Quest for Quality 2018 Conference - The conference of the future - My Summary
I have been speaking at various conferences inside and outside the USA for several years now. I have either seen various cutting edge themes for conferences or a really well organized conference, but I have never seen a conference having both together until I went to Quest for Quality 2018 Conference in Dublin, Ireland. This was a 2 day conference with the theme of “Reinventing QA for the new IT Era” and all the talks were covering cutting edge technologies in the areas of AI, Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, IoT, Test Automation, UX, Agile and DevOps.(NOTE: To let people connect with the speakers and get to know their work, I have provided links to them throughout this post, so that you click on it and read about them and half of the photos were from the great photographers of Quest For Quality)This conference started about 3 years ago and has grown exponentially in the past several years in terms of the number of attendees (attending from all over the world), the quality of talks and speakers and most importantly the different ways the organizers make it conducive for people to network before, during and after the talks. Since I mentioned organizers, I have to pause here and give a big shout out to Ivana Gocanin and Nikola Sopar. Both together were the main brains behind the theme of the conference, speaker selection, organization and pretty much everything from the time they opened up call for proposals till they packed up everything at the conference after it ended. Of course, they had their colleagues to help them out in different ways but organizing such a big conference remotely (did I mention both live in different places and the conference was in a different place) is just amazing and kudos to them.[Ivana on the left]Now with the above introduction let’s get into my summary of the conference.
CONFERENCE SUMMARY Speakers Dinner-The organizers arranged for a speaker’s dinner at the Westin hotel which was about 10 minute walk from the main hotel where the speakers were given FREE accommodation. There was a bus that took us to the the hotel and I should say the hall they booked at the Westin was something I have only seen in wedding receptions. It was super grand. One thing I need to mention here is Ivana and Nikola were so nice that, they also allowed speakers to bring their significant others to this huge grand party. I have never seen this happen in any other conference. This shows how great these two were and wanted a great family experience as well. Thank you so much for that. We had about 30 minutes of social networking with the speakers and then 3 course meal along with unlimited drinks. It was such a nice experience for me and my wife. Also, Dejan Cusic gave a brief welcome address to all the speakers.
Day 1 - Conference Keynotes
This conference was slightly different from other conferences in terms of have 5 keynotes, 2 on the first day and 3 on the final day. It was followed by the usual track sessions with time to network and relax in between the talks. The conference opened up with a keynote from Anna Royzman. She discussed various topics related to emerging trends in software testing and how we testers can adapt to these trends. One big takeaway was how having empathy for the user is a really important trait which would immensely help testers to view the latest technological advancements from the lens of the common people and users of the product. The next keynote was from Marie Kress & Klemen Kozelj. They shared a great story of how they came up with an innovative idea to make the world a better place. Their team created this application to help people use electric vehicles and urged them for cleaner environments. They also shared different approaches their teams try to foster innovation and help to come up with the next big thing. The 2 keynotes were followed by various track sessions. This was one of the very few conferences where I had the time to attend almost every track session I wanted to attend and learnt a lot from each one of them. These were the talks I went to-
Day 1 - Track Sessions You missed a spot: Security!
Milan Gabor discussed various things to consider when it comes to security testing. There were a lot of good examples and approaches he discussed related to discovering vulnerabilities in the system. I am also glad he mentioned OWASP (Open Web Application Security Project) as I use these resources in my mobile testing workshop as well. Overall, it was a really good intro to security testing and he shared resources to learn and practice it.
Ready Player One - How to Test Mixed Reality - This is the first talk I have ever attended which solely focused on how testers test Augmented, Virtual and Mixed reality. Saga Davidsdottir and Jarl Cedergren shared their experiences testing devices/technologies such as Hololenses, VR “CLAW’s”, full body haptic suits and much more. This was really interesting as they also discussed different things to consider when testing such technologies and things that worked/did not work during their real life testing.
The next talk was “Continuous Integration Workflow and quality processes in our financial and agile environment” by Juan Perez.
This talk was close to my heart as he talked about how his team built a seamless CI/CD pipeline and how testers were involved in each phase of it. He also discussed problems related to UI testing and the time they had to spend on maintaining them. This is exactly my problem as well and I am glad that I am able to do something about it by joining my current company Testim.io that uses AI to help in reducing the problems of maintenance, creating more stable tests and faster authoring and execution of tests. This was a great talk. Me and Juan geeked out after his talk for 1 hour about various tools, frameworks and build pipelines, and he also showed me how his team wrote and implemented their automated tests, including their framework. It was a great learning experience. Thanks Juan!!!
The next talk was “Connected Health: The Challenge of Testing Bluetooth Medical Devices” by Tomaz Nahtigal. He shared his experience testing bluetooth enabled medical devices, he discussed this via 2 case studies and explained what went well and what did not. It was a good intro level talk on testing bluetooth enabled software and hardware devices.
The next talk was “The main power of tester is information” by Igor Goldshmidt. He shared his real life experiences of finding different ways to get different kinds of information to help him and other testers do their job better. It was a good experience report and reminds us that information is everywhere and we need to seize it. On a side note, my belief that “everyone in Israel knows everyone” was validated when Igor mentioned already knowing different people I work with on a daily basis. It is indeed a small world.
Now coming to my AI panel discussion. This was one of the most amazing experiences I have ever hand and really thank Ivana, Nikola and Dejan for having me as one of the panel members for the AI panel discussion that happened at the end of the day after all the track talks were completed. I am humbled and grateful for the opportunity. The panel had some amazing speakers and thought leaders that includes Anna Royzman, Liran Barokas, Stefance Majicand me. We had great discussions on various ways AI is influencing software testing, human life and much more. The discussion was supposed to be only for 30 mins but it extended up to a hour and then we had to cut it short due to lack of time. These were all good signs to show that, the panel discussion was a huge hit. Then we had an awesome networking event from 5 - 10 PM with great food, drinks and conversations.
Day 2 - Conference Keynotes - The 2nd day of the conference started with 2 more keynotes. The first one was from Benjamin Talin who discussed “10 Things that will disappear in 10 years”. He is the founder of https://morethandigital.info/en/ (the biggest digital initiative in europe). It was really nice to hear his perspectives on some things that will disappear in the future like the use of physical keys, mobile phones etc. The next one was my favorite (I am biased) because it dealt with “Inclusive AI” i.e bringing in diversity in the world of AI and other emerging technologies. It was from Davar Ardalan who is the founder of IVOW, a cultural storytelling startup. She has previous experience working in public media for over 20 years at NPR news (National Public Radio). There were 2 things awesome about her (apart from so many other traits)
1) She is so passionate about the topic of Diversity just like I am
2) She knows me and my wife’s favorite news personalities who work at NPR, so we got too geek out about it. Before her keynote, I was able to get some time to talk with Davar the previous day. It was truly inspiring to see a person who is really passionate about what she does and wants to make the world a better place. Just me typing these sentences gives me goose bumps as I can relate to this in so many ways. Meeting her was one of the best things that happened to me at the conference. So thanks again Ivana and Nikola for having me as a speaker this year :-).
Anyways, her keynote on “Story Telling in the age of Robots and Artificial Intelligence” was amazing, she discussed the different initiatives she is working on, why diversity in technology is important and how she believes everyone can make the world a better place. You are awesome Davar!!! She also has an amazing video how they are training their AI prototype they have included in Google Home. You can find it here - https://twitter.com/epsilon11/status/1047775086688784384
Day 2 - Track Sessions
The track sessions started right after the keynote, we had Antonia Landi who gave the talk “QA in an AB-Test Driven Company…”. It was good to hear different perspectives on AB testing, how to do it in a better way and what are the things to look out for.
The next talk was given by Frederik Luttmann on “Testing AI applications”. He went deep into how neural networks work and discussed different things to look out for when testing AI based applications. Now coming to my talk, it was on “How AI is transforming software testing”. Based on my real life experiences working with our own AI based testing tool, realizing people are still confused on how AI works and how it applies to software testing, I came up with the presentation. I had a full room and had a super interactive audience. The talk went really well as people were able to relate to it, they gave me great feedback and also ended up talking about AI and testing for 45 mins after the session was over. So, overall was really happy with the way it went. Some of the pics and moments from my talk were as shown below.
You can find the summary of my AI talk here - https://blog.testim.io/summary-blog-how-ai-is-transforming-software-testing/
The final talk I attended before the keynote was given by Adam Leon on “Testing for Bias”. He discussed various examples of ethical risks that can occur with AI and how we can mitigate these problems.
Day 2- Closing Keynote
Now coming to our last keynote. First of all, I did a life experiment last year where I did not watch TV and did not use social media for about 6 months. That gave me a totally new perspective on life in terms of what really matters in life and how being mindful can make you a better person. Secondly, doing this experiment I thought I was “zen like” or that is what my wife tells me all the time. Then I met Fabian Dittrich the last keynote speaker at the conference. After meeting and talking to Fabian, I realized that people can take the life experiment to a whole new level and still be happy. He is the founder of Helpando and Startupdiaries. His whole talk was about his life experiments and how he runs a company from a Land Rover. It was titled “Agile living and the future of work: What I learned as the CEO of a nomadic company”. This was a really inspiring talk and I could personally relate to some of the things he was discussing in terms of what true happiness in life really means? He also discussed various ways he automates his life which was phenomenal. Fabian!!! You are truly an inspiration to people and I am so glad you gave this talk. Thanks brother!!! In Summary, this is a must attend conference which focuses on cutting edge technologies. This is a chance to meet great thinkers from all over the world and share ideas. I was lucky and honored to be part of this conference. Hopefully there are more visits to come!!! Love you guys!!!