Tom Cools
Developer Relations Engineer @ Timefold
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Developer Relations Engineer for Timefold, Java Champion and leader of the Belgian Java User Group. Tom has a decade worth of experience delivering systems and loves to share not only knowledge but also passion for our craft.
You can read more at his blog (http://www.tomcools.be) or follow him on Bluesky (@tomcools.be).
Adopt a Black Cat: Rehabilitating Unloved Technologies
Every tech community has its black cats: those tools and approaches that get passed over and ignored. These technologies aren't broken... they just gained a bad reputation, leading to statements like:
"That's old school."
"That doesn't scale."
"Nobody does that anymore."
In this talk, we'll look at a handful of technologies that have been unfairly written off and make the case why they deserve a second look. Because the right tool for the job is sometimes the one everyone told you to stop using.
You'll leave with a clearer framework for evaluating fit over fashion, learn a couple new libraries and frameworks and maybe even discover a new appreciation for the cats nobody wants to adopt.
You May Now Optimize The Wedding!
Every developer has been there: sitting at an important life event, thinking 'could I automate this?'. The answer is YES, and this talk will show you how.
There is a whole class of problems that GenAI alone cannot solve: scheduling, routing and planning challenges where every decision affects every other decision. Timefold tackles these in production every day, across logistics, manufacturing, healthcare, and yes, apparently also weddings.
We will use the most important weekend of your life as our excuse to explore constraint optimization in practice, from seating charts to pub crawls to honeymoon itineraries, with real code, real constraints and real solver magic.
You'll leave knowing how to turn any 'could I automate this?' moment into a working optimization solution.
Optimizing Santa's travels with Timefold
Every Christmas Eve, Santa faces a monumental challenge: delivering gifts to millions of children around the world in just one night. There’s no time for detours, and a well-crafted plan is essential!
In this talk, we’ll help Santa find the optimal travel route for his journey using Timefold, an open-source AI solver. By setting up some basic domain classes, you'll be able to tackle vehicle routing problems without getting lost in the magic (aka math).
Through a series of live demos, you'll see practical examples in action and leave with a powerful new tool in your problem-solving toolbox.
So join in and let's use our favorite programming language to make sure everyone gets their presents under the Christmas tree!
LLMs can't optimize schedules, but AI can!
LLMs have made remarkable progress, which might suggest they're the answer to everything. However, when it comes to everyday tasks like creating work schedules they tend to fall short. As a result, humans often end up creating a schedule manually, which is usually far from optimal.
Fortunately, there’s a lesser-known branch of AI that excels at complex scheduling. In this talk, we’ll discuss Timefold, a Java based open-source AI solver, and you'll discover how it leverages magic (aka math) to generate optimized schedules.
With a series of live demos, you’ll see this form of AI in action and walk away equipped with a powerful new tool for your problem-solving toolbox.
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