Fusion Meetup March 2020

Tickets for this event can be found here https://www.eventbrite.com/e/fusion-meetup-tickets-94717752347

Fusion is an event for Tech passionate people in the Midlands, held in Birmingham city centre with a focus on engaging, thought provoking talks in an informal, sociable environment.

We aim to provide a forum for innovation, ideas and discussion, with a side order of delicious food from local providers and a few beers thrown in for good measure.

Our focus is to bring the local Tech community together over insightful talks, good food, and conversation; a networking event with a difference.

Please see the event Code of Conduct here http://confcodeofconduct.com - general overview; everyone is welcome, be nice to people, include others and have a great time!

Speakers

Dylan Beattie - Software Development Consultant and Founder of Ursatile

Architecture: The Stuff That's Hard to Change

In this talk, Dylan Beattie will share his own insights into the idea of architecture as part of a software development process. We’ll explore some popular architectural patterns and processes – and a couple of obscure ones as well – and look at how, and when, you can incorporate those patterns into your own projects. We’ll talk about how the idea of software architecture has changed over time, and share some tips and advice for developers who find themselves working with architecture as part of their role.

Luke Hennerley and Clement Deon - Technical Leads at Sidetrade

Switching front end frameworks in Enterprise, Angular to React

Luke and Clement are two of the technical leads at Sidetrade. Together they were tasked to lead a workstream to evaluate which front end technology is going to be best to enable Sidetrade to grow. In this talk, they will explain how they did it across offices (Birmingham and Paris), along with reason why and obstacles they faced along the way, as well as giving us a LIVE demonstration of the React framework.

Jon Skeet - Senior Software Engineer at Google

Dates and times: Hard, but not impossible

Some developers write date/time-sensitive code without worrying about it — but also without thinking about it. Some developers write date/time-sensitive code and worry about it a lot because it's hard.

In this talk Jon will provide some guidance to help you write date/time-sensitive code with a reasonable degree of confidence, and test it. We'll look at the speaker's Noda Time project as one tool to make your life easier, but Jon will also explain how you can improve your System.DateTime code too.

Frances Buontempo - Editor of the ACCU’s Overload magazine, Author and Programmer

Can you code your way out of a paper bag?

Frances Buontempo will show you how, using genetic algorithms. We'll see what the algorithm does, how it "learns", or solves problems, and get a feel for a large number of machine learning and AI algorithms, by understanding how a genetic algorithm works.

Additional information

Please note that the new start time is 6pm with talks due to start around 7:15/7:30pm.

We appreciate that for some people meetups can be a little daunting and overwhelming when there's large crowds around. Please feel free to grab a seat in the main conference room if you prefer. This room is quiet and you will be able to have WiFi access if required - just be aware that the team will be working around you to get the room and speakers set up.

If you need assistance whilst in the venue please let us know. There will be one table reserved at the front for anyone who has trouble seeing the screen or hearing the speakers.

There will be a photographer present at this event. If you do not wish to have your photo taken please mention this when you check in on the door.