Dennie Declercq
Microsoft MVP || Developer & President DDSoft
Gistel, Belgium
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Dennie is Microsoft MVP Developer Technologies and has experience in accessibility with Microsoft technologies. In daily life Dennie is president and developer at DDSoft, a nonprofit that connects IT to People who are less tech-savvy. Dennie invented technical solutions and systems to help people with disabilities to participate in their daily life. Thanks to his autism he's the right man at the right spot to contribute as a volunteer in function of people with disabilities.
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COPilotING my Autism in Tech
Co-Pilot, Chat GPT, OpenAI Image generators, what is that buzz all about? Does it really helps people? Is it a new unnecessary buzzword ceased to exist? Or is it the holy grail to be more productive? Well, In this talk I show you how I use it as a person with autism, entrepreneur, developer and of course, in my daily life!
I use Co-Pilot, GPT, OpenAI and more to cope the stuff that is necessary but not my biggest talent. Coping is behaving as normal as possible, it's something with bad association in the autism community, but unfortunately most of the people identifying them as autistic know that it's something expected from the outer world. Also governments, customers, co-workers and more expect you to do stuff, to be productive, enjoyable and more.
You can automate your life with AI, you even can have a AI personal assistant, marketer and more for free or just for a penny. You need to implement a new programming methodology? No worries! Co-Pilot will get you started. You are bad at design but need to promote an event? No worries! OpenAI and Microsoft will get your design! You don't know the ideal search term for as specific problem? No worries! Bing Chat will get you there, very fast and easy!
This talk is a follow up of AI for the Better, where I envisioned AI assistance, and you will see, using it on a daily basis makes my life easier! A dream came true!
Coaching Autism Traits in Tech
Autism, Autism Spectrum is a condition where the brain of a person works different. With different I mean: not worse nor better. Just different connections wired in the brain. Predictions, behavior, communication, social interaction, and more are different.
In this talk I will explain how autism works, what the traits are and how you can coach people with autism in tech. I explain how the different traits can manifest. I will talk about the underlaying patterns and layers, and how traits that at first sight are a disadvantage can be an advantage in the right context. I teach you coaching techniques helping you to change the context. If you change the context, you change the outcome.
I will also explain how you can coach yourself if you have autism. This is because coaching can come from external resources, but also from within. If you start to know yourself from the inside, you start seeing patterns what works in which scenario. This is a very powerful tool to be more productive, more happy and more successful in life.
Blazing Accessibility Basics
Do you want to learn to make accessible websites for all people in de world including the 1B people with disabilities on the planet with Blazor? Than this talk is definitely something to look forward to.
In this talk I learn you how to make PWA’s and website frontends with Microsoft’s band new technology called Blazor. I learn you how to make websites that are WCAG valid for all the known disability groups. Next to Blazor I am going to get you started on the semantic HTML and ARIA basics.
I am going to cover the importance of ALT text for images, the use of color, accessible websites for screen readers but also about websites being clear and consistent with language to avoid anxiety and concentration difficulties.
Me, myself started with mobile apps to create solutions for people with disabilities but since the rise of Blazor I join the web!
Autism: Coping Rigidity with Modern Tech
People on the autism spectrum can experience more difficulties in life. Let’s be honest, most of the people with autism have difficulties in their daily lives, work environments and in tech tasks. One of the well-known difficulties people on the spectrum have is being rigid. Rigidity is having difficulties to change from work methodology, way of thinking (in life and/ or work) and even tools and software systems.
We are not only going to discuss how to cope with rigidity in software, but also going to look at the other side of life? Can the use of modern tech help with ongoing changes in the real world? Can a software or tool make the real world changes more comfortable?
Join me on a inspiring road how I help myself and if this can inspire yourself and/ or your co-workers?
AI for the better
Do you want to be inspired what AI can do for the better (life of people of disabilities)? 1 on 7 billion people on the planet have disability that is visible or invisible. People that may need assistance, and this can be digital assistance! I am going to inspire you with ideas ready awaiting to be build to help people. This is the inspirational if you want to start an AI (side) project that matters! When you see this talk you see what’s missing. Of course this talk isn’t only about what’s missing but I am going to show you some ideas build (not by myself) with AI and how the projects changed lives. So are you the next person that change life and use AI for the better (life of people with disabilities)?
Intro to Blazing Web Accessibility (*)
(*) Empowered with AI
Finally! I can speak open, load and enthusiastic about web accessibility! People that knew me before do know that I am still/was a mobile app fan for accessible solutions. With mobile apps you could achieve so much to make accessible experiences for people with learning disabilities. Namely, there was the opportunity to use Text-To-Speech, that is a key part for accessibility for people with learning difficulties. But right now… You can do this magic with websites too!
I am going to learn you how you make an accessible website in Blazor, Microsoft’s brand new front-end technology. An alternative for those that don’t have the JavaScript feeling as much as their C# feeling. And of course, I was waiting to do this for too long: I am going to teach you to go for the extra mile: add speech via Microsoft Cognitive Services (AI solution from the Microsoft Azure Stack).
Attending this talk will be win-win-win: learn about an accessible compliant site with accessibility basics like tags, labels, Aria,.. for people with vision loss (and more). Extra accessibility with the addition of Speech for people that need this (like people with learning difficulties / dyslexia,…) in a sauce of an introduction to the Blazing new Blazor technology and Microsoft Cognitive Speech!
Error 404: Color not found
Colors are an important way to convey information, but there are a lot of people with color blindness and low vision. What if your only way of conveying information is using color? What about an infographic where the color contrast is too low and the information is not reaching the end user, the customer or co-worker? What about missing the deal of your life due to an inaccessible website? In some cases the error: ‘color not found’ will directly lead to: ‘ customer or deal not found’. I guess this is not what we want our products to be!
In this talk I teach you about color contrast, color blindness and the use of color in UX. I also tell you about tools that you can use to test color accessibility in a lot of use cases.
Anxiety in Tech
Anxiety, one of the four main emotions, is a feeling of being afraid and experiencing fear. You can have a periodic timeframe or a moment with anxiety, or longer periods of anxiety called chronic anxiety. A short period of anxiety is good for your fight or flight response, so that you can take the right actions in critical moments. Chronic anxiety can lead to an unhealthy state of mental being. People can be anxious for a lot of reasons, and there are even proven phobias on researched fears.
You can be anxious for tech reasons too. Let’s imagine being anxious for Windows updates, anxious for NuGet packages, anxious for rebranding, … In this talk I am going to cover reasons where people can be anxious for related to tech. I also show you insights to reduce the amount of anxiety via either changing your thoughts or having software adjustments like branching, backups, and more...
This talk will give you my insights how I (try to) cope with my own tech fears and learn you to go from FEAR to Face Everything And Rise.
Autism in Tech
Are all software developers the same? Do all software developers make the same choices? Or are some of them having more worries or just think in a unique way? Yes! of course. There is a group of software developers who are autistic. It can be people with an ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder) diagnose. But there also a lot of people with autism missing an official diagnose. Some people are just fighting more than others for getting things done.
In this talk, I try to cover how the tech world is for me, as a person with autism. I am in tech for about 10 years. In fact, sometimes I feel differences between me and other people in tech. Besides my tech roll in life, I am responsible for a self – a support group of people with autism.
Of course, I am not only telling about myself. I cover also lessons learned from other people with autism in tech. I talk about unique thoughts, strict decisions and anxiety for changes like updating an environment or trying to complete new classes can be hard for people like me. The same for a lot of things!
Fasten your seatbelt and have a flight into the world of autism in tech.
(E)-Motions
As developers, startups and consultants we have the responsibility to make systems and we need to be aware that systems create emotions by their users, customers and even ourself. In this talk I am going to teach you how you how to be aware of the emotions systems can trigger.
Have you ever worked with an app that recalled you a nice experience in the past? Or worse did a software system confront you with a bad experience in the past? Pictures are a strong tool in a software system that can trigger a lot of emotions? So in this talk we are definitely going to look into picture and images.
If your software system is a to-do app, calendar or meeting system are you aware of popups, reminders, attention and attention loss? Are you aware that attentions and colours can trigger anxiety? Can trigger stress or worse?
And last but not least: Do you add that little extra functionality that creates the WOW moment for your user? Are you creating magic in their life?
Today you will learn about triggering emotions with digital systems, and at least you know which emotions you can (unintentionally) trigger.
Copenhagen Developers Festival 2023 Sessionize Event
WeAreDevelopers World Congress 2023 Sessionize Event
KCDC 2023 Sessionize Event
DevSum 2023 Sessionize Event
NDC Oslo 2023 Sessionize Event
WeAreDevelopers Live 2023 (Season 5) Sessionize Event
NDC London 2023 Sessionize Event
CloudBrew 2022 - A two-day Microsoft Azure event Sessionize Event
Build Stuff 2022 Lithuania Sessionize Event
Global AI Developers Days Sessionize Event
NDC Oslo 2022 Sessionize Event
KCDC 2022 Sessionize Event
WeAreDevelopers World Congress 2022 Sessionize Event
Scottish Summit 2022 Sessionize Event
NDC Porto 2022 Sessionize Event
Teams Nation 2022 Sessionize Event
Global AI Bootcamp Pune 2022 Sessionize Event
Tech A11y Summit Sessionize Event
Update Conference Prague 2021 Sessionize Event
Build Stuff 2021 Lithuania Sessionize Event
Azure Community Conference 2021 Sessionize Event
Techorama 2021 Spring Edition Sessionize Event
Virtual Scottish Summit 2021 Sessionize Event
NDC London 2021 Sessionize Event
Build Stuff 2020 Lithuania Sessionize Event
EuropeClouds Summit Sessionize Event
NDC Sydney 2020 Sessionize Event
DF 2020 Sessionize Event
Virtual Azure Community Day Sessionize Event
NDC Oslo 2020 Sessionize Event
Microsoft Techdays 2020 Sessionize Event
Swetugg 2020 Sessionize Event
Azure Lowlands Sessionize Event
CloudBrew 2019 - A two-day Microsoft Azure event Sessionize Event
Azure Saturday Cologne 2019 Sessionize Event
Expert Day for Xamarin Sessionize Event
Microsoft TechDays 2019 Sessionize Event
NDC Minnesota 2019 Sessionize Event
Global Azure Bootcamp 2019 Sessionize Event
NDC London 2019 Sessionize Event
NDC Oslo 2018 Sessionize Event
NDC London 2018 Sessionize Event
NDC Sydney 2017 Sessionize Event
Dennie Declercq
Microsoft MVP || Developer & President DDSoft
Gistel, Belgium
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