In the post-quarantine times, life is slowly getting back to normal in some parts of the world, while in the others, there is still a need to be cautious. The world is trying to find new ways to keep on with the habits and traditions. We hope that you are feeling hopeful and calm in these unpredictable settings.
Top Tech Events
The Ultimate Guide by Redwerk: Part IV
In the post-quarantine times, life is slowly getting back to normal in some parts of the world, while in the others, there is still a need to be cautious. The world is trying to find new ways to keep on with the habits and traditions. We hope that you are feeling hopeful and calm in these unpredictable settings.
Many industries found ways to keep up with their work remotely. IT is not an exclusion — most of the companies offer their employees both work from home and office. Sharing knowledge and networking is a huge part of the IT culture, so many people all over the world are looking forward to the biggest conferences and summits this autumn and winter. Both online and offline, we offer you some of the most anticipated events of the last months of the year!
Staying in touch online
Canceling the events would be quite a disappointing solution. At the same time, in the current situation, getting to the venue would be problematic for most of the attendees: canceled flights, border issues, high health risks. Online events come to be the best possible idea: more people than ever can join the conference safely. Let’s take a look at some of the best IT events to attend from the comfort of your home or office.
GFiT 2020, October 5-9, online
This virtual expo is organized by GoodFirms — a B2B research platform for IT companies. This event is targeted at businesses looking for software providers to work with as well as IT companies looking for new clients. Of course, except for the very exposition, there will be various speeches, workshops, and live discussions.
One of the main themes of this year’s GFiT is mentorship. The expo gives a great chance to interact with both business and technology experts to boost your idea or business. Networking, discussion panels, the exhibition — all of these are aimed at sharing knowledge. Getting a piece of advice from an expert or showcasing your idea, GFiT wants the attendees to realize the power of mentorship.
Ticket prices:
There are several plans for exhibitors, starting from free going up to $5000.
- Free Exhibitor — free
- Exhibitor — $1500
- Exhibitor Plus — $3000
- Exhibitor Pro Plus — $5000
GFiT expects over 150,000 visitors this year. And Redwerkers will be among them! Come join us for networking and inspiration.
IT Arena, October 8-10, Lviv, online
IT Arena is the biggest tech conference in Eastern Europe. It is usually held in Lviv, Ukraine, but this year, it is online like most other events. There are four tracks that define the themes of the conference: Startup, Business, Product, and Technology. Each of the tracks has its own keynote speakers. Among this year’s speakers are Parsa Hosseini, a senior data scientist at Tesla, and Oles Petriv, the CEO of RefaceAI — the company that made one of the most successful Ukrainian apps with 35 million downloads.
One of the most important parts of IT Arena is its Startup Competition: a chance for young companies to get some attention from potential partners and investors and win money for the project development.
Of course, IT Arena also provides networking opportunities. Except for networking on the conference itself, there is a Tech Lounge: an executive event for speakers, investors, top entrepreneurs, government representatives, and special guests.
Ticket prices:
- Standard — $49
- Senior — $75
- Executive — $149
SaaStock EMEA, October 12-15, Dublin, online
SaaStock is a community of those working with B2B SaaS (software as a service) — founders, executives, and investors. This conference unites attendees from Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. This year, SaaStock offers such online activities as
- A Virtual Exhibition floor for showcasing the newest SaaS products
- Matchmaking sessions for startups and investors
- Interactive workshops
- Keynotes and panels
There is something for everyone — from startup founders in need of the investors to the CEOs of the big companies looking for new business ideas. The event’s themes are as diverse as the activities, ranging from the SaaS solutions with social impact to the future of remote work.
The main focus of this conference is its practicality — the organizers don’t aim at simply discussing some topics or giving theoretical information. All the activities are actionable: the speeches and workshops are about sharing pragmatic tips, and the virtual exhibition’s purpose is the interaction between companies.
Ticket prices:
- Content — free
- All-access — €399
- Teams (up to 10 people) — €1995
DevOps Enterprise Summit,
October 13-15, Las Vegas, online
An event dedicated specifically to DevOps! This summit is particularly focused on the next-generation operations and infrastructure needed for large-scale companies and organizations. During the three days of the summit, the attendees will have a chance to learn and network thanks to numerous expert talks, reports, lectures, and interactive activities. This event is crafted for big companies tech leaders who use DevOps principles in their work.
IT Revolution, the organizers of the summit, state that the main aim of the event is to connect technology leaders from all around the world. And we can’t argue that the online format makes it even easier, right?
Predictably, like any other conference, DevOps Enterprise Summit tries to be as interactive and engaging as possible to remain the event we all know and love. The number of attendees is limited to 3,000 people, so each participant can get a chance to share and connect. The summit will include the virtual book signing by well-known industry authors, such as Matthew Skelton and Mark Schwartz.
Ticket prices:
There is one type of ticket only, which costs $650.
Dublin Tech Summit, 14 October, Dublin, online
Dublin Tech summit attracts the most influential tech and business leaders from all over the world. Sounds amazing, right? And that’s true: for example, this year, the representatives of such enterprises as Zoom, Nokia, Huawei, and Mastercard will participate in the event. This year’s keynote speakers are
- Werner Vogels from Amazon Web Services
- Commander Chris Hadfield: an astronaut and author
- Gary Vaynerchuk
and others.
The organizers took their virtual platform for the summit seriously and promised unique opportunities to meet C-level attendees. They even made a Virtual lobby that should give the feeling of a real-life space! And that’s not all: there are also the Virtual Auditorium, the Exhibition Hall, the Networking Lounge, and the Information Desk. A great variety of opportunities to discuss, debate, exchange knowledge, and network effectively, isn’t it?
Ticket prices:
- Regular ticket — €75
- Team ticket — €200
World Summit AI, 14 October, online
Here comes the biggest AI summit in the world! Evidently, one cannot underestimate the role of AI in business and technologies. To be fair, it looks like AI is slowly taking over. This event unites those who already use or want to try AI in various areas — Enterprise, BigTech, Startups, Investors, and Science. This year the summit is conducted in a rather original way. Instead of the usual conference scale, the nine smaller events happen during the period of 3 months, with the main event taking place on the 14th of October. The ticket gives access to all ten parts of “Inspired by AI.”
We invite you to join the main event of these series — the World Summit AI itself. The theme of this year’s online summit is “Global Game Changers.” Who are they? To answer this big question, the summit poses several smaller ones: “Who owns AI in an international ecosystem?”, “What impact is AI having in the workplace?”, “How can AI help design a fairer future?”.
Ticket prices:
Standard online ticket costs €299 + VAT. “Cyber Space Launch”, which includes ten passes, individual cyberspace to connect and invite people, and the company’s listing on the website and platform is €1500 + VAT.
Quest for Quality, October 27-28, Dublin, online
One more conference focusing entirely on AI this year! Can’t be too many of those. This one has a twist — it discusses not only AI but also software quality and testing, hence the name. Each year the organizers choose a different aspect of QA to discuss, and this year they made a particularly interesting choice. Quest for Quality is a mix of talks, networking sessions, and workshops. All are revolving around AI, quality assurance, and somewhere in between.
Among the topics to be discussed are the accuracy and effectiveness of AI today as well as the role of historical data and human influence in AI testing processes. The organizers subdivide the conference into four main question blocks:
- What are the challenges of testing AI?
- What will be the role of QA & testers in the realm of AI technologies and related frameworks?
- How do AI and the use of AI for testing affect QA?
- How do we balance between market drivers, safety & security, and shippable quality?
Ticket prices:
- Regular — €200 +VAT
- Group — 600€ +VAT
- Student — 20€ +VAT
- Researcher pass — 50€ +VAT
- Media and expo visitor pass — free
MGS Global Virtual Conference 2.0, November 4-5, online
MGS stands for Mobile Growth Association, and the name says it all — this conference aims at keeping the mobile industry moving. So, if you are working with mobile app development and want to know all the recent trends, you can’t miss it! More than 900 companies are expected to attend the event: quite a good number for networking and finding potential partners.
MGS Conference is not a webinar or a set of lectures as the attendees can visit the virtual exhibit hall, schedule meetings, and stay in a virtual lounge. Among the perks of this event is its interactive nature: every attendee has a chance to get an answer from the industry leaders.
The first day of the event is dedicated to the Americas, while the second to Europe. Such a subdivision can help pay attention to talks or workshops that are relevant and get the best from the networking experience.
Ticket prices:
- Free for publishers: if your company’s primary objective is building and publishing consumer apps or content
- $300 for vendors: if your company targets marketers, developers, or publishers
As a mobile app development company, we are surely visiting MGS Global Virtual Conference 2.0. Planning to be there as well? Let’s see each other online and discuss our partnership possibilities.
AWS re:Invent, 30 November- 18 December, Las Vegas, online
An online event organized by Amazon Web Services, which is also completely free. Yes, you read this right. The conference lasts for three weeks, which gives a lot of flexibility and diversity of content — no excuses for missing this one.
There isn’t a lot of information about the conference yet — the organizers are keeping us in the dark. But we are sure: it will be worth joining. There are usually numerous keynotes, product launches, and training sessions. During the conference, the executives of the company present their new products and tell us all about them.
Amazon Web Services is an Amazon subsidiary focusing on cloud computing platforms and APIs. Last year AWS keynotes were Andy Jesse, the CEO of Amazon Web Services, and Dr. Werner Vogels, the CTO of Amazon.com.
Web Summit, 2-4 December, Lisbon, online
We are finishing our list of online events with our personal favorite: Web Summit! Redwerkers have been visiting this event for years and are the real fans of it. Web Summit is one of the largest tech conferences in the world, attracting around 70,000 people every year.
Web Summit always has a rather impressive list of speakers, and 2020 is not an exclusion, even considering the new format. Among this year’s speakers are
- Eric Yuan, Founder & CEO at Zoom
- Mike Schroepfer, CTO at Facebook
- Niels Christiansen, CEO at Lego
- Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, the President of Portugal
This year, Web Summit will be held using an online platform previously developed to host the Collision tech conference. There was a lot of talk around making the conference hybrid and still meeting in Lisbon for the unique atmosphere, but everyone understands that safety is more important. And who said that we can’t get the Web Summit’s atmosphere online?
Web Summit is interesting for both professions with years of experience on the market and young startups as the conference has its own startup program.
Ticket prices:
- €120 — General attendee
- €999 — Content, networking & VIP access
- €238 — Three-ticket package
- €357 — Five-ticket package
Of course, Redwerk can’t miss our beloved Web Summit. Will you be there too? Let’s partner up and enjoy it together!
Meeting offline
There are some offline events as well, where the attendees can truly enjoy the perks of real-life networking and conference atmosphere. Obviously, we can’t guarantee that they will happen: the situation changes every week, so let’s hope for the best and look forward to those conferences. Please check the up-to-date information on the event’s websites to know its status!
GOTO Copenhagen, 9-13 November, Copenhagen, offline
How to run a conference in such unsafe times without risking it too much? Make it small and cozy! This year, GOTO in Copenhagen is limited to 300 participants only, which means there is no chance to avoid useful one-to-one communication and interactiveness.
The organizers call the settings of the conference “intimate talks,” and it is fair — with the limited amount of attendees, there should be no problem with posing a question to the speaker directly. For example, there is “Code with experts” — a training session full of discussions, social breaks, small group exercises, training material, and in-depth Q&As. It is quite hard to find such a level of interaction on the regular conferences considering their usual scales.
This year’s theme is “Back to the roots”. The topics to be discussed are
- Cloud Native
- DevOps
- Security & Ethical Hacking
- Machine Learning
- Serverless and Quantum Computing
The conference is practice-focused: often, instead of giving a speech, many industry leaders conduct workshops and masterclasses. The learning-by-doing approach is always a good way to go, right?
Ticket prices:
Only 300 tickets are available at 4900.00 DKK (around €660) for one day pass.
Microsoft Azure + AI Conference, 8-10 December, Las Vegas, offline + PreCon workshops December 6th – 7th and Post Con Workshops December 11th
Yes, it is one more AI conference. It’s true, AI is taking over the technology world, and, frankly, we shouldn’t be surprised about it. It is a way to increase the effectiveness of virtually any operation.
This conference presents Azure, which is Microsoft’s cloud service, as a platform for AI solutions and aims to showcase how these technologies can be combined.
Quite predictably, the conference features mostly speakers from Microsoft but is not limited to them. Microsoft has also invited experts from the broader cloud and AI industry. For example, you can get a chance to listen to such Microsoft professionals as
- Scott Hanselman, the principal community architect for web platform and tools
- Julia Liuson, the Corporate Vice President
- Emma Ning, the Senior product manager,
and many other interesting speakers!
Microsoft is one of the main cloud services providers in the world, so we can expect some exclusive presentations and new discoveries! They are already teasing us about new product announcements. Feels amazing to be among the first to get to know all the advances, doesn’t it?
Ticket prices:
- Full conference pass — $1799
- Full conference pass + one full-day workshop — $2248
- Full conference pass + two full-day workshops — $2697
- Full conference pass + three full-day workshops — $3146
- Pre-conference or post-conference workshop — $699
Did you find a perfect event to attend? With all the negative sides of the current situation, the vast diversity of online conferences is probably one of the few positive sides. There are people who always dreamed of participating in, let’s say, DevOps Enterprise Summit but couldn’t travel all the way to the US. Now, the world’s biggest IT events are more accessible than ever, so let’s use it!
Redwerkers are the big fans of various conferences and summits: it’s a fun way to present ourselves, make some useful connections, and learn from the best in the industry! We encourage you to benefit from those learning and networking opportunities too. Hope we inspired you to register for some event!
Attending GFiT Expo, MGS Global Virtual Conference 2.0, or Web Summit?
Let’s team up and discuss our collaboration opportunities!
About Redwerk
Redwerk is a full-cycle software development agency. Our main specialization is SaaS platforms, but we also work on mobile, desktop, and web app development. We have clients from all over the world: from Germany to New Zealand. We know how to create a product from scratch or help with it on any development stage as we have more than 15 years of experience on the market. We believe that it is essential to share knowledge. That’s why we are not only attending various conferences but also organizing regular Dev Meetups. You can join them online now!
