Threats & Demos / Metaheuristics with Timefold

Welcome back to the Belgian Developer Experience Network!

We have 2 technical talks lined up for our fifth Belgian Developer Experience Network meetup! Mark your calendars for the 9th of December, because it is going to be an evening packed with insights into using AI securely and effectively. Make sure to be there for the deep dives, stay for the discussion and networking.

Schedule:
- 18:00 - 18:20 - Doors open
- 18:20 - 18:30 - Intro
- 18:30 - 19:30 - Session 1: MCP: Threats, Tools, and a Few (Hacking) Demos

• Speaker:
  Philippe Bogaerts (Public Cloud System Engineer and Co-Founder of BruCON)
• Description:
  Philippe contributes mostly by writing blog posts xxradar, talking at meetups as well as co-organizing a renowned security conference BruCON. During daytime, Philippe is a solution architect at Fortinet.

Description: Join us for a technical deep-dive meetup on the Model Context Protocol (MCP), the emerging open standard that allows LLMs to securely interact with external tools, data, and services.

We’ll start by demystifying what MCP really is and how the client–server flow works, then dive straight into hands-on tooling and attack-surface experiments. You’ll leave you with both defensive and offensive insights into this rapidly evolving ecosystem.

What to expect:

• MCP Debunked: concise breakdown of the protocol, client ⇄ server lifecycle, transport modes and capability registration.
• Debugging with MCP Inspector: live exploration for testing, tracing and verifying MCP interactions.
• Intent Analysis: using AI to analyze tool descriptions and detect unsafe capabilities before agents can use them.
• The Capability-Delta Hack Explained: security-focused demo showing how a model can escalate or extend capabilities.

Format: 45–60 minutes of technical discussion and attack-surface experiments. All demos and experiments will be documented on GitHub.

- 19:30 - 19:45 - Break
- 19:45 - 20:30 - Session 2: LLMs ≠ Schedulers — Metaheuristics with Timefold

• Speaker:
  Tom Cools (DevRel at Timefold, Java Champion, BeJUG organizer, (Keynote) Conference Speaker)
• Description:
  Tom Cools is a DevRel at Timefold, Java Champion, BeJUG organizer and (Keynote) Conference Speaker.

Description: LLMs can’t optimize schedules, but AI can!

Large language models are touted as the solution for every problem under the sun. Yet, when it comes to everyday tasks like creating work schedules for 30 employees across 3 shifts or optimizing truck routes for 100 deliveries these models often derail.

We’ll introduce you to metaheuristics and a practical walkthrough using Timefold (open-source, Java) with pointers to similar tools in other ecosystems.

What to expect:

• Explanation of when metaheuristics are the right tool (scheduling, routing, constraint satisfaction).
• Live demos: annotate domain classes, define constraints, and run optimizations with Timefold.
• How LLMs and metaheuristics can complement each other to build powerful, practical AI-assisted tooling.

Format: ~40–50 minutes including demos and Q&A. Example code and links will be shared.

- 20:30 - 00:00 - Network Event & Food
After (or during, we still have to decide) the talks you will be able to share your valuable insights and ideas with everyone, while sharing some food and drinks.

Additional note: This meetup includes food. Please keep your RSVP status up to date so we do not waste any of our food. In case you're doubting the feasibility to join in person, please update your RSVP accordingly.