OUR
SPEAKER
Andrew Newton
Principal Consultant
Andrew is a senior software engineer with experience over 20 years of experience across a diverse range of programming languages and platforms. His expertise in solution architecture and comprehensive system development approach encompasses everything from initial problem identification to deployment and ongoing support.
With a proven leadership track record, Andrew has adeptly managed multiple technical teams and held executive positions such as Director and CTO. His expansive knowledge of agile methodologies and product management underscores his adaptable and forward-thinking management style.
TALKS
Applied AI: The Strategy Playbook (45 mins)
This interactive session is for teams across all disciplines and requires no prior AI experience. We cut through the hype to build a clear, shared understanding of what modern AI actually is, and just as importantly, what it is not.
Using plain language and targeted demonstrations, we can examine practical applications—such as retrieval-augmented answers, coding assist, and safe automation—selecting only what's most relevant to your audience. We'll also address limits and risks—hallucinations, security and privacy, prompt injection, cost control, and model drift—so you can judge fitness for purpose with a simple decision framework.
Tailored to your industry and team, the session maps candidate use cases to value, risk, and effort. You'll leave with a pragmatic playbook: where AI helps, where it doesn't, how to pilot safely with guardrails and evaluation, how to measure impact, and what to do next.
The Business of Being a Developer: Career Strategy in the AI Era (45 mins)
Should you learn another framework, go deeper technically, or broaden your skills beyond code?
This session approaches developer careers from the other side of the hiring table: business strategy. We'll explore how AI could change what companies build, buy and compete on, and how those choices shape the people they need.
From startups to large organisations, we'll examine where product thinking, UX and quality skills could open doors, and where technical depth matters for security, performance and reliability. This isn't about everyone becoming a generalist. It's about choosing a combination of skills that fits the work you want to do.
Whether you're looking for your first role or deciding what comes after years of experience, you'll leave with thoughts for choosing what to learn, which opportunities to pursue, and how to demonstrate your value. No business background required, and no promises that anyone can predict the future.
Blazor Deep Dive – State, Rendering, Testing and more (55 mins)
This session is suitable for technical teams that have a foundational knowledge of Blazor and are considering using it or are already using it.
Like most development frameworks, Blazor has multiple ways to architect your solution to achieve your desired outcomes. Being a relatively new framework there is not a lot of detailed guidance in the community.
This session goes through some of the common decision points you may come across while building your application and how you might go about choosing the best path to take based on your requirements.
Some questions addressed in this session are:
• How does Blazor perform from a performance and SEO point of view with different ways I can choose to render?
• Does it require frequent data updates that affect multiple areas in the app?
• How can you make a maintainable, well tested app for complex domains?
