Women and girls are underrepresented in STEM in most of the developed world. What needs to be done to redress the balance?
Honeypots 2025: Comparing three different countries
with Jonathan Haddock
A honeypot is a system for which there is no intended legitimate access, so what happens when you place three honeypots on the public Internet, in three different countries? Jonathan will explain what a honeypot is before talking through his research from July 2025, and comparing it to previous research in 2021 and 2022. You may find this year’s most popular password surprising!
The Art of Scalable System Design: Patterns and Anti-patterns
with Gary Emmerton
Building systems that can scale effectively isn't just about adding more servers or throwing money at the problem. This talk explores fundamental patterns and principles that make systems naturally scalable, while highlighting common anti-patterns that can limit growth. Through practical examples and real-world scenarios, we'll examine how small architectural decisions early in development can have major impacts on scalability
Build without limits - lessons learned from using generative AI dev tools
with Ricardo Sueiras
AI is everywhere—but is it really AI? This talk will clarify the differences between traditional automation, machine learning, and what we currently call AI. We’ll look at where each fits in modern software development, why they’re all still valuable, and tackle the question: Are we actually building AI, or just smarter code?
So What Is AI Anyway?
with Rebecca Vickery
AI is everywhere—but is it really AI? This talk will clarify the differences between traditional automation, machine learning, and what we currently call AI. We’ll look at where each fits in modern software development, why they’re all still valuable, and tackle the question: Are we actually building AI, or just smarter code?
Database Design Should Be Agile
with Ron Ballard
Traditional database design is carried out as a theoretical exercise before any application development takes places. This talk describes a better approach: incremental database design, embedded in the development team and combining strong design principles with the embrace of frequent change, which we manage with version control and automated testing at every release.
AI: Automation, Augmentation, Augh! Part 1
with Duncan Lawie
In this talk, we will think about how and whether AI can help us to automate repetitive tasks, what it means (right now) to use AI to enhance human capabilities and why we are not about to run out of 'augh!' moments.
The Edinburgh Multi Access System (EMAS) at Kent Part 1
with Bob Eager
The Edinburgh Multi-Access System (EMAS) was used on the ICL 2960 mainframe at the University of Kent from 1979 until the hardware was retired in 1986. This talk will cover trials, tribulations and some interesting technical details - with a sting in the tail!
Live Action Text Adventure
with Dan Bard
Remember those old text adventures from the early days of the internet... well let's throw out the green terminal and limited command set as we dive into a world of adventure where 'I'm sorry I don't understand that command' will never be uttered! Join us for a text adventure turned interactive group experience where the story is controlled entirely by you. Try not to be eaten by a Grue!
Data Needs Testing Too
with Ron Ballard
On 28 August 2023 a faulty flight plan brought Gatwick to a standstill. The application had been working for years but the data was bad. You can test your application, but you never know what data will be thrown at it. This talk is about testing the data.
My Journey Into Robotics – there is probably a better way!
with Gary Emmerton
My interest in IoT and electronics has led me to dive into the world of robotics as a bit of a hobby. I’ll talk through some of my early experiments, experiences, things I've learned along the way and you’ll have a chance to see (and maybe try!) some of my latest working (ish) models. I’ll explain how they work and where my journey is heading next.
The World is Asynchronous – Let’s talk about Event Driven Architecture
with Gary Emmerton
In this talk I will take a look at how our world works in an asynchronous way and how this affects architecture patterns. I’ll explore event driven architectures, what makes them up and how they lead to loosely coupled systems (and why that is a good idea!)
Any update? Lessons from 13 years running a moderately successful open source project
with Tom Akehurst
13 years ago I started an open source project which, while not quite in the same league as the Rails/React/Laravels of the world, is probably the most widely used tool in its niche. In this talk I’ll share WireMock’s origin story plus a few lessons I’ve learnt along the way about what makes projects succeed, life as an open source maintainer, and maybe a daft anecdote or two.
SEO and AI, but not sketchy
with Andrew Laws
What's your opinion on AI? Will it bring about the inevitable robot apocalypse, or will it just churn out useless code to script Kiddies? And now that we have AI surely we can shut down all the SEO agencies? Find out the answer to all (or possibly none) of these questions.
From client brief to celebratory beverage: Delivering a data analysis project
with Dan Wright
Dan sets the scene for designing and delivering a data analysis project and invites the group to interact, interject and interrupt as we explore how to get things done.
Growing up in the 8-bits - the weird world of 80s computing
with Bill Newland
A personal journey through the 80s computer scene in Britain, from the strange to the sublime, and how it sparked an interest and a career
Srsly, Tho: Trust No One - A Hacker's Perspective on Web Development
with Aaron Taylor
Hi. I'm an ethical hacker. I've been (legally) breaking into people's websites for a couple of years, having spent over a decade building and defending them. Here's some stuff I've seen along the way that, put into practice, will make the web a bunch safer.
MLOps: Building Production-Ready Machine Learning Systems
with Rebecca Vickery
MLOps is the fusion of Data Science, Dev Ops and Software Engineering. In today's rapidly accelerating AI landscape, building machine learning systems that are both robust and unbiased is crucial. In this talk, we’ll explore how to create stable and reliable machine learning systems ready for production.
From Prompts to Products: Building Robot Friends
with Duncan Lawie
With a little bit of knowledge, a big pile of documents, and an Azure AI account, we can build a variety of AI assistants that understand our business and can help streamline operations and support decision-making. We will use Azure Open AI Studio to make some 'robot friends' and test their willingness to help out.
Risky business - drifting to cyber calamity
with Glenn Wilson
In this presentation I talk about the indicators we should me measuring that highlight the current risk status of the organisation and how to identify when the risk pushes us closer to cybersecurity calamity.
Within the last 12 months, the capabilities of AI have advanced exponentially. Generative AI is the next frontier of artificial intelligence, and in this talk/demo we will take a quick look at some of the tools that developers are using to help them supercharge their productivity. We will look hands on at some of these tools, and share resources that you can try out for yourself.
Presentations have been entertaining us for decades. What started with a projector and slides has now evolved into fairly buggy software. As we look to the future, with the help of advancements in AI and programming, perhaps presentations are about to take another big step forward.
Most people have heard of Linux. Fewer know that it's a partial clone of a system called UNIX. Fewer still know just how long UNIX has been around. This talk will cover some of the history of UNIX, including at leastone real UNIX system that is still around, and close relatives that are in heavy use. It will also talk a bit about the original design decisions.
A Vulnerability Management Programme is a useful tool for understanding the risks that your networks, equipment, and applications pose to your organisation. Jonathan will explain what vulnerability management is and share some real world examples of how a VMP can help.
Can computers discover new drugs? The short answer is no, but they are a great tool to improve the efficiency of drug discovery. I will give a brief overview how medicines are traditionally discovered, and how machine learning and AI have changed this with a few colourful examples. No prior knowledge required, but it helps if you have ever played the game battleship.
We'll be looking at what authentication is and some types of authentication flaws. Then we'll look at a real world example flaw found in a door access system and how that was solved following a responsible disclosure process. Time permitting there'll be a live demo too!
Relational databases have a long history in application architectures, but there are now many more options available that mean you can choose the right database for the right job. In this talk I will explore the different database options and how to choose which one(s) are right for your application.
In this talk Trevor will cover: What is Social Engineering? • Psychology behind why we fall for attacks • How bad guys collect information • Different types of social engineering attacks and how to spot them
This talk (which should be fun) looks at the increasing interest in computers that have long since been declared obsolete. It is interesting (and instructive) to see how much of what was done has affected modern systems, and how little people had to work with.
The recent release of chatGPT into the public domain has brought generative AI into the mainstream. One potential use case for this technology is generating code to make programming faster. In this talk I’ll give an introduction to how generative AI works, the coding tools implementing this technology and discuss whether these tools really can be your new coding assistant.
Some SEO consultants claim that what they do is mysterious and impenetrable. We all know that's crap. But how can the world's of SEO and Dev join together to make each other's lives easier?
Everyone has a slightly different journey into tech, and their stories can be really encouraging. In this session our panelists will share parts of their journey and take questions from the audience, so please come armed with your questions! Our panelists have varied experiences in the industry so have plenty of experience to share.
You do know how to use a slide rule, right? A tour of some of the lost highways of the technology industry, with highlights of where futurists thought we were going and examples of things which used to be part of the daily life of our industry.
With over 16-years experience designing, building and running a SaaS application, Jon offers a checklist of dos and don'ts for codeHarbour attendees considering using their coding skills to launch a profitable SaaS business.
Andrew McEwan spent two decades in radio, presenting and producing programmes as well as writing, recording and voicing thousands of commercials. Join Andrew for a whistle-stop tour of the good, the bad and the ugly of how tech has transformed radio over the last 35 years
In this talk, I introduce you to security chaos engineering. I expand up some accepted theories from academic research to highlight the challenges we face in cyber security before moving on to talk about the conditions for doing security chaos engineering and how we create meaningful experiments that build cyber security resilience into out organisations. Finally, I will provide some examples of how we might implement security chaos engineering as part of our praxis.
Vertical Slice Architecture helps us build maintainable applications by separating concerns around features rather than technical responsibilities allowing us to add features without modifying existing code.
Ever wondered what the Internet of Things is used for, how it works and what actually goes into making an IoT solution? Int this session I’ll talk about how IoT works, give examples of where companies use IoT and some of the challenges faced when doing it on a large scale.
Jonathan will discuss what a honeypot is, how it can be used as an early warning system, and what studying a honeypot can tell us about an attacker’s motivation. Honeypots can range from simple low interaction environments to fully interactive environments, but the basic principle remains the same: there is no legitimate traffic for a honeypot.
The world runs on C++ - but it has a reputation for being unsafe and complex. While alternatives, like Rust, exist they lack sufficient interoperability with legacy C++ to really take over the mantle. Carbon has been designed with this goal at its centre. But how does it stack up? Can it take over? All I can do is give my opinion, as a user of many languages, but three decades of history with C++.
At the start of July I decided that what I really want to do with my life is hack stuff. But, like, legally. I’d spent 12 years keeping the bad guys out websites and was always fascinated by the how and the why of these malicious actors. So in a ‘gamekeeper-turned-poacher-but-actually-gamekeeper’ career move I’m gonna share some of what I’ve learned about hacking stuff to keep people safe.
We’ll be exploring the utilisation a tool called Matomo Analytics, it’s a google analytics substitute, one with a focus on GDPR and user privacy. I’ll be showing you how I use it in my business and the type of data that can be pulled one.
You will learn the 10 commonest ways your website can be hacked, why a hacker would want to, and how to reduce the likelihood that a hacker will succeed.
Whilst Duncan doesn't believe in uploading personalities, there is still a lot more of our businesses that can be aided by technology. However, rushing to make stuff digital can miss out on making it better – and can sometimes make our lives worse. What can we do to improve the chances we digit(al)ise well?
Testing software is really important, but sometimes it feels like the developers have forgotten to test altogether. The reality is that testing is hard, especially if you do it by hand. In this talk Jonathan will discuss how he uses automated testing to check for functionality as well as how testing can help from a security perspective.
In this session I will share how moving to the cloud and modernising your applications are two great ways of helping you to increase the efficiency of the resources your applications need, and help you reduce your carbon footprint.
In this talk Glenn will walk you through the OWASP top 10 published towards the end of 2021 to explain what's hot and what's hotter. He will give a brief description of each weakness and explain how these they are exploited and, more importantly, what you can do to mitigate against attackers exploiting them in your code
Good quality data is essential to data science success for any organisation. But how good is good enough for data science? This talk explores the role a data scientist should play in ensuring high-quality data and how the process can be automated.
Years ago open source was considered unsuitable for the mainstream. We had Windows, didn’t we? Times have changed, we all use open source these days, but often don’t know it. So, let’s take a closer look at open source.
During this presentation, Stuart will give an overview of the benefits of SEO to your organisation and the main on-page and off-page optimisation techniques you should consider when you are looking to improve your online visibility.
Email is the devil. In this talk I'll show you in excruciating detail how pretty much all of the modern problems we face in society can find their causes in email. I will present sociological, anthropological, ecological, economical, historical psychological, biological and theological evidence to prove it was in fact invented by Cthullu in collaboration with the Eye of Sauron. I hate it, and so should you.
DevOps may have reached the buzzword phase but it is more than that. This talk covers the core concepts and shares some examples of how DevOps enables IT to be a successful partner in business strategy.
Is Object-Oriented Programming dead, as some claim? If so what replaces it? Functional? A return to Structured Programming? How do we choose? Do we even have to? Or have we lost our way in what OO should have been in the first place? We’ll mix a bit of programming language history with philosophy to get some answers.
From low code to no-code tools, machine learning is fast moving from data scientists into the hands of business users. What are these tools? Who can use them? And is this actually a good thing? These questions and more will be answered in this talk.
In Quality control, we distinguish between self-QC and external quality control. A risk assessment is usually done to decide on the best QC strategy, but in different environments, unforeseen pitfalls can occur.
User testing rarely gets the results we want. That's because developers don't think like users, and users don't think like managers and managers don't allow enough time. Nick spends his life trying to get those groups to work together effectively. He won't blow your mind, but he will remind you of ways to make it easier.
The use of manual pen testing may meet regulatory requirements and give your teams an albeit false sense of security, but incorporating automated security testing throughout your delivery lifecycle puts the focus on delivering secure applications. In this talk, I will explain the different types of automated security testing, their advantages and their disadvantages, and how to incorporate them in your delivery lifecycle.
You may see it as marketing fluff, extra hassle or something that is a buzz word without much meaning but SEO is here to stay. In this talk we’ll discuss how to make your web development more search engine friendly what will help keep those pesky SEO consultants quiet (well, till the next algorithm change 😊).
What can we learn from fire fighters to make the systems we come to depend upon become more robust and resilient? In this talk, I will introduce what Chaos Engineering is and why it is important and share some real case studies of how people like Netflix and Amazon are applying these techniques to create more resilient systems for the benefit of their customers.
A brief overview of the history and practice of user experience. The meat in the sandwich not the icing on the cake - a brief introduction to user experience. What is it? What are the tools and techniques involved, and why would you use them?
WhatsItLike was developed by a team of young developers who used it as a learning experience. Its architecture leans towards a microservice approach, using a range of AWS cloud services. My talk will describe the project architecture and of managing a team with limited development time and inexperienced developers.
Treating your career path and training like leveling up in games We will take a look at how you can actively plan your career through learning specific skills. Picking a moon-shot job and working out the path to get there. Then how to start taking practical steps to get started
Digital forensics is being used more and more as computers become increasingly prevalent in our lives. In this talk, Jonathan will walk us through a basic forensic process and discuss some of the complications. Jonathan will highlight some key forensics principles that you can follow without specialist software, allowing you to implement them as part of your own incident response process.
There are many ways to secure software. In this talk, I will explain some of the different techniques used to prevent introducing security vulnerabilities into your software, using threat modelling, automated testing and dependency validation.
Machine learning is the ability of a machine to perform a task without being explicitly programmed. In this talk, I will cover how to manipulate data into a state that a machine can understand and make accurate predictions, and introduce a Python library that makes this easier.
Why reinvent the wheel? Or a trainload of wheels? Developers spend a lot of time creating integrations that already exist and are easy to access. A quick demo of how automation can extend developer capabilities quickly, easily and cheaply!
For longer than I have existed, memory errors have plagued systems programming. Although many such errors are benign, sadly many end up being security vulnerabilities, or worse, exploits. In this talk, I will discuss how a security exploit is born, and how the Rust programming language tries to prevent them.
The analytics strategy must be a primary citizen of the software delivery process in a data driven business! This talk will include a live demo of extending the Nightwatch automated testing framework to uncover and resolve issues in tracking code that would have otherwise hit production.
Many designers have grown tired of the out of the box solutions on eCommerce platforms. Wake up designers and let your online stores stand out from the crowd
You're a developer, so you probably have working knowledge of Javascript. Its 2019, but people still leave you voicemails, pff. In this short practical talk, I'll show you how to hack and upgrade ANY mobile voicemail to do almost anything you want with the Twilio platform.
There are always challenges developing an app to scale and these are compounded when set in an African context. African Pastors Fellowship’s eVitabu project, launched in March 2018, provides an Android app pastors can use to access multimedia teaching resources.
In this session I will share my journey that started with me taking my children discarded toys and trying to get them to drive themselves, to a fully autonomous driving model car.
Data is everywhere and when used correctly, can shine a light, give insights and confidence to your project and business decisions. I’ll be talking about the best techniques and strategies to use when you need to communicate data to your stakeholders, work colleagues or customers.
What is simplicity and why do we value it so much? How does it relate to complexity? When is complexity good and when is it bad? How does simplicity differ from ease? As we examine these questions we'll find that the situation is not quite as simple (!) as it might first appear. In the course of the discussion we'll come up with a mental model for framing problems that we can apply to many things - but we'll particularly look at how we can apply it to our designs and code. We'll also look at how some programming languages help us more than others in our drive towards simplicity.
Blockchain is an emerging technology that has captured the attention of the financial experts, the media and the technical enthusiasts. In this talk we take a look at the technology; how it works, why you should consider it for your business and how it's given life to cryptocurrencies.
What is simplicity and why do we value it so much? How does it relate to complexity? When is complexity good and when is it bad? How does simplicity differ from ease? As we examine these questions we'll find that the situation is not quite as simple (!) as it might first appear. In the course of the discussion we'll come up with a mental model for framing problems that we can apply to many things - but we'll particularly look at how we can apply it to our designs and code. We'll also look at how some programming languages help us more than others in our drive towards simplicity.
Considerations for creating, storing and trusting a unified business approach to data in a distributed environment. In order to prevent disjointed and competing views of business facts.
Show me a WordPress website that isn't under attack and I'll show you a localhost. Let's take a look at the who hacks WordPress, how they hack it, what they do with it and why they hack it in the first place. We'll also look at a few simple ways you can tighten up your WordPress security to reduce the chance of you falling prey
Managing cloud infrastructure can be a complex and time consuming process. Using Terraform, we are able to create a blueprint capable of reproducing your infrastructure simply by running a script. Find out how ‘infrastructure as code’ can reduce operational costs and risk while increasing efficiency and stability.
With the talk primarily aimed at those in technical roles, I'll be providing a number of practical methods to use when managing technical debt. About half the talk will be things we can do as developers to quickly identify then reduce the impact of technical debt, and half will be around how to explain technical debt to non-technical stakeholders.
The speaker will talk about his experiences with a gradually evolving SOHO telephone system, starting with a single POTS (landline), through ISDN, to the current VoIP solution, and the eventual removal of the original telephones. The majority of the talk will concern the use of the open source Asterisk platform to provide numerous facilities (including one or two quite unusual ones) in a large, rambling house used also as an office for part of the time. This will include an introduction to VoIP for beginners. Costs and savings will also be considered. There will be time for questions and discussion.
Functional programming offers a very different approach to writing code. Seasoned programmers have reported that learning its techniques has made them feel like beginners. And yet more and more people are taking the plunge to make it part of their skill set, more employers are demanding it as a skill, and many are saying that learning it has brought joy to their coding lives.
Tech-x and the City: An insight into computation in finance
with Oliver Fritz
Technology has rapidly become integral to the world of finance, with it being a mainstay in most every aspect.This talk will give an outline of the most interesting facets of computational finance, such as algorithmic and high-frequency trading, and focus on my research into the effect of news sentiments on financial markets.
APIs 2.0
with Tom Vance
When building and delivering front end applications (web apps, mobile apps) the last thing we want to worry about is building and hosting a supporting API.Introducing the solutions to your problems, Google Cloud Functions and AWS Lambda.
How good is your API?
with Caroline Clark
The integrations team at Holiday Extras works extensively with third party APIs. To help us assess their quality we've developed a tool, and during this talk will walk you through a live demonstration of how to use it, taking our own API as the use case.
Remotely Interesting
with Chrissy Garnett
This is a case study from Holiday Extras on our Bulgarian and UK remote teams over the last 18 months. We'll be sharing the change curve in attitudes and how not only the scrum masters had to get used to remote workers, but the dev team had to get used to remote pair programming. We'll be delving into the challenges we faced and the changes for the better.
Gamification in the Real World
with Stuart Stobie
Gamification. Just a buzzword? Or is it a silver bullet for businesses in the 21st century? Unsurprisingly it’s neither. Gamification aims to make the tedious entertaining but making anything fun is not as simple as it sounds. In this talk we'll take a look at the misconceptions surrounding gamification, the fascinating psychology behind it and the lessons we really should be learning from the games that inspire it.
Automate Awesomeness with Ansible
with Edmond Lepedus
Edmond is going to discuss how to use Ansible for automating best practices which would otherwise be far too time-consuming and error prone.
Making Monoliths Modular
with Damian Casey
Many companies face the challenge of working with monolithic systems and over time they build up years of tech debt and become difficult to work with. I'd like to give some examples from my experience of how taking a modular approach can improve the developer experience
