Tech Community Holiday Party: Beer, Cider, Lightning Talks

Let's get together one last time in 2025 to network, drink beer and holiday cider, and learn from lightning talks.

(Note: if you are interested in presenting for 5-7 minutes on a cool idea, project or something that you think community would love to hear about, please reach out to the organizer)

Lightning Talk #1: Consider writing native iOS apps — it’s not as hard as you think, and apps are silky-smooth! Speaker: Grant Hulbert, Innovation @SeviceNow
Most people think it’s easier to write web apps and wrap them inside Capacitor or Tauri to make them seem native. Now that Apple has included a Cursor-like AI assistant natively in Xcode, it’s surprisingly easy to write truly native apps in SwiftUI, even if you’re not familiar with the language or SDKs.

Lightning Talk #2: Let's (very briefly) talk about Quantum Computing. Speaker: Eugene Chuvyrov, Your Humble Host :)
MIT Technology Review named Quantum Computing as the Breakout Technology of 2026 and beyond. Eugene will cover the reasons behind the increased attention towards quantum, the opportunities and challenges in the space, and how you can get started programming quantum computers today.

Lightning Talk #3: The League of Amazing Programmers and the Future of Software Engineering. Speaker: Eric Busboom, Executive Director, The League of Amazing Programmers
In this session, we will highlight how The League of Amazing Programmers is inspiring the next generation of coders while rethinking how software engineering education should evolve. We are not just teaching programming, we are experimenting with new ways to make technology accessible, creative, and relevant in an era shaped by AI and rapid innovation.

Lightning Talk #4: Securing AI and Agentic Environments in an Era of Autonomous Systems. Speaker: Chandrashekara Sastry, Seasoned Cybersecurity Professional
As AI systems evolve toward autonomy, cybersecurity must evolve with them. This short talk explores the new security challenges emerging in agentic environments.