Clean Code, Best Practices + Encryption In A Post Quantum World

The folks over at QGEMS have kindly offered to host and sponsor the 2nd .NET Meetup of the year.

We will be at Building 5, Airport Freightway Freight Village, Woolsington, Newcastle upon Tyne NE13 8BH - plenty of free parking on site and a short walk from the nearest Metro

We have a fairly relaxed agenda, but will follow:
5:30 - Doors Open
5:45 - Pizza arrival
6:00 - Introduction / Housekeeping
6:10 - Talks begin
8:00 - Closing

Who should attend:

Beginners and experienced .NET developers, architects, cloud engineers, and anyone curious about building smarter, AI-enhanced applications with Microsoft technologies.

Speaker 1: Adam Parker

Title: Clean Code, Best Practices

Description:
This talk is about Clean Code, Best Practices and the impact they can have on the performance of the applications.

We’ll work though an example application with some benchmarks and see how each part impacts performance along with some of the other gains and why you should possibly consider breaking best practices!

Speaker Bio:
I am a software developer of 8 years mainly working in the .NET space. I’m too interested in other languages, a terminal junkie and may one day settle on a language I like enough to use for everything!

I have given a couple talks before and all talks I give are accompanied by a blog post; and the blog also contains some other ramblings and challenges that I found interesting (and hopeful others too!)

Speaker 2: Mark Thompson

Title: Encryption in a Post Quantum World

Description:
Quantum computing is here, it is time to protect our code. Todays standards have served the world for decades. Not any more. It’s time to discuss Post Quantum Encryption and how we as developers can use it, without panic, hype, or heavy maths.
This talk is a friendly, practical introduction to quantum-proof encryption, aimed at C# and .NET developers. We’ll focus on how encryption is used in real applications, not the maths behind it, and everything is explained in terms of practical use.

We’ll start by looking at why encryption needs to evolve, including how Shor’s Algorithm fundamentally breaks widely used asymmetric encryption standards like RSA and ECC, rendering them unsafe in a quantum world. We’ll then revisit symmetric and asymmetric encryption, clarifying what remains safe and what needs to change.

From there, we’ll get hands-on and build simple, real C# examples to encrypt data, sign it, and verify it code you can take away and use straight away.

This is a relaxed, code-first session designed to make modern encryption feel approachable, useful, and achievable. You don’t need to be a mathematician or a Crypto expert. There will be no slides of equations.

Speaker Bio:
Mark is a hands-on software engineer and Technical Director with over twenty years’ experience building secure, large-scale systems across defence, finance, industrial IoT, and clean energy.

Throughout his career, he has maintained a strong interest in cryptography and secure communications, with a practical focus on how encryption is used in real-world systems.

At QGEMS, Mark helps shape the technical direction of the platform, working closely with engineering teams on quantum-proof encryption, AI-driven forecasting, and distributed energy optimisation. His work is focused on building secure, cloud-native energy systems that support sustainability and meaningful carbon reduction, ensuring that sensitive energy and infrastructure data remains trustworthy and protected as platforms scale.