Day 1

Keynote Speakers

Ballroom a

Farm Credit services of america stage

Dr. Radhika Dirks| 9:00 - 9:45 AM
'Human Implications Of Generative AI And What It Means For Our Future'

CEO of XLabs AI | Forbes Women To Watch In AI


Breakout Topics

Data Science & AI

Room 212

Brian Curee | 10 - 10:45 AM
'AI & How It Can Set Us Free: From Overwhelmed to Empowered'

CEO of Killer Bee, Killer Bee Marketing

Some are concerned about AI overshadowing human roles. But what if we recognize the immense possibility this tool offers? By harnessing AI, we can reclaim our most precious resource: time. This session will show how our team speeds up content creation with AI. Additionally, providing tips for becoming a proficient guide for AI generators. Remember, the richer the input, the more remarkable the output. Join us and transform your perspective on AI as a valuable ally, not an adversary.

Duane Teeters | 11 - 11:45 AM
'Bots Run My Site! - How Developers Can Embrace AI’

Tech Leader In Cybersecurity

Developers may be on the fence about their adoption of AI. Will it take my job? Isn't this all hype? If I do want to get started - how should I get started? Don't I need years of Machine Learning classes or need to already be an expert dev?

The answer is just an API call away.

In this session, learn from a 20-year technologist what you as a developer need to know to get started using Generative AI in your current role.

  • Hear about how this Nebraska native spent 90 days on a Generative AI start-up.

  • How the AI Card Shop works.

  • Different applications or use cases for Generative AI that might also apply to your situation. Code Copilots, Customer Service, Business Analysis, and Security Bots. Custom bots.

  • How to get started with Generative AI - your first three steps.

  • Why AI needs developers like you and how to make an impact.

Stephen Ivaskevicius | 2:15 PM - 3 PM

‘Artificial Intelligence (AI) Software Governance’

Software Governance Facilitator, Mutual of Omaha

Using AI to help write code makes short work of a big project. Bringing in code that is not governed can lead to violations, vulnerabilities, and loss of revenue. With AI being used for software development, it is important to ensure our engineers are following an Artificial Intelligence Software Governance Framework.

DEv / Sec Ops

Room 214

Karthik Nallajalla | 3:15 PM - 4 PM

‘Programmers AI Assistant - GitHub Copilot’

Application Developer, Farm Credit Services of America

Writing code can be a tedious and time-consuming task. To improve productivity, accuracy, and efficiency with programming, modern developers are always looking for new ways. Automatic code generation tools like GitHub Copilot can make this possible. In this session, you will learn the benefits of GitHub Copilot and how to use it with some real-time examples along with the pros and cons.

John Folberth | 10:00 - 10:45 AM
'The New Dev Experience: DevBoxes and Deployment Environments'

Senior Cloud Solution Architect, Microsoft

With Microsoft's recent announcements on DevBoxes and Deployment Environments it's a new age in developer experience. Instantly bringing up single purpose VMs to support application development coupled with provisioning as needed Azure infrastructure via deployment environments that get spun down automatically.

Cole Kelley | 11 - 11:45 AM
'Modern Event Driven Pipelines with Kafka and ksqlDB'

Data Integration Engineer, Farm Credit Services of America

A reliable core is essential in robust event-driven infrastructures. This presentation covers building out a sustainable event bus core using Kafka and ksqlDB for serving internal systems and real-time updates for external consumers.

Robert Boedigheimer | 2:15 - 3:00 PM
'Cryptography 101'

Principal Systems Developer, Schwan's Home Delivery

Learn the fundamentals of cryptography, including public/private and symmetric encryption, hashing, and digital signatures. Discover which techniques are appropriate for various situations. Review practical real life examples for storing passwords, protecting URL parameters, securely exchanging information with partners, and safely encrypting sensitive information on public web sites. Concepts apply to all platforms, examples will be in C#.

Benjamin J Ferguson | 3:15 - 4 PM
'Lessons Learned From Hacking The Soviets'

Senior Programmer/Analyst, Duncan Aviation

1982 was a turning point in the Cold War when a Soviet gas pipeline exploded and caused billions in damage to their infrastructure. How did the CIA use software to pull it off? What can we learn from these events to protect ourselves? We will discuss these questions while looking at other recent software disasters to help us write better software.

Innovation

Room 213

Terry Hill | 10:00 - 10:45 AM
'Harnessing the Power of nativeWind: Integrating Native User Interfaces in React Native Applications'

Senior React Native Engineer, Milli

In this insightful breakout session, we delve into the world of React Native, a widely adopted cross-platform mobile app development framework, with a special focus on the seamless integration of nativeWind. NativeWind has emerged as a powerful tool that allows developers to write truly native user interfaces, enabling the best of both worlds - the convenience of JavaScript and the performance of native code. This session is designed to explore the potential of this revolutionary combination and offer participants the chance to enhance their development skills. We will begin with a brief introduction to React Native and nativeWind, laying the foundation for newcomers and providing a refresher for experienced developers. Subsequently, we will dive into the techniques for effectively incorporating nativeWind into a React Native application, discussing the essential concepts, strategies, and the potential pitfalls to avoid. By examining real-world examples and interactive demonstrations, participants will gain practical knowledge about how to implement nativeWind in their applications. This session will address various topics, such as nativeWind's component structure, style management, and performance optimization techniques, all within the context of React Native. Whether you're an experienced React Native developer looking to enhance your toolbox or a beginner eager to understand the integration of nativeWind, this session will provide valuable insights. Attendees will leave with a greater understanding of how to leverage the power of nativeWind to develop more efficient, performant, and native-like user experiences in their React Native applications.

Stacy Skradski | 11 - 11:45 AM
'Impact of Internal Training to Support Modernization'

Info Services Manager/ Product Owner, Mutual Of Omaha

To modernize technology at scale, you need skilled development teams. Development teams have less friction and are quicker to deliver on business outcomes, with access to customized training based off simple, but applicable scenarios which leverage internal networks, tools, and processes as defined by your organization. This method bridges the gap between informal, social and experiential learning.

Steve Harper | 2:15 - 3 PM
'Why The Way You Connect Matters More Than Ever'

CEO/Chief Rippler, The Ripple Effect

The most empowering feeling in the world is someone wanting to take the time to get to know you – the real you. So why do so many of us find it so hard to connect with others in a truly genuine, authentic way? Maybe it’s because so many of us have been taught to connect only when we want something or need something from someone else. Perhaps it’s because we’ve seen so many takers in our lives that we automatically assume everyone we encounter will inevitably want something from us. So, we close ourselves off. We only open just enough to make surface connections and not much more. And then we sit back and wonder why we feel more isolated, alone, and generally unfilled in our personal and professional lives. Isn’t it time we try connecting better? Steve Harper has spent his entire career studying the power of connecting through a process he calls Rippling. A magical experience that shows people how to proactively look for ways to engage and support one another on a deeper, more meaningful level. Steve will give you an entirely new perspective on how to communicate with strangers, friends, family, coworkers, board members, and, yes, those key donors. His Ripple approach will help you reframe your connecting efforts to look for and find “connection points,” discover how to leverage them to keep the connecting going, and quite literally transform how people respond and react to you. So what do you say, are you ready to get your Ripple On?

Warren Hagelstein | 3:15 - 4 PM
'Secure by Design'

Cybersecurity Advisor, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency

This session will provide an overview of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the free, non-regulatory services provided to all 16 Critical Infrastructure Sectors, and an overview of CISA’s Secure by Design initiative.  As America’s Cyber Defense Agency, CISA is charged with defending our nation against ever-evolving cyber threats and to understand, manage, and reduce risk to the cyber and physical infrastructure that Americans rely on every hour of every day.  It’s time to build cybersecurity into the design and manufacture of technology products. 

Microservices & Cloud

Room 215

Alec Harrison | 10 - 10:45 AM
'Azure Open AI'

Software Consultant, Lean Techniques

Have you heard about Chat GPT? Do you think Open AI could be the future of your company, or make your job way easier? Where does it sit today? In this session, we will discuss where Open AI currently sits in Azure. Cover some cool technology like Azure communication services, Twillio, Azure Open AI, and Logic Apps. We will debunk some myths, discuss how to get access to Azure Open AI, build out a low code/no code solution to leverage Azure Open AI, and finally build out our own version of an SMS-based search engine. After this talk, you will be able to build a system that allows you to send a text message to a number and have Open AI answer you wherever you have text message coverage for Free*. We will also show how to extend the solution to run off your organization's data!

Jake Partusch | 11 - 11:45 AM
'Platform Engineering — Shifting Down Instead of Left'

Principal Engineer, Vendia

In modern development, we often use platforms to build custom applications, create integrations, and distribute our code worldwide. Platform as a Service (PaaS) providers —like AWS — allow developers to delegate the management of servers, runtimes, and operating systems to cloud providers. This allows development teams to focus on building differentiating features rather than managing low-level systems. While using third party platforms may remove some of that heavy-lifting, how might we take this concept one step further — using the cloud providers' strategies to build our own higher-level platforms that better suit our needs? Instead of burdening developers with more responsibility with "shifting left" techniques, let's shift the tedious work _down_ to these custom platforms. In this talk, we will learn about when it is a good idea to build a platform, discuss the basic building blocks, and use this knowledge to implement a custom PaaS on top of AWS.

Matt Llewelyn | 2:15 - 3:00 PM
'Advantages and Disadvantages of a Microservice Architecture'

Software Engineer, Children's Mercy Kansas City

The microservice architecture can offer significant advantages compared with the monolithic architecture. While a monolithic architecture may work for small applications, the microservice architecture can make it easier to separate each service into its own environment so if one service fails, then only that service fails. It can add some more complexity to set up, but if the application can logically be separated, then it can make more sense to use microservices. Also, microservices makes the code much more readable and can make it easier to debug. Overall, there are advantages to using a microservice architecture if your application has become too large to handle.

Vaibhav Gujral | 3:15 - 4 PM
'Demystifying Azure Networking for Developers'

Director, Capgemini

In this session, Vaibhav will cover the basics of Azure Networking services including Virtual Networks, VPN gateways, and different load balancing options in Azure. He will talk about what each service does and when should it be used?

Tech Leadership

Room 216

Nebraska Women in STEM | 10 - 10:45 AM
'Breaking Down Barriers for Nebraska’s Women in STEM'

Assistant Director, Bio Nebraska, Nebraska Women In STEM

Provide an overview of the Nebraska Women in STEM initiative, including what we hope to accomplish and the initiative’s impact so far. -Talk about the important roles professional development plays in reducing barriers for women. -Highlight professional development topics that have emerged as being highly critical. -Discuss how organizations can continue to support, retain, and reduce barriers for women and why they should.

Chris Stone | 11 - 11:45 AM
'50 Shades of Retrospective: Levelling up your continuous improvement game'

Virtual Agile Coach/ Scrum Master

Tired of the same old retrospective format? Struggling to turn insights into actions? Having difficulties creating a safe, inclusive environment where people participate equally? Join me for an interactive exploration of my top tips, strategies, and hacks for continuous improvement. In this unique and engaging slideless session, you'll participate in a "choose your own adventure" experience that will allow you to influence where we focus our time. No standard one way presentation here; this is your talk, focused on your challenges. We could run this session 50 times together, and each would be different. You'll leave this session with practical tools and strategies that you can immediately implement with your teams to drive continuous improvement.

Phil Friedrich | 2:15 - 3 PM
'Having Influence Vs. Being a Leader'

CFP, Northwestern Mutual

Have you ever felt like you were impacting and influencing the people in your sphere, however you didn't have the title? Our ability to create change in our circle and in our work environment is not entirely dictated by our position/title, it is dictated by who we connect with and how we are viewed inside of our organization and social circle. 

Michelle Lee | 3:15 - 4 PM
'You are a Genius, or at least you have a genius!'

Tech Leader

This session you will learn the benefits of understanding how leveraging our natural talents can improve the quality of the work we do. As a certified Working Genius Facilitator I will share how Patrick Lencioni's newest book and model can help you and your teams!

HDC TECH BASH

Sponsored by Lunavi | 5:00 - 8:00 PM
LET IT FLY

Have fun connecting with attendees, presenters, and leaders in the tech community over music, games, and refreshments at our Mesh Party, sponsored by our friends at Lunavi.

1080 Capitol Ave, Omaha, NE 68102