology

How do you build businesses that adequately reflect what the people need? The customer, user or patient is more empowered, knowledgable and involved than ever before, and this session will highlight what tech companies can do to democratise their business models.

Key takeaways include:

• Hear about the latest developments that are making business more user centric
• Learn which industries are leading the way in terms of business democratisation
• Explore success stories and how they made it work for them

Responsible businesses require new corporate mindsets. An integrated sustainability strategy can help you stand out as a business, as well as being the right thing to do! However, when it comes to going green, there’s talk and then there’s action. During this session, we will consider the benefits to adopting a truly embedded sustainability strategy and what this should look like to capitalise on the benefits to your business.

Key takeaways include:

• Reviewing how sustainability could potentially open the door to new markets for your organisation
• Assessing where a robust sustainability strategy can positively impact on operational costs to the business
• Understanding how sustainability can help you stand out and make your business more attractive to top talent

If you’re already working in the pure tech side of things – whether you’re still under 5 years into your career, or 15 years down the line it’s important to have clarity in this rapidly evolving workplace landscape on where your options lie. During this presentation, we will review the options from those in pure tech at any age – be that to pure tech leadership or options outside of pure tech and how to make the transition.

Key takeaways include:

• Understanding your strengths and weaknesses to make informed choices
• Understanding what the current tech sector looks like and just what roles are companies currently looking for
• Where pure tech roles heading in the next 10 years

Do you think you’re sitting on the next great idea, but not sure how to bring this plan to fruition? Taking the leap to setting up a start up is no small undertaking – in fact it’s downright risky! In the UK for example, 20% of businesses fail within the first year, 50% within three years. Which makes you wonder why the hell anyone would embark on the intrepid path of entrepreneurship. However, one thing remains true, if you have a great idea there’s nothing to be from sitting on it and delaying, so just how do you make the leap and see it through to fruition?

Key takeaways include:

• Starting with the idea: How to reverse engineer it
• Learn sucessful road mapping techniques
• Tips to make sure your business plan is SPECIFIC

Nowadays, organisations are actively seeking to diversify their workforce, not only because of the impact of demographic changes and globalisation, but also because of the proven benefits diversity can bring. Research has shown that increasing diversity in organisations and the workplace is not only a matter of social justice. It suggests that including diverse voices and experiences makes groups more knowledgeable, sensitive, efficient, creative, and successful.

Key takeaways include:

• The more diversity you have, the more diverse candidates you are likely to attract
• Goals to be achieved related to diversity and inclusion
• Understanding the impact of unconscious bias in candidate selection
• Why you must stop looking for the ‘best fit’

We'd like to share the top tips on why you should consider a technical career and how you can go about making a start. The tech industry is so diverse that there is a job for almost anyone under this umbrella.

Key takeaways include:

• Understand what resources are available
• How to ensure you are connecting with the right people
• How to set expectations and deadlines for your goals

Can 'business' really solve social problems, I hear you ask. This session will bring to light the social issues we are facing in the world, and most importantly getting to the root of why we cannot make large-scale impact on major social problems.

Key takeaways include:

• Why we do not have enough resources
• Why business is not the problem of social issues
• How to combat social issues as an enterprise

The present and future challenges of human development, sets on the table challenges such as autonomous driving cars. To successfully enter this domain, companies and research centers are unifying forces in order to accomplish the creation of a high quality series product which can be sold worldwide. During this presentation, we will dive into the technical implications of such challenges while looking at a real example of a problem in this domain.

Key takeaways include:

• Addressing the challenges in designing fail-operational architectures for autonomous driving platforms
• Addressing the challenges of merging the software with the automotive community
• Imagining the implications of a full introduction of a self driving car

A data-driven leader recognises that data connects, drives accountability, and can be quantified. Data allows us to measure our focus. In this digital world, it may be the only way to truly know your customer, your product, and your market, making it imperative for all current and would be leaders to understand what it takes to be a truly data-driven leader.

Key takeways include:

• How to quantitatively assess what your organisation is trying to achieve, to create metrics that allow you to make informed decisions
• Understanding the importance of fully instrumented business processes
• Pinpointing exactly how your business needs to store its data

In this session, we’ll cover what the Migration and Modernisation triggers are for moving to the cloud. Once you’ve established your triggers, we will cover the five Migration options for Migrating Applications to the Cloud, which will build your transformational journey for rearchitecting applications (including modernisation with containers and Serverless).

Key takeaways include:

• Where to start – Assessing your application environment
• What are your options for migration and modernisation
• Building your transformational journey whilst considering lessons learnt

During research for the global the Women in Tech World Series 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:

• Discover 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

The prospect of the UK leaving the EU raises a number of questions for employers and employees. Even if the detailed implications of Brexit still remain unclear, employers are keen to ensure that employees are as informed and engaged as possible during this period of uncertainty. It is already clear that, in some sectors, Brexit has prompted concerns over future labour supply.

For employers facing uncertainty, this means putting resources and thinking into workforce planning, a process which has previously suffered from the mistaken belief that it holds no value in uncertain times. The UK's departure from the EU may have employment law consequences for UK employers too, as the precise terms of Brexit become clearer. During this presentation, we will consider the impacts of Brexit to the creation of neurodiverse workforces.

Key takeaways include:

• Assessing the potential impact of Brexit on labour supply and neurodiversity in the workplace
• Evaluating employment law for UK employers and the right to work in the UK
• Understanding how to tackle employee engagement during uncertain times

It’s easy to just think of career advancement as a straight line. But increasingly many people are taking a different approach and look at more lateral moves as well. Why? Skilling sideways or making a lateral move can be very beneficial in arriving at your ultimate goal. It offers the opportunity to learn new skills, increase your visibility and could ultimately prepare you for the promotion you are looking for. During this presentation, we will consider the pros and cons of moving in parallel and where to focus in skilling sideways?

Key takeaways include:

• Understanding how a lateral move is proactive career management
• Assess how best to leverage a lateral move to increase your visibility and build your brand in your organisation
• Exploring how to leverage lateral moves to improve yourself awareness

According to a report earlier this year, only 15% of tech workers said their current organisation has disclosed its pay gap measurement, indicating still the lack of transparency.

Pay gaps span gender, disability, ethnicity and more but why in 2020 does this specific topic seems still to have not moved on? During this Elephant in the Room session we’ll discuss how to be aware personally if you’re being paid fairly. In addition, we’ll also consider the role of quotas and unconscious bias in the overall pay gaps conversation.

What do men really think about the challenges facing women and why? How does corporate culture influence the dynamic for men who want to help? What prevents many men from taking action?

This panel session will hear from industry male leaders about the issue of gender diversity in the technology industry.

Key takeaways include:

• A step-by-step process to establish a male allies initiative.
• Practical tips that all male allies can use to actively support women in the workplace.
• Advice for women on how to engage and support male allies.

Being able to communicate with the “other side” is one of the most valuable skillsets you can bring to the table. With a little empathy from both sides, we can bridge the divide. And we want to, because the rewards are unquestionably worth it. During this session, I will share why an engineer, who is a good communicator, is perceived as better than an engineer with more technical skills but poorer communication skills. Likewise, a non-technical person who can “speak developer” is perceived as more valuable, because engineers are more likely to get stuff done for them.

Key takeaways include:

• How to deal with common misconception
• Examples of different situations call for difference means of communication
• How to familiarise yourself with the vocabulary and understand the 'lingo.'

When machine learning is based on an input of data, who is responsible for the results, and what does that mean? Exploring the ethical questions machine learning is bringing to the forefront.

Key takeaways include:

• Assess the interpretability of algorithm behaviour, and who is responsible for discrimination and bias learned from human data
• Hear examples from real world applications and how ownership, risk and responsibility has been managed
• Understand how ethical questions are being addressed, including post processing, data resampling and causal reasoning

Selling sustainability isn't as easy as it should be. Why is that? This session will cover the reasons why every technical person should learn how to sell sustainability successfully and in an ethical way. I will share top tips on how to sell sustainability and also share why it is so hard to sell sustainability.

Key takeaways include:

• Leaving with a variety of info that tells you to sell sustainability and not to sell sustainability
• How to create a plan to sell sustainability
• How your customers can help you sell sustainability

Our constant fears of having our jobs taken over by robots are ones that have been perpetuated by movies but also by reality. Though they have managed to solve most of our day-to-day problems, they can still create problems. Join us as we discuss whether humans can and will work with them in harmony.

Key takeaways include:

• How do we anticipate disruptive innovation?
• What does the future hold for professionals in the automotive industry?
• How far are we from achieving AGI (Artificial General Intelligence)

The command line can seem intimidating if you are not that familiar with it – but it doesn’t have to be!
Learning some basic commands can help you rapidly speed-up and automate everyday processing tasks, and give you the building blocks you need to construct more complex workflows – it will save you time, effort, and also give you serious kudos with your team mates.
This Pokemon-themed workshop will introduce you to Bash, a powerful and widely-used shell and language for the command line.

Key takeaways include:

• Understand how the command line can be useful in your work and why you will benefit from learning it
• Learn some of the most useful and productivity-boosting Bash commands including chained commands, and how to write automatable Bash scripts
• Get hands-on practice using Bash commands for common data processing scenarios

Equipment Requirements:
This is a hands-on session. To take part, you should bring a fully-charged laptop – or be prepared to pair-up with someone else. During the session we will download some small files from GitHub.

Prior to the session:
If using a Windows laptop – please install ‘GitBash for Windows’ ahead of time.
If using a Mac or running Linux – unless you have deliberately altered your machine, you should have a bash terminal already available by default on your laptop.

Audience Level - Beginner

People in senior technical roles sometimes hear the phrase "Not technical enough" in their feedback. In this industry, those of us who identify as female can face a lot of prejudice and often need extra help to progress in their careers without fear or judgement. We are often held back by insecurities fuelled by bad experiences, and this can lead us to assume we are being criticised for our technical ability if it's not said outright. These fears can be crippling, and can be a factor in us moving away from technical roles as we become more senior.

In this workshop, we will explore the fear and the reality, and discuss what women can do to boost their confidence and help themselves and others to appreciate their technical prowess. We'll explore what on earth is meant by "not technical enough" and help participants to appreciate that there is really no such thing. To succeed in technology, we have to embrace the inevitable knowledge gaps we all have, and move forward with an attitude of exploration and curiosity, instead of fear and insecurity.

Key takeaways include:

• Learn how to respond when it is said or implied that you are not technical enough.
• Learn how to cope when your insecurities prevent you from operating effectively.
• Learn that "not technical enough" is useless feedback, and that everyone in this industry should be learning new things every day, and this should be celebrated and embraced.

Join this workshop to learn the basic factors required for work environments to be creative. During this session you will experience a hands-on introduction to tools and principles helping you solve challenges (creative problem solving), We’ll also undertake an interactive exercise: unleash your corporate Houdini!

Key takeaways include:

• Learn what research says the key creative enabling and inhibiting factors are at work (Climate versus Culture)
• Get a sneak peak of tools which can help you be more creative
• Get to participate in a creative thinking challenge

Intended Audience: team leaders, project managers, people involved in or supporting corporate change
Level: Some or no experience within the field of change management

Managerial economics can be a daunting prospect to even the most experienced, but in reality it is essential to becoming an effective leader. During this introductory session, we will look at the core principles of managerial economics and how it actually functions in the day-to-day.

Key takeways include:

• Understanding the economical objectives of the business
• Analyse the ins and outs of demand analysis and forecasting
• Assess production and cost to make informed pricing decisions for effective profit management