Chris Ayers is a Principal Software Engineer at Microsoft, where he builds AI-driven tooling to analyze outages and incidents across Azure. His work focuses on improving the way engineers understand failures, uncover risks, and strengthen reliability at cloud scale.

With a background spanning DevOps, cloud architecture, and modern application design, Chris brings both engineering depth and practical experience to the challenge of making large systems more resilient. He’s also a frequent international speaker who loves sharing real-world lessons about developer productivity, reliability, containers, and automation.

Outside of work, Chris is a proud dad, lifelong gamer, avid reader, and unapologetic nerd.

Chris Ayers is a Principal Software Engineer at Microsoft, where he builds AI-driven tooling to analyze outages and incidents across Azure. His work focuses on improving the way engineers understand failures, uncover risks, and strengthen reliability... Show more

Hi there, I’m Chris!

I'm a seasoned tech leader, keynote speaker, and technology consultant with expertise across the full tech stack, from enterprise architecture and data platforms to advanced AI (including Agentic AI and Responsible AI / Trustworthy AI). I’ve led large-scale, high-value enterprise projects and initiatives across industries (with a strong focus on government), helping organizations harness emerging technology responsibly to solve real-world challenges - I try to remove the fluff and cut to solving the real problem.

My style is bold, straight-talking, and deeply authentic. I'm a natural connector who brings people together to spark collaboration and creativity. A lifelong tinkerer and excessively curious, I thrive on exploring new ideas and building communities around innovation. I encourage teams to think differently, color outside the lines, and always remember to stay human in a tech-driven world.

As an international keynote speaker, I've energized audiences with talks on AI, Ethics in Tech, data strategy, and true concepts around digital transformation, infusing humor and real-talk into every session. Whether I'm advising C-suite leaders on AI strategy or coaching teams on the latest tech, my goal is to inspire innovation, enable people to do awesome things and drive positive change. If you're on the verge of the next big breakthrough and need a dynamic speaker or consultant, let's connect. I'm all about helping to #BuildAwesomeThings and making sure we all #StayExtraHuman along the way.

Hi there, I’m Chris! I'm a seasoned tech leader, keynote speaker, and technology consultant with expertise across the full tech stack, from enterprise architecture and data platforms to advanced AI (including Agentic AI and Responsible AI / Trustw... Show more

Laila Bougria is a Solutions Architect and Engineer with over two decades of industry experience. She's a keynote speaker, a Microsoft MVP in Azure and Developer Technologies, and frequently shares her knowledge and insights at conferences worldwide. Currently, Laila is busy building NServiceBus at Particular Software and solving distributed riddles. She specializes in event-driven systems and is passionate about critical thinking. When she's not immersed in complex problems or code, Laila enjoys indulging in her favorite pastime - knitting! She finds that tangling the yarn into beautiful patterns helps untangle her thoughts.

Laila Bougria is a Solutions Architect and Engineer with over two decades of industry experience. She's a keynote speaker, a Microsoft MVP in Azure and Developer Technologies, and frequently shares her knowledge and insights at conferences worldwide.... Show more

Niels Tanis has got a background in .NET development, pentesting and security consultancy. He is Microsoft MVP and has been involved in breaking, defending and building secure applications.
Right now he is a software security engineer at Tidalis and before that he was a security researcher at Veracode where he focussed on static analysis of a variant of languages.
He is married, father of two and lives in a small village just outside Amersfoort, The Netherlands.

Niels Tanis has got a background in .NET development, pentesting and security consultancy. He is Microsoft MVP and has been involved in breaking, defending and building secure applications. Right now he is a software security engineer at Tidalis an... Show more

Scott McAllister is a software development speaker and educator. He has been building web applications in several industries for over a decade. Now he's helping others learn about a wide range of web and infrastructure technologies. When he's not coding, writing or speaking he enjoys long walks with his wife, skipping rocks with his kids, and is happy whenever Seattle Sounders FC, Manchester City, St. Louis Cardinals, Seattle Mariners, Chicago Bulls, Seattle Storm, Seattle Seahawks, Seattle Reign FC, St. Louis Blues, Seattle Kraken, Barcelona, Fiorentina, Borussia Dortmund or Mainz 05 can manage a win.

Scott McAllister is a software development speaker and educator. He has been building web applications in several industries for over a decade. Now he's helping others learn about a wide range of web and infrastructure technologies. When he's not cod... Show more

Maxim Salnikov is a tech community enthusiast based in Oslo. With more than two decades of experience as a developer, he shares his expertise in the web platform, cloud computing, and AI by speaking at and delivering training for developer audiences worldwide.

By day, Maxim supports developer teams across Europe as a Senior Solution Engineer at Microsoft, focusing on AI-native developer tools and platforms. He is also an active builder of developer tooling, creating and maintaining AI agent assets that help engineers adopt AI-assisted development more effectively.

In the evenings, Maxim runs events for some of Norway’s largest web, AI, and cloud developer communities. He is passionate about exploring the possibilities of Generative AI, with a strong focus on developer productivity. To share insights and connect with practitioners globally, he founded and organized the Prompt Engineering Conference, the key global event dedicated entirely to prompting from the engineering discipline perspective.

Maxim Salnikov is a tech community enthusiast based in Oslo. With more than two decades of experience as a developer, he shares his expertise in the web platform, cloud computing, and AI by speaking at and delivering training for developer audiences ... Show more

Hi there, nice to meet you! I’m Kateryna 👋

I’m a Senior Software Engineer, Security Champion, and MLOps stan. My mission? De-gatekeeping machine learning operations and making them actually accessible for every developer. After playing the field with Azure and AWS, I’ve officially caught feelings for GCP☁️✨

When I’m not deep in the codebase, I’m leading GDG Kyiv, repping as a Women Techmakers Ambassador, or lecturing at KPI and KSE. Whether I’m helping students ship production-ready Java/Spring Boot architectures or dropping deep dives on Medium(https://medium.com/@ekatereanagricaenko), I’m here for the community, the mentorship, and the "more is more" approach to impact 🚀🔥

Hi there, nice to meet you! I’m Kateryna 👋 I’m a Senior Software Engineer, Security Champion, and MLOps stan. My mission? De-gatekeeping machine learning operations and making them actually accessible for every developer. After playing the field ... Show more

Marino Wijay is a Canadian, Traveller, International Speaker, and Open Source Advocate and Architect for AI, API Platforms, Service Mesh, Kubernetes, and Networking. He is a CNCF Ambassador, Organizer for KCD Toronto, and Founder of EmpathyOps. He is passionate about technology and modern distributed systems. He will always fall back to the patterns of Networking and the ways of the OSI. Community building is his driving force; A modern Jedi Academy.

Marino Wijay is a Canadian, Traveller, International Speaker, and Open Source Advocate and Architect for AI, API Platforms, Service Mesh, Kubernetes, and Networking. He is a CNCF Ambassador, Organizer for KCD Toronto, and Founder of EmpathyOps. He i... Show more

Lian always wanted to save the world. After leaving law school, she decided to work with computers instead.
While in Web Dev, she started attending tech events, and soon fell in love with the community. In her roles as Consultant and DevRel, Lian combined technical knowledge with a focus on the human side.
Currently, Lian works as freelance Platform Engineer in Amsterdam and is the Chief Karaoke Officer for Kuberoke, the first and only Kubernetes Karaoke Community. She also enjoys performing in musical improvisation theatre and standup comedy shows.

Lian always wanted to save the world. After leaving law school, she decided to work with computers instead. While in Web Dev, she started attending tech events, and soon fell in love with the community. In her roles as Consultant and DevRel, Lian c... Show more

Sara has over 25 years’ experience, has been a Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT) for over 15 years and is also a MCT Community Lead and Microsoft MVP (Most Valuable Professional) for Microsoft 365.

Sara has been working with Microsoft 365 since the preview in April 2011 and holds over 50 Microsoft Certifications. Sara’s company still use the same Microsoft 365 Tenant opened back in 2011.

As a trainer Sara’s professional aim is to help make technology more accessible by increasing knowledge and decreasing fear. In her own words “I love helping others advance their own skills and use of technology, whilst challenging myself to advance my own skills and expertise.”

Sara delivers training across Microsoft 365 from beginner to admin level, specialising in productivity, data security, and compliance. She is a recognised expert in Microsoft 365 Copilot, having authored multiple courses and supported organisations with adoption strategies and governance planning.

Sara has over 25 years’ experience, has been a Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT) for over 15 years and is also a MCT Community Lead and Microsoft MVP (Most Valuable Professional) for Microsoft 365. Sara has been working with Microsoft 365 since th... Show more

Driving passion for Accessibility and Sustainability using AI and Technology around the World !

Driving passion for Accessibility and Sustainability using AI and Technology around the World ! Show more

Wim is an Azure Technical Advisor and Trainer with over fifteen years of Microsoft technology expertise who specializes in helping companies transition to the Cloud.

Wim is also a Microsoft MVP in the Azure category, a founding board member of the MC2MC user group, and an active community contributor, sharing his experiences through blogs and speaking engagements.

Wim is an Azure Technical Advisor and Trainer with over fifteen years of Microsoft technology expertise who specializes in helping companies transition to the Cloud. Wim is also a Microsoft MVP in the Azure category, a founding board member of the... Show more

As Head of Developer —and Agent— Relations at QuestDB, I help developers make the most of their (fast) data. These days that increasingly means AI agents: I make QuestDB easy for an agent to use through skills, MCP servers, machine-legible docs, standard interfaces like SQL, REST, and Parquet, and a cookbook of ready-made recipes, so agents produce correct, fast results with as few tokens as possible. I also make sure the core team behind QuestDB listens to absolutely every piece of feedback I get, and I facilitate collaboration in our open source repository.

I love data, big and small, and I enjoy processing it with streaming engines, ML models, SQL, NoSQL, graph, in-memory, and time-series databases. I prefer distributed, scalable, always-on systems.

Before working at QuestDB I spent over 20 years developing software professionally and sharing what I learnt with the community, including three years as a Developer Advocate at AWS and five years as a Google Developer Expert in Cloud. I've spoken at events in over 25 countries, mentored dozens of start-ups, taught for 6 years at different universities, and trained hundreds of professionals on cloud and data engineering.

As Head of Developer —and Agent— Relations at QuestDB, I help developers make the most of their (fast) data. These days that increasingly means AI agents: I make QuestDB easy for an agent to use through skills, MCP servers, machine-legible docs, stan... Show more

Christian Alexander Schreiber is the CEO & Founder and Lead Architect of nVibes, a next-generation social platform focused on responsible AI, privacy, trust and European digital sovereignty.

With more than 30 years of experience in IT consulting, software architecture, Microsoft technologies and digital transformation, he helps organizations understand how modern cloud, AI and business applications can be designed securely, responsibly and with measurable business value.

His work connects strategic leadership with hands-on architecture. Christian speaks about AI-ready Azure platforms, Business Central partner solutions, responsible AI adoption, privacy-by-design, agentic AI, platform trust and the practical realities of building secure digital products.

As an international speaker, he brings a clear, practical and business-focused perspective to technical audiences, partners and decision-makers. His sessions combine real-world architecture, product-building experience and a strong belief that the future of digital platforms must be human-centered, sovereign and trustworthy.

Christian Alexander Schreiber is the CEO & Founder and Lead Architect of nVibes, a next-generation social platform focused on responsible AI, privacy, trust and European digital sovereignty. With more than 30 years of experience in IT consulting, ... Show more

A developer, business owner, consultant, cloud architect, Microsoft Azure MVP and an online instructor, Mike Benkovich is an alumni of Microsoft from 2004 to 2012 where he helped build developer communities across the US, thru work on Microsoft Across America, MSDN Events, MSDN Webcasts, DPE and Channel 9. He's helped to create and grow developer conferences and user groups in various cities across the US. While at Microsoft he helped create the Azure Boot Camp events that were run in cities across the US and at PDC and TechEd before it was transferred to the community. In 2009 he started a Toastmaster club for Geeks called TechMasters in Minneapolis where we still grow speakers for Conferences. He's a LinkedIn Learning Instructor for Azure, have developed many online courses. Mike actively works in Azure Cloud Governance, Infrastructure as Code, DevOps, Application Architecture and Software Delivery consulting.

A developer, business owner, consultant, cloud architect, Microsoft Azure MVP and an online instructor, Mike Benkovich is an alumni of Microsoft from 2004 to 2012 where he helped build developer communities across the US, thru work on Microsoft Acros... Show more

Erick Wendel is an active Node.js core committer, Keynote Speaker, and professional educator. He has given over 100 tech talks in more than 20 different countries worldwide. He was awarded as a Node.js Specialist with the Google Developer Expert, Microsoft MVP, and GitHub Stars awards. Erick Wendel has trained more than 100K people around the world in his own company https://ew.academy

Erick Wendel is an active Node.js core committer, Keynote Speaker, and professional educator. He has given over 100 tech talks in more than 20 different countries worldwide. He was awarded as a Node.js Specialist with the Google Developer Expert, Mic... Show more

Heini is a math teacher turned Azure expert. With her background in mathematics and teaching, she has a great passion for problem solving, simplifying complex things and a unique approach to architectures.
She is a Co-founder at Bruvo and a Data Platform MVP, specializing in Azure infrastructure and the data platform. She has been working with customers large and small for the past several years to help them sort out their path to the cloud and make sense of their architecture - both hybrid and cloud. She has worked extensively with both Azure infrastructure and analytics solutions, and makes the most of this skillset in her projects, as well as while speaking. On her free time Heini spends time in the nature, either snowboarding or mountain biking, depending on the season.

Heini is a math teacher turned Azure expert. With her background in mathematics and teaching, she has a great passion for problem solving, simplifying complex things and a unique approach to architectures. She is a Co-founder at Bruvo and a Data Pla... Show more

Michael Roth has been working as a consultant since 2011 and found his way into the IT around 2015. He focuses on Power Platform Governance, Administration, Security as well as organizational implementation. Coming from an M365 background, he has a holistic view of the entire platform.

Michael Roth has been working as a consultant since 2011 and found his way into the IT around 2015. He focuses on Power Platform Governance, Administration, Security as well as organizational implementation. Coming from an M365 background, he has a h... Show more

With more than 2 decades of customer experience, a long history in Microsoft products, Michael is a Cloud Architect who enjoys sharing his experience with the community and help the community grow.
During the last years, Michael was working with customers in Microsoft Teams topics, Microsoft 365 implementations overall and since 2022 he's also working with his customers in different Microsoft Viva projects.
Since more than seven years Michael has its own company, working with the focus on Microsoft topics, Change-Management and Project-Management. He's also a Microsoft MVP for Microsoft 365 Apps and Services since 2021.

With more than 2 decades of customer experience, a long history in Microsoft products, Michael is a Cloud Architect who enjoys sharing his experience with the community and help the community grow. During the last years, Michael was working with cus... Show more

Over the past 15+ years, Andrew Murphy has led engineering teams across consultancies and SaaS companies, and coached tech leaders stepping into the leadership role for the first time. Again and again, he's watched technically competent engineers get promoted without the skills or support to succeed. His mission is simple: make sure they don't have to learn leadership the hard way.

Andrew now runs in-person workshops and coaching programs where new and established tech leaders learn, build, and practice real leadership skills. Andrew shares his mindset, tools and techniques that turn engineers into happy, confident and effective leaders.

Leadership skills can be learned, and learning them will change your life.

Credentials
• Mentored Tech Leads, Staff Engineers, Engineering Managers into leadership roles
• Currently Fractional CTO at AI health-care company, PatientNotes.app
• Led engineering teams from 10 to 100+, shipping products at scale-ups and enterprises
• Creator of tech leadership platform, Tech Leaders Launchpad

Over the past 15+ years, Andrew Murphy has led engineering teams across consultancies and SaaS companies, and coached tech leaders stepping into the leadership role for the first time. Again and again, he's watched technically competent engineers get... Show more

Meet Gerald Versluis, software engineer at Microsoft, who wields the power of .NET to conquer any project that comes his way. With a career spanning over a decade, he's tackled it all, from frontend to backend and everything in between, using .NET MAUI, Azure, ASP.NET, and all the other .NET goodies. And these days of course; AI and Copilot.

But it wasn't until he discovered the magic of Xamarin that he truly fell in love with mobile and cross-platform development, becoming an active community member and sharing his knowledge through writing, tweeting, and presentations. When he's not saving the world of software, you can find him on Twitter @jfversluis, blogging at https://blog.verslu.is, or making videos on his YouTube channel: https://youtube.com/GeraldVersluis.

Meet Gerald Versluis, software engineer at Microsoft, who wields the power of .NET to conquer any project that comes his way. With a career spanning over a decade, he's tackled it all, from frontend to backend and everything in between, using .NET MA... Show more

Paul is a Solution Architect for P3 Adaptive, and a 16-year Microsoft Data Platform MVP. He consults, writes, speaks, teaches & blogs at SqlServerBI.blog about business intelligence and reporting solutions. He works with companies around the world to model data at enterprise scale, visualize and deliver critical information to make informed decisions using the Microsoft data platform. He is a user group leader in the Portland/Vancouver metro area. As a published author on Power BI, Fabric, TSQL, SSAS & SSRS, he holds several Data Platform credentials and all current Fabric & Power BI certifications.

Paul is a Solution Architect for P3 Adaptive, and a 16-year Microsoft Data Platform MVP. He consults, writes, speaks, teaches & blogs at SqlServerBI.blog about business intelligence and reporting solutions. He works with companies around the world to... Show more

Kevin Feasel is a Microsoft Data Platform MVP and Proprietor of Catallaxy Services, LLC, where he specializes in data analytics with T-SQL and R, forcing Spark clusters to do his bidding, fighting with Kafka, and pulling rabbits out of hats on demand. He is the lead contributor to Curated SQL (https://curatedsql.com), president of the Triangle Area SQL Server Users Group (https://www.meetup.com/tripass), and author of PolyBase Revealed (https://www.apress.com/us/book/9781484254608) and Finding Ghosts in Your Data (https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-1-4842-8870-2). When not traveling around for presentations, Kevin lives in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Kevin Feasel is a Microsoft Data Platform MVP and Proprietor of Catallaxy Services, LLC, where he specializes in data analytics with T-SQL and R, forcing Spark clusters to do his bidding, fighting with Kafka, and pulling rabbits out of hats on demand... Show more

Sasha is CTO at Brainform.ai with over 20 years of experience architecting scalable enterprise systems. With a strong engineering background, his expertise spans frontend, backend, cloud infrastructure, mobile development, and AI — from cloud-based generative AI to on-device solutions. He specializes in building robust, production-ready products using a variety of technologies and frameworks. Sasha has delivered solutions across fintech, digital media, and entertainment. He is a Google Developer Expert for Cloud, AI, Firebase, Flutter, and Dart, co-organizes the Flutter Berlin Community, and is a recognized international speaker and writer, having presented at 30+ conferences worldwide.

Sasha is CTO at Brainform.ai with over 20 years of experience architecting scalable enterprise systems. With a strong engineering background, his expertise spans frontend, backend, cloud infrastructure, mobile development, and AI — from cloud-based g... Show more

Christian is a Microsoft MVP, Oracle ACE in Java and Fullstack engineer with over 15 years of experience as an engineer. He started with Java and since 9 years works also in the frontend with Angular, TypeScript and JavaScript. Besides his daily work he enjoys giving talks, creating YouTube videos for his over 8000 subscribers, works on his open source projects. If there is time left he gives workshops giving trainings regarding the successful usage of AI in software engineering and writes articles.

Christian is a Microsoft MVP, Oracle ACE in Java and Fullstack engineer with over 15 years of experience as an engineer. He started with Java and since 9 years works also in the frontend with Angular, TypeScript and JavaScript. Besides his daily work... Show more

Layla is a Microsoft MVP, Progress Champion, 3 times GitHub Star, and former director on the board at the .NET Foundation.
She is the co-founder of November North, a micro-game studio, developing and producing a first-person stealth game titled "The Third Tourist" - go and wishlist it on Steam!

Layla lives in the UK with her husband Jim and dogs, Cookie and Summer.

Layla is a Microsoft MVP, Progress Champion, 3 times GitHub Star, and former director on the board at the .NET Foundation. She is the co-founder of November North, a micro-game studio, developing and producing a first-person stealth game titled "The... Show more

Three decades of shipping software across industries gives Stacy stories worth hearing.

She takes the stage to share what actually works — live code, hard-won lessons, and a genuine passion for helping teams build better.

Recognised with a Microsoft MVP Award for Developer Technologies since 2020, she is also the author of Beginning Azure Static Web Apps, helping developers build dynamic applications using C#, Azure Functions, and Azure Static Web Apps.

Three decades of shipping software across industries gives Stacy stories worth hearing. She takes the stage to share what actually works — live code, hard-won lessons, and a genuine passion for helping teams build better. Recognised with a Micr... Show more

Security consultant with a focus on Microsoft Security either on-prem or in the cloud, and a blueteamer at heart. Viktor has worked within IT for the past 10 years always within Cyber Security. Working for public sector in Sweden for years but now as a specialist at Truesec AB focusing on proactive security measures, DFIR and advises on all things cyber.

Security consultant with a focus on Microsoft Security either on-prem or in the cloud, and a blueteamer at heart. Viktor has worked within IT for the past 10 years always within Cyber Security. Working for public sector in Sweden for years but now as... Show more

I’m part of the expert team at Proximo 3, a specialist Microsoft consulting firm. We offer consultancy and advice on Dynamics 365 CRM and Power Platform projects. I’m passionate about applying change management to CRM projects and hold a certified Prosci practitioner qualification.

Since 2017, I’ve been a Microsoft Business Applications MVP specialising in Dynamics 365, Power Platform and Copilot Studio.

I’m part of the expert team at Proximo 3, a specialist Microsoft consulting firm. We offer consultancy and advice on Dynamics 365 CRM and Power Platform projects. I’m passionate about applying change management to CRM projects and hold a certified ... Show more

Sam Nasr has been a software developer since 1995, focusing mostly on Microsoft AI Stack of technologies. He’s a Sr. Software Engineer with NIS Technologies where he consults and teaches clients about the latest .NET technologies. Sam has achieved multiple certifications from Microsoft (MCSA, MCAD, MCTS, MCT), and is the leader of the Cleveland C# since 2003. In addition, he’s the leader of the .NET Study Group, Azure Cleveland User Group, an author for Visual Studio Magazine, LinkedIn Learning, and a 8x Microsoft MVP. When not coding, Sam loves spending time with his family and friends or volunteering at his local church. You can learn more about Sam by visiting https://linktr.ee/SamNasr.

Sam Nasr has been a software developer since 1995, focusing mostly on Microsoft AI Stack of technologies. He’s a Sr. Software Engineer with NIS Technologies where he consults and teaches clients about the latest .NET technologies. Sam has achieved ... Show more