TechConnect: Connecting Aspirations to Tech Realities - South Yorkshire
Description changed:
Join us for TechConnect, a dynamic event designed to bridge the gap between junior developers looking to kick start their careers, and employers in the industry. If you’re a recent graduate, a career changer, or an employer seeking top talent, TechConnect offers a unique platform to network, learn, and connect.
What to Expect:
Inspiring Lightning Talks: Hear from leading tech companies who will provide knowledge and advice on getting into tech, alongside individuals who have successfully transitioned into their dream career.
Gain valuable insights into the industry, career paths, and the skills that employers value most.
Networking Opportunities: Connect with professionals from a diverse range of tech companies and backgrounds.
Expand your network, exchange ideas, and explore potential career opportunities.
Expert Advice: Get practical advice on job seeking strategies, crafting standout CVs and portfolios, and acing interviews in the tech industry.
Learn from industry professionals and specialist recruiters about what it takes to stand out today’s competitive job market.
Why Attend:
TechConnect ’s vision is to bring together emerging talent and industry leaders in an inclusive setting.
Teaming up with The Developer Academy – we aim to provide a networking platform to create meaningful connections.
Whether you’re seeking your next opportunity or looking to meet the next generation of tech talent, join us on the day to connect, learn, and thrive in the ever-expanding tech ecosystem of South Yorkshire.
This event is brought to you by YCSC: South Yorkshire Chapter, Sheffield Hallam University, BCS South Yorkshire Branch and HSBC. This event is a fantastic opportunity for knowledge exchange and interaction between academia, students and industry, aiming to create an interactive environment for building fruitful partnerships. However, this event is not exclusive - anyone can attend to acquire knowledge and develop their expertise!
Morning session:
Final year cyber security undergraduate students at Sheffield Hallam University will be showcasing their final year projects as poster presentations. You will be able to view and discuss the students' posters, as well as participate in quickfire talks. There will also be prizes for the best student poster presentations.
Afternoon session:
We have some exciting guest speakers and a panel discussion lined up for you! Join us in welcoming guest speakers Melanie Oldham OBE, Founder of Bob's Business & Yorkshire Cyber Security Cluster Chair, and Stephen Hack, Head of Vulnerability Operations at HSBC.
Prepare to be captivated by their insightful talks and engaging participation in a dynamic panel discussion, where we will have a few more guest speakers joining us.
This event is brought to you by YCSC: South Yorkshire Chapter, Sheffield Hallam University, BCS South Yorkshire Branch and HSBC. This event is a fantastic opportunity for knowledge exchange and interaction between academia, students and industry, aiming to create an interactive environment for building fruitful partnerships. However, this event is not exclusive - anyone can attend to acquire knowledge and develop their expertise!
Morning session:
Final year cyber security undergraduate students at Sheffield Hallam University will be showcasing their final year projects as poster presentations. You will be able to view and discuss the students' posters, as well as participate in quickfire talks. There will also be prizes for the best student poster presentations.
Lunch & Learn, Networking
Afternoon session:
We have some exciting guest speakers and a panel discussion lined up for you! Join us in welcoming guest speakers Melanie Oldham OBE, Founder of Bob's Business & Yorkshire Cyber Security Cluster Chair, and Stephen Hack, Head of Vulnerability Operations at HSBC.
Prepare to be captivated by their insightful talks and engaging participation in a dynamic panel discussion, where we will have a few more guest speakers joining us.
This event is brought to you by YCSC: South Yorkshire Chapter, Sheffield Hallam University, BCS South Yorkshire Branch and HSBC. This event is a fantastic opportunity for knowledge exchange and interaction between academia, students and industry, aiming to create an interactive environment for building fruitful partnerships. However, this event is not exclusive - anyone can attend to acquire knowledge and develop their expertise!
Hybrid event: Mental Health, the tech industry and me - South Yorkshire branch
Description changed:
The talk will foster awareness, provide practical insights, and encourage a supportive environment for mental health within the Tech Industry.
Speaker
Andy Shaw
Agenda
5:30pm - Please join us in the Cantor Atrium for some refreshment and networking
6:15pm - Zoom room opens
6:30pm - Event starts
7:30pm - Event ends
Synopsis
Mental health is something Andy has been passionate about, and he will talk about mental health in the Tech Industry and how the current climate can be a challenge to professionals regardless of what area in the Tech Industry they work in.
He will talk about his own experiences of mental health issues he has faced, including imposter syndrome and challenges he has experienced during his career so far, as well as barriers professionals may face from different backgrounds which may have an adverse effect on their mental health.
Andy will also talk about ways professionals can manage their mental health, some steps he has undertaken to learn and promote mental health and wellbeing within the community and work, and how a tragedy has driven him to learn more about mental health and help others who are finding things difficult.
About the speaker
Andy Shaw
Andy Shaw focused on a career as a software tester just over 10 years ago, following a redundancy at a huge software giant which turned out to be one of the best things that has happened to him.
Andy has also been delivering talks both online and in person on a variety of subjects, including software testing, career development and mental health in tech. He also actively participates and is involved with the BCS, as the editor of the online testing magazine "The Tester" (the official magazine of the BCS Specialist Interest in Software Testing specialist group), as well as the Diversity and Inclusion Officer of the South Yorkshire BCS branch.
Outside of his career, tech and the BCS, Andy enjoyed practising martial arts, and is an assistant instructor in Karate, and is also passionate about mental health awareness.
Our events are for adults aged 16 years and over.
BCS is a membership organisation. If you enjoy this event, please consider joining BCS. You’ll be very welcome. You’ll receive access to many exclusive career development tools, an introduction to a thriving professional community and also help us Make IT Good For Society. Join BCS today
For overseas delegates who wish to attend the event, please note that BCS does not issue invitation letters.
Hybrid event: How does Deming's work on quality help us?
Description changed:
Lean and agile practices can be said to have started with the work of W. Edwards Deming.
Speaker
Mike Harris
Agenda
5:30pm - Light refreshments and networking in the Cantor Atrium
6:15pm - Zoom room opens
6:30pm - Event starts
7:30pm - Event ends
Synopsis
Mike's talk will introduce the audience to the Deming Cycle, which is a cycle that helps us learn and improve, and to his 14 Points for Management, which gives leaders a framework for cooperation and the realisation of human potential. He will also give a background about Deming and his role in Japan.
About the speaker
Mike has been working in testing for 20 years and is the tester for Geckoboard.
He has been a test team member, a Solo Tester and a Test Lead. He has also worked as a part of waterfall, lean and agile teams. He has set up and led a Testing Community of Practice and been part of a successful agile transition.
He is also Vice-Chair and Programme Secretary of BCS’s Specialist Interest Group in Software Testing. He also contributed to the e-books Testing Stories and How Can I Test This? LambdaTest publishes posts from Mike.
In his spare time, he coaches junior cricket. Mike has a blog you can follow and you can also follow Mike on Mastodon.
TechForge Accelerator 5: How to Generate Income: Monetisation & Pricing Strategies for Tech Startups
Description changed:
The TechForge Accelerator from Business Sheffield comprises of 6 in-person workshop sessions designed to support the needs of technology-centred startups, especially those involving software. The TechForge Accelerator is best suited to founders who are at an early stage – for example you might just have an idea, be working on a prototype (or MVP), or have done some initial trading. You can book into one or more workshops in the series, depending on your needs. The workshops last just over 2 hours with an opportunity to network at the end.
The penultimate session in our Accelerator for tech startups looks at a variety of methods for generating income (so-called Monetisation). One of the most exciting aspects of software-based businesses is the innovative approaches they use to bring money in. Whether you are planning to charge fees or subscriptions or are exploring some of the more unusual routes such as ad revenue or digital currencies, there may be options you haven’t spotted before. Join this session not just to learn about some interesting alternatives, but also to delve into detail on pricing models and levels for your products and services.
The session will be led by one of our highly experienced Tech Scale-Up Advisors and we will be joined by our Guest Speaker James Coughlan, founder of popular hotdesking app ‘Reef’, who has plenty of experience of monetisation and pricing to bring to the table.
This event is in collaboration with The Yorkshire Cyber Security Cluster.
SPEAKER
Ben Sloan, Lead Engineer in the UK Civil Service, helping the government to build interesting things at scale
AGENDA
17:30 - Light refreshments
18:30 - Talk starts
19:30 - Event ends
SYNOPSIS
Have you ever upgraded a nuget package, then later found out that it almost led to the breach of millions of records of customer data? I have, and I’d like to tell you about it... Welcome to ‘The domino effect’.
This is an experience report / postmortem detailing how updating one of the most popular and common nuget packages in the world (probably in use in almost every .net project everywhere - Newtonsoft.Json) sparked a somewhat unpredictable chain of events which ultimately led to a customer database of millions of customers at a major e-commerce retailer becoming public, which could have been a major incident impacting peoples’ lives.
A thorough forensic investigation followed, and fortunately we were able to prove no data had been stolen or lost but only just by the skin of our teeth. This was the near-miss of all near-misses.
This talk looks at the ‘domino effect’ that happened from updating the package to data being left on a public and unprotected instance for almost two weeks.
We’ve been following Science Week closely in the last few years here at BCS South Yorkshire. Everything from our Raspberry Jams to our beginner-friendly virtual hackathon last year, all to celebrate, inspire and encourage more learners into tech.
This event continues on this path, so if you’ve started coding recently but could use a bit more structure, or you’ve been coding in your first gig for some time but would like to try something different - this is for you.
Join our BCS South Yorkshire event supported by The Developer Academy and UK Home Office and powered by Gitpod for an afternoon filled with challenges and learning. We’ll be using a cloud environment, so only bring your computer and enthusiasm. Please note we will contact you via email to give you more tailored instructions.
The team will be around for tech help and will be judging the results at the end of the night on social media with some book vouchers as prizes for the best solutions.
We’ve missed out on Science Week, but given time is pretty relative in a lockdown, we would like to celebrate Science Month with an online hackathon!
You’ve started coding recently but could use a bit more structure, you’ve been coding in your first gig for some time but could use some extra fun? Join our BCS South Yorkshire event supported by The Developer Academy & The Curve for an afternoon filled with challenges and learning. We’ll be using a cloud environment so only bring your computer and enthusiasm. Please note we will contract you via email to give you more tailored instruction.
The team will be around for tech help but also will be judging the results at the end of the night on social media with some book vouchers as prizes for the best solutions.
Abstract:
Failure of software after it has entered production is common place and often attributed to gaps in the testing phase. A robust test strategy is critical in reducing the high rate of bugs found late in the software development lifecycle. Andrew Shaw joins us to explore his experiences of how successful test strategies can be one of a business' greatest assets for reducing the unexpected costs incurred by glitchy software.
Throughout the talk, Andrew will provide expert advice for producing high quality test scripts, how to improve the success of functional and exploratory testing, testing under extreme constraints, and crucially, how to think more like a tester. In a highly competitive market place, businesses are focussing hard on improving time to market through the introduction of automated testing.
Andrew will outline the key advantages, disadvantages and common myths of using automated testing as a test strategy. For anyone in a testing role, or looking for a career move into testing, Andrew provides a thought provoking and inspirational insight into how to develop your knowledge and experiences as a professional software test engineer and accelerate your career.
Speaker:
Andrew Shaw received a 2:1 honours degree in Business Information Systems at Sheffield Hallam University, and has gained experience in software development, software testing and software support, deciding that software testing was an area he was really interested in pursuing and is now focusing on developing himself in this area. He works as a Software Tester in Yorkshire and frequently attends networking events to develop and share his knowledge.
Andrew is a member of the British Computer Society and joined the South Yorkshire BCS branch committee in 2013. He is the Vice Chair of the branch and a Young Professionals Group representative and is interested in developing both the Young Professionals and student communities, as well as supporting other professionals with their professional development.
Outside of IT, Software Testing and the BCS, Andrew is a keen martial arts enthusiast, practicing Taekwondo and Shotokan Karate. He also enjoys travelling, writing and is interested in developing mental health awareness.
Abstract:
Failure of software after it has entered production is common place and often attributed to gaps in the testing phase. A robust test strategy is critical in reducing the high rate of bugs found late in the software development lifecycle. Andrew Shaw joins us to explore his experiences of how successful test strategies can be one of a business' greatest assets for reducing the unexpected costs incurred by glitchy software.
Throughout the talk, Andrew will provide expert advice for producing high quality test scripts, how to improve the success of functional and exploratory testing, testing under extreme constraints, and crucially, how to think more like a tester. In a highly competitive market place, businesses are focussing hard on improving time to market through the introduction of automated testing.
Andrew will outline the key advantages, disadvantages and common myths of using automated testing as a test strategy. For anyone in a testing role, or looking for a career move into testing, Andrew provides a thought provoking and inspirational insight into how to develop your knowledge and experiences as a professional software test engineer and accelerate your career.
BCS is the leading professional body for those working in Information Technology (IT). We have over 65,000 members in more than 100 countries and are the qualifying body for Chartered IT Professionals (CITP).
More about BCS (http://www.bcs.org/category/5651)
The South Yorkshire branch organises regular events for local BCS members, with guest speakers covering a broad range of IT fields and Organisations. Members following the BCS Continuing Professional Development (CPD) scheme are able to accrue points by attending these events. Non-members with an interest in any event are also welcome.
More about the Branch (http://sy.bcs.org/index.php?c=news)
The event programme runs each year consisting of eight meetings, held on the third Thursday of the month and starting in October.
More about the Events (http://sy.bcs.org/index.php?c=events)
The events programme and other branch activities are organised by the South Yorkshire Branch Committee. The committee welcomes new members and anyone interested in joining the committee are encouraged to talk to us at events. Nominations for new committee members are accepted at the branch AGM.
More about the Committee (http://sy.bcs.org/index.php?c=cmmittee)
BCS is the leading professional body for those working in Information Technology (IT). We have over 65,000 members in more than 100 countries and are the qualifying body for Chartered IT Professionals (CITP).
More about BCS (http://www.bcs.org/server.php?show=nav.00100c?)
The South Yorkshire branch organises regular events for local BCS members, with guest speakers covering a broad range of IT fields and Organisations. Members following the BCS Continuing Professional Development (CPD) scheme are able to accrue points by attending these events. Non-members with an interest in any event are also welcome.
More about the Branch (http://sy.bcs.org/index.php?c=news)
The event programme runs each year consisting of eight meetings, held on the third Thursday of the month and starting in October.
More about the Events (http://sy.bcs.org/index.php?c=events)
The events programme and other branch activities are organised by the South Yorkshire Branch Committee. The committee welcomes new members and anyone interested in joining the committee are encouraged to talk to us at events. Nominations for new committee members are accepted at the branch AGM.
More about the Committee (http://sy.bcs.org/index.php?c=cmmittee)
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Description changed:BCS is the leading professional body for those working in Information Technology (IT). We have over 65,000 members in more than 100 countries and are the qualifying body for Chartered IT Professionals (CITP).