Monthly Archives: November 2017

The CASTx18 conference programme is live!

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Back in May, I was asked by the Association for Software Testing to be the Program Chair for CASTx18 in Melbourne and it’s been a busy six months or so since then in getting to the point where the full line-up for this conference is now live.

After coming up with a theme with an Australian bent – “Testing in the Spirit of Burke & Wills” – it was exciting to open up the call for proposals and then watch the proposals trickling in, that trickle turning into a fast-flowing river as the CFP closing date approached!

The response to the CFP was very pleasing, with a broad range of proposals from all over the world, from first-time presenters to some very seasoned campaigners. My thanks go to everyone who took the time and effort to put forward a proposal.

Helped by my Assistant Program Chair, Paul Seaman, it was a time-consuming process to select content to fill just eight track session slots available on the conference day. It was always our intention to provide a balanced & diverse programme and hopefully we’ve achieved that:

  • The tracks cover a broad range of topics – from automation to working as a lone tester, from continuous delivery to running bug bashes.
  • We have a brand new voice, Monica Diaz, giving her first conference talk as a result of opening up a track session slot to the Speak Easy programme (for which I am also a volunteer).
  • Across the conference day line-up, we have 4 female speakers and 5 male.
  • It’s a truly international menu, with speakers from Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the UK.

It gives me great pride to announce our complete line-up, as follows:

Keynotes (March 1st)

Tracks (March 1st)

  • Adam Howard with “Automated agility!? Let’s talk truly agile testing”
  • James Espie with “Community whack-a-mole! Bug bashes, why they’re great and how to run them effectively”
  • Monica Diaz with “Evolution of Testing”
  • Kim Engel with “Journey to continuous delivery”
  • Paul Holland with “Creativity, Imagination, and Creating Better Test Ideas” (workshop)
  • Nicola West with “How I Got Rid of Test Cases”
  • Peter Bartlett with “Flying the Flag for Quality as a 1-Man-Band”

 

 

Tutorials (February 28th)

For more details about CASTx18, including the full schedule and the chance to benefit from significant discounts during the “early bird” period of registration, visit castx18.org

Thanks again to the AST for the trust they’ve placed in me to build the programme and hopefully what’s on offer is not only appealing to a wide audience of testers & others but also adds to the legacy of great CAST conferences.

I hope to see you in Melbourne next year!