Firstly if you haven’t heard of Epicenter 2009 head over to http://epicenter.ie/ which was organised by http://irishdev.com Ireland’s Premier Source for Business and Technology news.
Epcienter 2009 was broken down into Java, Web, Open Source and Microsoft Zones. This event also also part of the Irish Java Technologies Conference [IJTC], the Irish Web Technologies Conference [IWTC], the Irish Open Source Technologies Conference [IOTC] and the Irish Microsoft Technology Conferences [IMTC].
So, in order of events as listed on the Epicenter website, I would like to take you through a tour based on the talk I attended and the people I conversed with. This is intended to be a light hearted review. If you really need to know more, check out the site.
Java Zone.
Jeff Genender
Savoir Technologies CTO http://savoirtech.com
This is one man who talks I would have love to go and attend in the future. There was a mountain of criteria and content that I would simply have loved to have listened to. Simply there was no way to attend ‘every event’.
Jeff is a part-time support of his local Fire Service and was to be scene wearing his honorary Dublin Fire Brigade shirt presented to him last year.
Both Jeff and his Wife comprise a vivid unit of two very active people. Jeff appears to need little sleep and will talk to the little hours, while being up 6am for a run, as in the case of Friday morning where he complete an advance circuit of Phoenix Park. Jeff and his Partner are both avid Mountain Runners.
Presentations:
Thursday, 27th August
14:30 The Rules of SOA – A Road to a Successful SOA Implementation
Wednesday, 26th August
13:30 Open Session – Getting into Open Source – Everything you wanted to know about open source that nobody told you
Rob Lally
Technology Evangelist http://robertlally.com
Again, another person whose talk I was not able to attend. However I had the good fortune to spend some time with Rob. What an absolutely lovely, funny and passionate guy. Not knowing Rob extremely well I can say one thing ‘indecision bothers him’, he straight to the point with zero time for time wasters. He is an absolute delight to be around.
Friday, 28th August
16:15 Next Generation Languages for the JVM
Friday, 28th August
14:30 Lean, Kanban and Theory of Constraints for Managers
Barry Carr
Ixian Software. http://www.barrycarr.org.uk
Barry presented ‘What is functional Programming (JVM)’ and ‘F# :: What is Functional Programming (.NET). I had the great fortunate to attend the first of Barry’s lectures. It was well attended and divinely simple to understand. Barry has directly engaging, and his understanding approach inspires others via his teachings. Barry all I can say is ‘Thank You’ in one hour I got to completely understand F#.
Presentations:
Friday, 28th August
11:45 What is Functional Programming (JVM)
Friday, 28th August
16:15 F# – What is Functional Programming (.NET)
Colm Mulcahy
Found & CEO Saaspoint
Colm [in my option] held the most engaging keynote of the two I attended. The seamless translation between traditional infrastructure to modern ‘cloud based’ solutions was an eye opener for anyone who didn’t already understand these principles.
There are companies even bigger than SalesForce [$1 Billion in holdings] that could learn many valuable lessons from the Saaspoint Business Model.
Presentations:
Friday, 28th August
10:00 Friday Keynote – Cloud Gamekeeper Turned Poacher
Tim Hodkinson
Liberty-IT Technologist & Scrum Master
Again another talk that I could not attended. Tim spoke on Agile Development in Scrum, which ‘I’m sure was of great interest to many of the attendees’
Presentations:
Thursday, 27th August
16:15 Agile Development with Scrum
Eugene Ciurana
Independent. Open Source Evangelist. http://ciurana.eu
Once more another amazing set of sessions that I could not attends. However I did have the good fortune to observe Eugene at Thursday nights speakers session and around Trinity College Campus. What a composed, Zen like presence this man has. If you ever get the chance to observe Eugene in action, I suggest you do it, you not forget him.
I encourage you to read up more on Eugene.
Presentations:
Friday, 28th August
16:15 Mission Critical Enterprise Cloud Applications
Friday, 28th August
11:45 Google App Engine Java Applications HOWTO
Tony Jewtushenko
Product Innovator. CEO. http://productinnovator.com
A chance meeting, Tony gave me both a synopsis of his talk in regards to Software Globalisation for Java Developers. Tony is a remarkable man, dresses impeccably and another person who I would enjoy seeing again given the opportunity.
Professor Barry Smyth
ChangingWorlds. Founder and Chief Scientist. http://barry.smyth.ucd.ie
Unfortunately, I did not get to directly engage with Profession Barry Smyth, a highly distinguished expert in the fields of Artificial Intelligence and was short-listed for the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the year 2006, cofound ChangingWorld sold to Amdocs for $60m in December 2006.
His keynote on Day 2 was clear and concise.
Presentations:
Thursday, 27th August
10:00 Thursday Keynote – The Secrets of An Irish Software Entrepreneur
Werner Keil
Creative Arts & Technologies. Eclipse RCP Developer
What can I say about Werner? Firstly, I would like to consider him a friend. We spent many sessions together and had significant commonalities that allowed use to bridge separate technology and programming environments.
Werner’s work on advanced predictive patterns for H1N1 using STEM – Spatio-Temporal Epidemiological Modeler is ‘extremely engaging and important work’. If you ever get the chance to engage with Werner, I suggest you do. Some problems are completely Universal.
Werner is committing member of the Eclipse Foundation, Babel Language Champion (German) and active member of the Java Community Process, including his role as JSR-275 Spec Lead, JavaEE 6 EG and Executive Committee Member(SE/EE).
Web Zone
Andy Gibson
Rockstar North. Information Systems Developer. http://andy-gibson.co.uk
Rockstar North employee and RockStar by nature [Andy won’t mind me telling you]. Didn’t get to Andy talk or his Belfast talk jQuery, but believe me it his highly worth attending his events. His rundown on the HTC, Android and Windows Mobile 6.5 environment over dinner on Thursday with Barry Carr was extremely informative.
Keen to give back to the community, Andy has spoken at a number of community events including DeveloperDeveloperDeveloper! Belfast and is currently the Tayside Events Coordinator for Scottish Developers.
In his spare time (not that he has much), Andy enjoys table top wargamming, keeping up with the computer gaming industry and drinking malt scotch.
Presentations:
Thursday, 27th August
16:15 Web Application Testing With Selenium
Marc Grabanski
MJG International
Owner / Web Developer
Marc Grabanski is an interesting and passionate guy when it comes to VC investment. He ‘totally’ understands the value in modern Agile Business development. However, it seems that some start-up companies are still living in 1998 expecting multimillion investments for very low equity.
Marc is an entrepreneurial web developer out of Minneapolis, Minnesota. He currently runs a consulting corporation and is co-founder of two startup companies.
Marc’s technical skills are focused towards user interface development, but also span across a wide range of technologies and skill-sets. This enables him to manage resources remotely to implement new ideas with his consulting company, MJG International, LLC.
Presentations:
Thursday, 27th August
11:45 jQuery Essentials
Thursday, 27th August
16:15 Web Interface Essentials
Damian OSuilleabhain
OS3
Founder & CTO
Damian OSuilleabhain has extensive experience in software development principally in the financial services and banking industries and has worked on several award winning applications.
While at Epcienter, Damian took a great interest in rapid prototyping including attending my Silverlight 3 talk. Damian and Dermot Daly [Tapadoo] could be seen working very closely together on presentation work during the three days.
Damian and Dermot won’t mind me saying I did give them a number of tips for Damian’s presentation as given on Friday. Sorry I didn’t make it guys. SQL 2008 virtualisation with the ProData.ie guys/gals beckoned.
When Apple released its Software Development Kit in 2008, he saw the opportunity to create easy-to-use functionally rich applications for this revolutionary device, and so set-up OS3, working on his own Apps and offering development services.
Damian currently has three Apps in the App Store.
Damian was seen with his very young daughter and his partner in the Science Gallery in Trinity making an ‘everlasting bubble’. A Great Chap and Family Man who I whole-heartily recommend to anyone even remote interested in iPhone development.
Presentations:
Friday, 28th August
16:15 Walkthrough of Building an iPhone App
Dermot Daly
Tapadoo
Founder & CTO
http://www.tapadoo.com/blog/
Dermot actively engaged everyone at the Speaker Dinner on a number of topics in reference to Irish Development past & present.
After many years in software development at various levels, Dermot recently turned his skills to development for the iPhone.
Presentations:
Friday, 28th August
14:30 Objective-C
Finally
I would have loved to attended both John Wood [IQContent] and Robin Christopherson [AbiltyNet] both talking in Usability and Accessibility in Design.
So check out http://epicenter.ie to get even more speakers’ details that travelled from all quarters of the world to give up their time and speak in Dublin.
More details coming on the site soon and Epicenter2010 preliminary date of 9-11 June has been ‘unofficially’ announced. Stay tuned here for more details.
Great write-up Stuart, and I echo your sentiments on many of the individuals above – truly was a great few days!
Hope you don’t mind me plugging my Epicenter blog too, if anyone wants to read any more, see: http://darrenoc.com