Lifelong artist and maker, Faye is the one woman band behind Geeky Faye Art, an online channel looking to inspire creativity and exploration combining technology, traditional mediums, and geeky interests while also showing that you can be a woman in a pretty dress creating amazing things. While still relatively new in the digital sphere, her work and videos have been promoted by Tested.Com, The 3D Printing Nerd, Naomi Wu and Instructables.

Lifelong artist and maker, Faye is the one woman band behind Geeky Faye Art, an online channel looking to inspire creativity and exploration combining technology, traditional mediums, and geeky interests while also showing that you can be a woman in ... Show more

Mynah Marie is a writer, programmer, and musician from Montreal, Canada, currently based in Israel. As a musician and live coder, she performs under the name Earth To Abigail. Through her creative work, Mynah rejoices in bridging the gaps between the "rational" and "irrational" to find that fine line where, as humans, we find wholeness.

Mynah Marie is a writer, programmer, and musician from Montreal, Canada, currently based in Israel. As a musician and live coder, she performs under the name Earth To Abigail. Through her creative work, Mynah rejoices in bridging the gaps between th... Show more

Hannes is a developer, a coach and a father of 3.

In software development, he has always had a passion for performance, databases, distributed systems and large scale applications. He's always weighing every solution's benefits against its drawbacks, reducing friction where possible.

As a coach, he is enthusiastic about knowledge sharing, personal growth and building careers. Building a company culture around learning is what gets him out of bed.

In his free time, when he’s not building LEGO® castles with his kids, he likes to spend time building guitars, playing chess, mountain biking and doing all round geeky stuff.

You can often find him on stage at the conference afterparty, especially as the guitarist of Dylan Beattie & the Linebreakers.

Hannes is a developer, a coach and a father of 3. In software development, he has always had a passion for performance, databases, distributed systems and large scale applications. He's always weighing every solution's benefits against its drawbac... Show more

Harshavardhan Bajoria is a Product Manager for AI & Innovation at Unstop, where he builds AI-driven products at the intersection of artificial intelligence and cloud computing. He is a GitHub Campus Expert Alumni, a LeetCode Knight, and holds 18 professional certifications — 7x Microsoft Certified, 5x Oracle Certified, 5x Google Certified, and GitHub Certified. A Top 5% Speaker on Sessionize, Harshavardhan is a regular voice at tech conferences and community meetups, sharing his experience building AI products and working with cloud platforms.

Harshavardhan Bajoria is a Product Manager for AI & Innovation at Unstop, where he builds AI-driven products at the intersection of artificial intelligence and cloud computing. He is a GitHub Campus Expert Alumni, a LeetCode Knight, and holds 18 prof... Show more

Dylan Beattie is an independent consultant who has been building data-driven web applications since the 1990s. He’s managed teams, taught workshops, and worked on everything from tiny standalone websites to complex distributed systems. He’s a Microsoft MVP, and he regularly speaks at conferences and user groups all over the world.

Dylan is the creator of the Rockstar programming language, and the founder, vocalist and lead guitarist with The Linebreakers, the world's greatest nerd comedy classic rock disco alt punk covers band.

Dylan Beattie is an independent consultant who has been building data-driven web applications since the 1990s. He’s managed teams, taught workshops, and worked on everything from tiny standalone websites to complex distributed systems. He’s a Microso... Show more

James McGillivray, Data Management and Analytics MCSE, has been working in Business Intelligence for over a decade. He spends his working hours building solutions that allow people to make informed decisions. quickly and accurately. He is a Director at South African Data Consultancy, Cobalt Analytics.

Before his career in data, James was an avid musical theatre student and musician. This love for performance has developed into a passion for developing and delivering presentations that are informative and enjoyable. James speaks frequently at Data Community Events, and has presented at some of the most well-known Data Events around the globe, including PASS Summit, SQL Bits and the Power BI World Tour.

James McGillivray, Data Management and Analytics MCSE, has been working in Business Intelligence for over a decade. He spends his working hours building solutions that allow people to make informed decisions. quickly and accurately. He is a Director ... Show more

Sarah Kundla has always been curious about people: how we communicate, how we learn, and how our experiences and environments shape the way we see the world. That curiosity grew through years of teaching, facilitating, and living and working across cultures, where she saw firsthand how differently people can approach the same conversation, relationship, or challenge.

Today, Sarah is the founder of Questing Insight, where she turns that curiosity into practical learning experiences focused on emotional intelligence, communication, and leadership development. As a speaker, facilitator, and designer, she blends research with real-world experience and storytelling to help people better understand themselves and the people they work with.

Sarah has trained more than 1,900 professionals across the U.S. and internationally, is a Gallup-Certified Strengths Coach, and has spoken at conferences including Learn & Lead, WITCON, and CodeMash. At the heart of her work is a simple goal: helping people become more thoughtful about how they communicate, more curious about perspectives beyond their own, and ultimately, better at working with other humans.

Sarah Kundla has always been curious about people: how we communicate, how we learn, and how our experiences and environments shape the way we see the world. That curiosity grew through years of teaching, facilitating, and living and working across c... Show more

Emmz is the CTO of Daemonic Ltd, on a mission to build the future of AI and mixed reality. She's been working with LLMs, tools, harnesses, skills, runtimes, fine-tuning and all that for nearly two years now. When it comes to software engineering she is obsessed with maximizing performance and minimizing complexity. When it comes to speaking, she combines 40 years experience in tech with skills acquired as a professional stand-up comic in the 90s to deliver entertaining and informative talks at conferences around the world. She recently learned to play bass so she could join tech parody band The LineBreakers and promptly became obsessed with that, too.

Emmz is the CTO of Daemonic Ltd, on a mission to build the future of AI and mixed reality. She's been working with LLMs, tools, harnesses, skills, runtimes, fine-tuning and all that for nearly two years now. When it comes to software engineering she ... Show more

Microsoft MVP Alumni and SAFe PO/PM certified professional with a strong passion for building impactful mobile applications and exploring the evolving landscape of AI. With over seven years of experience in the Xamarin ecosystem and now deeply engaged in .NET MAUI, has consistently focused on delivering high-quality, cross-platform solutions that balance performance, usability, and scalability.
Author of AI-Enabled Apps with .NET MAUI: How to Build Cross-Platform .NET MAUI Apps with the Latest AI Capabilities, bringing together hands-on development experience and a forward-looking perspective on integrating AI into modern applications.
Particularly passionate about UX and UI design, with a keen eye for creating intuitive, user-centered experiences across platforms. In recent years, has specialized in UI testing, best practices, continuous integration, and performance optimization within .NET MAUI projects, helping teams build more robust and maintainable applications.
Naturally curious and continuously learning, with a growing interest in AI and machine learning, especially in how these technologies can enhance real-world products. More recently, has expanded focus into product management and digital product strategy, combining technical expertise with a user- and business-oriented mindset to drive meaningful product outcomes.

Microsoft MVP Alumni and SAFe PO/PM certified professional with a strong passion for building impactful mobile applications and exploring the evolving landscape of AI. With over seven years of experience in the Xamarin ecosystem and now deeply engage... Show more

Currently a Microsoft Data Platform MVP, Jared has been a data engineering consultant for over a decade, implementing Microsoft products. For more than three decades, he has been honing his skills in theater and other performing arts. As a speaker, Jared marries these two disciplines together, creating dynamic presentations that add entertainment to education. This symbiotic relationship can improve presentation engagement, support attendees in knowledge retention, and foster a culture of passion for the data industry.

As a speaker, Jared has spoken at events such as:
-FabCon Vegas and Atlanta
-DataCon Seattle (Microsoft Data Conference)
-PASS Summit
-SQL Saturdays, Multiple
-Microsoft Fabric Global Online Conference
-Future Data Driven Summit
-GroupBy Conference
-and more!

He also runs the YouTube channel DataBard, focused on making Data fun and teaching techniques along the way.

Technically-speaking, Jared has multiple Microsoft certifications in both on-prem and cloud technologies. He has extensive knowledge in:
-Microsoft Fabric
-SQL Query Development and Performance tuning
-Kimball Data Modeling
-ETL design patterns
-Azure SQL DB and Azure SQL MI

In his spare time, he continues to perform in community theater productions, as well as musically for his church. Upon request, he would be happy to assist with more theatrical portions of events, such as performing musical numbers.

Currently a Microsoft Data Platform MVP, Jared has been a data engineering consultant for over a decade, implementing Microsoft products. For more than three decades, he has been honing his skills in theater and other performing arts. As a speaker, J... Show more

With a lifelong passion for the weirdness of the internet and a day job as a development lead for whoever hired him, Lemon spends his professional time making websites for money and his free time making websites for no money.

He's created a number of stupid things for the internet, like all the games on kinda.fun, the wikiHow guessing game damn.dog, the Google Autocomplete game idiots.win, and a bunch of other things of questionable use. He also hosts a podcast that looks at some of the internet's weirder subcultures. It is not safe for your work, unless you work somewhere really cool.

With a lifelong passion for the weirdness of the internet and a day job as a development lead for whoever hired him, Lemon spends his professional time making websites for money and his free time making websites for no money. He's created a number... Show more

Michael Heath is an innovation strategist and Frontier Firm advisor who helps organizations move beyond digital transformation into intelligent transformation. With more than 15 years of experience across the Microsoft ecosystem and enterprise technology, Michael partners with leaders to align people, platforms, and purpose through AI, automation, and data.

Throughout his career, Michael has led enterprise initiatives that drive measurable growth, operational efficiency, and long-term adoption. His work focuses on translating strategy into practical execution, helping organizations modernize how work gets done while bringing teams along for the journey.

Michael’s perspective sits at the intersection of technology and human behavior. As a speaker and practitioner, he shares real-world lessons, practical frameworks, and honest insights that help organizations move from experimentation to meaningful impact at scale.

Michael Heath is an innovation strategist and Frontier Firm advisor who helps organizations move beyond digital transformation into intelligent transformation. With more than 15 years of experience across the Microsoft ecosystem and enterprise techno... 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

Sagar is a Staff Android Engineer who has been building apps for 11 years now. He is also a Google developer expert in Android and a co-organizer for Google Developer Groups at Boston and enjoys educating for the mobile dev community.

Sagar is a Staff Android Engineer who has been building apps for 11 years now. He is also a Google developer expert in Android and a co-organizer for Google Developer Groups at Boston and enjoys educating for the mobile dev community. Show more

Ben is a Developer Advocate at Mistral. In 2024 he left Google, where he'd been a Product Manager on Chrome and a Developer Advocate for a better web. Previously he was a software engineer at the New York Times and AOL, and before that he was a full-time musician. He earned a BA in Computer Science at Harvard and a PhD in Music at the University of California at Davis. You can still find him singing in a band called Ancient Babies and analyzing pop songs, and he may or may not be writing a musical that’s not about Steve Jobs.

Ben has run conferences and given talks around the world, in locations from Pakistan to Kenya and Argentina, to audiences from 3 to 3000, to technical and nontechnical audiences alike. Highlights include BrazilJS, Vietnam Web Summit, Node+JS Interactive, and Google Developer Days.

Ben is a Developer Advocate at Mistral. In 2024 he left Google, where he'd been a Product Manager on Chrome and a Developer Advocate for a better web. Previously he was a software engineer at the New York Times and AOL, and before that he was a full-... Show more

Martin Förtsch is an IT-consultant of TNG Technology Consulting GmbH based in Unterföhring near Munich who studied computer sciences. Work wise his focus areas are Agile Development (mainly) in Java, Search Engine Technologies, Information Retrieval and Databases.

As an Intel Software Innovator and Intel Black Belt Software Developer he is strongly involved in the development of open-source software for gesture control with 3D-cameras like e.g. Intel RealSense and has built an Augmented Reality wearable prototype device with his team based on this technology.

Furthermore, he gives many talks at national and international conferences about Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things, 3D-camera technologies, Augmented Reality and Test Driven Development as well. He was awarded with the Oracle JavaOne Rockstar.

Martin Förtsch is an IT-consultant of TNG Technology Consulting GmbH based in Unterföhring near Munich who studied computer sciences. Work wise his focus areas are Agile Development (mainly) in Java, Search Engine Technologies, Information Retrieval ... Show more

Osita Ifezue is a researcher, international keynote speaker, and storytelling strategist. He is the founder of Njiko Storytelling, with over 25 years of experience training individuals and developing storytelling strategies. He has created the Storyboard Backcasting and Origin Story-Loop Strategic Frameworks, strategic storytelling tools designed to enhance learning in the storytelling process. Beyond entrepreneurship, Osita founded Entergrate, an NGO in Finland that focuses on social inclusion, and he hosts the podcast Think About It! With Osita Ifezue.

Osita Ifezue is a researcher, international keynote speaker, and storytelling strategist. He is the founder of Njiko Storytelling, with over 25 years of experience training individuals and developing storytelling strategies. He has created the Storyb... Show more

Matthias is a passionate C# developer and likes to talk about clean code, testing and tooling in general. Much of his spare time is devoted to his very own open-source projects. He is working at JetBrains as developer advocate for the .NET department.

Matthias is a passionate C# developer and likes to talk about clean code, testing and tooling in general. Much of his spare time is devoted to his very own open-source projects. He is working at JetBrains as developer advocate for the .NET department... Show more

Yannis Martin is an engineer and sociologist by training. With over twenty years of experience supporting digital transformations, he has worked for the past decade as a consultant in project management, cybersecurity governance, and interim management. In 2024, he began doctoral research on the interactions between artificial intelligence, complexity theory, and the humanities and social sciences. His research focuses on AI considered both as a mediating device for human cognition and as a constituent element of complex socio-technical systems. A lecturer at the University of Avignon since 2021, he joined emlyon business school and INSA Lyon in 2025. In 2026, he became a member of the CNRS research group "Internet, AI and Society."

Yannis Martin is an engineer and sociologist by training. With over twenty years of experience supporting digital transformations, he has worked for the past decade as a consultant in project management, cybersecurity governance, and interim manageme... Show more

Elena is a data enthusiast with solid experience in analytics, data engineering and visualization using Microsoft Fabric, Power BI, Synapse and Databricks. She works in Barcelona, helping organizations turn raw data into valuable insights with a strategic and creative approach. She's also passionate about combining technology with social and community-driven projects, and is an active learner and collaborator in the data community.

Elena is a data enthusiast with solid experience in analytics, data engineering and visualization using Microsoft Fabric, Power BI, Synapse and Databricks. She works in Barcelona, helping organizations turn raw data into valuable insights with a stra... Show more

Engineer, manager, former startupper, broadcasting every Monday evening on Digitalia, one of the longest-lasting Podcast in Italy, speaking about technology and how this interacts with our lives. His last book is "Almanacco Digitaliano 2024" from Ledizioni Publishing. Musician and performer with more than 400 gigs.

Engineer, manager, former startupper, broadcasting every Monday evening on Digitalia, one of the longest-lasting Podcast in Italy, speaking about technology and how this interacts with our lives. His last book is "Almanacco Digitaliano 2024" from Led... Show more

Shobhit Verma (aka TheJugaadGuy) is an SRE Lead with 15 years of experience in Infrastructure, Cloud, and Observability. He has led large-scale projects in banking and telecom, working extensively with AWS, Terraform, ELK, and Dynatrace to build reliable and scalable systems. Beyond engineering, he is a filmmaker and content creator with 50,000+ followers, known for simplifying complex technical topics through engaging content.

As an active community member in AWS User Group Pune, Atlassian Community, and Toastmasters, Shobhit brings a unique mix of technical depth, storytelling, and stage presence. He is now building his journey into Developer Relations (DevRel), where his mission is to empower developers with the right tools, stories, and confidence to succeed.

Shobhit Verma (aka TheJugaadGuy) is an SRE Lead with 15 years of experience in Infrastructure, Cloud, and Observability. He has led large-scale projects in banking and telecom, working extensively with AWS, Terraform, ELK, and Dynatrace to build reli... Show more

Ricardo spent nearly a decade at Microsoft, working with global enterprise engineering teams on the kind of architecture decisions that don't happen in workshops, they happen when a wrong one costs a few millions. He's delivered sessions at many tier-1 events including Microsoft AI Tour, Microsoft Cloud & AI Days, Red Hat Forums and Open Source Lisbon, consistently to outstanding feedback

Before that, CTO at a product company. Before that, part of the team that brought Scrum to Portugal and made early cloud bets with production deployments when most enterprises were still debating whether to try it.

The thread connecting all of it: helping organizations ship better software, faster.

He's now Principal AI Strategist at Supermodular.AI, rearchitecting enterprises for the future way of working by making sure AI-native teams focus on real impact, not a fancy dashboard.

He's also a musician. 400+ gigs, 10+ records, worked with childhood heroes. Expect the same energy on stage. No filters.

Ricardo spent nearly a decade at Microsoft, working with global enterprise engineering teams on the kind of architecture decisions that don't happen in workshops, they happen when a wrong one costs a few millions. He's delivered sessions at many tier... Show more

Arik Fletcher spends his career building things that make expertise, community and opportunity more accessible, in technology and beyond.

Over more than 25 years, that has meant moving from hands-on infrastructure and engineering into strategic consulting leadership, winning over £10m in competitive technology tenders, building and scaling a global technology PMO, and designing and delivering technical solutions for thousands of users across education, non-profit, SME and enterprise sectors. His current focus spans cyber security, AI strategy and adoption, cloud infrastructure, and governance, risk and compliance, delivered through fractional CIO, CTO, CISO and DPO leadership that gives organisations senior expertise they could not otherwise afford, alongside AI-augmented delivery models and a platform-agnostic evaluation methodology that have doubled consulting capacity and returned three to five times ROI for clients.

The same instinct to build access and community runs through everything else he does. He founded Greyface Guild, a community interest company built around the same principle: that creative and community work should be diverse, accessible and open to more people. Under its umbrella sit the Techie Brunch Club, a technologist community of over 1,000 members; South Devon Sound, a community radio station he funded and helped develop, giving local artists and presenters a platform; and Greyface Games, an indie studio building games and stories in its own Discordian Tales universe with accessibility and inclusive design built in from the first design document. He has spoken at game development industry events on that work.

He carries the same mentoring instinct into his professional life: as London Regional Lead for the Microsoft Global Community Initiative, a British Computer Society member and mentor, a Chartered Institute of Information Security member, a career coach for Ada, the National Digital Skills College, and a mentor and speaker with the London CTOs.

Arik Fletcher spends his career building things that make expertise, community and opportunity more accessible, in technology and beyond. Over more than 25 years, that has meant moving from hands-on infrastructure and engineering into strategic c... Show more

“You’re not here to change people. You’re here to move them.”

Joel Silverstone helps leaders and teams have conversations that build trust, create buy-in, and move work forward, especially when the stakes are high or teams are working across silos.

For more than 25 years, Joel has trained and coached thousands of leaders across North America, Asia, Europe, and Africa. He has worked with organizations including QuidelOrtho, Kearney, RBC, TD, BMO, CIBC, Abbott, and Hyundai.

As founder of TFR: This Feels Right, Joel combines practical communication and leadership tools with skills drawn from acting and improvisation: reading the room, choosing your intention, and connecting with what matters to others.

A former professional actor and improviser, Joel brings energy, humour, and “Hollywood Tips” to every session. His approach is simple: “Learn, Laugh, Do.” Participants practise real workplace conversations and leave sounding like themselves, their voice now better matched to their intention.

Joel also hosts the 'TFR: This Feels Right' podcast about leadership, communication and influence.

“You’re not here to change people. You’re here to move them.” Joel Silverstone helps leaders and teams have conversations that build trust, create buy-in, and move work forward, especially when the stakes are high or teams are working across silos... Show more

Joy Marie Curtis makes complex systems human.

Joy Marie Curtis is a PMP-certified enterprise AI and organizational development strategist who has led agentic AI implementations across AWS, Azure, and IBM. Her signature talk explores how to keep the human in the loop as organizations adopt AI — helping stakeholders understand what AI can (and can't) do from day one, so strategy stays scalable and grounded in real human needs. Outside consulting, Joy is a published poet, essayist, and portrait artist whose work restores human presence to stories that history and research often reduce to data points — a creative practice that directly informs her human-first approach to technology strategy.

Joy has presented for PMI, LASCON 2025, Microsoft Azure, and Google’s Agentic AI forums, speaking to executives, developers, and compliance leaders on responsible AI deployment, enterprise readiness, and scaling AI organizations globally.

Joy Marie Curtis makes complex systems human. Joy Marie Curtis is a PMP-certified enterprise AI and organizational development strategist who has led agentic AI implementations across AWS, Azure, and IBM. Her signature talk explores how to keep th... Show more

Eriol has been working as a designer for 15+ years working in for-profits and then NGO’s and open-source software organisations, working on complex problems like sustainable food systems, peace-building, censorship circumvention OSS, Human Rights OSS tools and crisis response technology. Eriol now works at The Open Home Foundation on OSS first smart home technology.

Eriol is part of the maintainer teams at Open Source Design (http://opensourcedesign.net/) Sustain UX & Design working group (https://sustainoss.org/working-groups/design-and-ux/) and helps hosts podcast about open source and design (https://sosdesign.sustainoss.org/)

Eriol is a non-binary, queer person who uses they/them pronouns.

Eriol has been working as a designer for 15+ years working in for-profits and then NGO’s and open-source software organisations, working on complex problems like sustainable food systems, peace-building, censorship circumvention OSS, Human Rights OSS... Show more

Michael is a Technical Content Creator at JetBrains focused on gamedev and .NET. He's worked with .NET for over a decade and Godot for over 3 years. In his spare time he loves to tinker, testing out game ideas on his personal website, https://mikeware.com/, as well as occasionally attempt a game jam (see some successes on itch.io: https://mikeware.itch.io). He's been making games for decades, his most popular an early free Windows Mobile game Suitor with over 175k downloads worldwide.

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Michael is a Technical Content Creator at JetBrains focused on gamedev and .NET. He's worked with .NET for over a decade and Godot for over 3 years. In his spare time he loves to tinker, testing out game ideas on his personal website, https://mikewar... Show more

I am a Full-stack Engineer turned DevRel Engineer at New Relic. With a background in software engineering and marketing direction, my experience involves: designing and developing user interfaces, addressing customer/client pain points, marketing automation, and community development.

I am a Full-stack Engineer turned DevRel Engineer at New Relic. With a background in software engineering and marketing direction, my experience involves: designing and developing user interfaces, addressing customer/client pain points, marketing aut... Show more

Andy Cross has lead teams building the largest AI projects and deployments, hosted on Azure. He founded a consultancy in 2012 and grew it from 2 to 300 people. Along the way he has picked up quite a few interesting stories! He is co-founder of the UK London Azure User Group, formerly an Azure Most Valuable Professional and a Microsoft Regional Director.

Andy Cross has lead teams building the largest AI projects and deployments, hosted on Azure. He founded a consultancy in 2012 and grew it from 2 to 300 people. Along the way he has picked up quite a few interesting stories! He is co-founder of the UK... Show more