Track 2

9:45 Pete Roome

The Great Startup Machine

We’ve all heard of the Lean Startup by Eric Ries and by now we’ve probably all read it. The difference is I’ve lived it. In 2014 I was tasked by my investor to validate as many startup ideas as I possibly could. This talk is what I learnt during that time.

I will discuss the tools and tactics I used to validate and launch 4 startups in 12 months. From being featured on Product Hunt twice, to hitting the front page of Hacker News and getting banned from Facebook and LinkedIn. Together, we'll celebrate failing fast. After all, it’s better to prove yourself wrong than it is to spend time and money building something no one wants.

Bio

A web developer who learnt his trade at Kyan, Pete has gone on to co-found a number of startups. The most notable of which are: The 405, PANDR and Sisu – Your Exercise Data As Art. Pete is a jukebox hog, buffet aggressor and triathlete in training.

---

10:35 Paul Sturgess

Building Title Challenge — From Idea to App Store

Title Challenge is Kyan's first iOS game. Find out all about how is was created and the challenges involved.

Bio

Paul has worked as a Ruby on Rails developer for 8 years. Recently turning his hand to RubyMotion, to build the iOS football manager game Title Challenge. He blogs about RubyMotion development at paulsturgess.co.uk.

---

11:45 Craig Kerstiens

SQL

Some people enjoy writing SQL, but no one enjoys reading SQL. That's because most people write bad SQL. We'll start on how to write more legible SQL, add some simple tips for helping people follow along — such as using CTEs (Common Table Expressions) — and then look at how to ask the hard questions of your data without having to export and run some script in Ruby/Python/Other.

By the end you'll be able to do things like:

Compute deltas across periods directly in SQL Query for things like perc 95/99 Generate random data for testing/sample apps directly in SQL Document your SQL, which you should do just like your code

(All SQL will have a heavy Postgres slant, because well it's the best, but much can apply to other DBs too)

Bio

Craig has worked at both large corporations and small early stage startups. Currently Craig runs product for Heroku's ecosystem group which comprises their API, CLI, add-ons, and core languages. Previously he ran product and marketing for Heroku Postgres, Heroku's database as a service.

In addition to that he blogs frequently about Postgres, SQL, and start-ups at craigkerstiens.com and curates Postgres Weekly.

---

14:00 Dan Nuttall

Future Radios: Prototyping with Electronics, Stickers and Javascript

In this session we will talk about BBC Research & Development’s experimental radio toolkit, a way to easily prototype radio-like experiences. We’ll discuss the origins of the project and how a mix of open source software and hobbyist electronics allows us to experiment with ideas in a low-risk, believable way.

Bio

Dan is a Software Engineer for Internet Research and Future Services in BBC R&D. He has worked for a range of companies in Europe and Africa, building web sites, browser extensions, servers and everything in between using open-source software.

---

14:50 Sam Mason

Out of sight, out of mind

At Steer, the development team have a split working life. We spend half our time working to a tight schedule, creating features and fixing bugs across our two platforms alongside other projects. The other half of our time is spent helping our students, teaching them the fundamentals of how to create projects with code.

One of the biggest challenges we have faced is how to approach this 50/50 schedule; ensuring that our in-house projects don't grind to a halt when a team member is teaching and that when they return from teaching they can transition smoothly back into the projects they are working on.

The lessons we've learnt have not only helped the development team, but we have found they apply to all parts of the company such as when people are off sick, on holidays or on extended absence, as well as when we are on-boarding new developers.

In this talk we'll share the techniques, tools and attitudes that have proven their worth at Steer.

Bio

Sam is a developer and occasional music maker from London. Having worked on projects for the likes of TK Maxx, Red Nose Day and Barclays, he's now CTO of Steer, a company that teaches people to build websites and apps on short courses.

---

16:00 Derick Rethans

From SQL to NoSQL

In this talk I will explain the differences between different types of noSQL databases. I will then progress to illustrate which paradigm shifts are necessary to successfully implement noSQL, using MongoDB as an example.

The approaches to schema design, fault tolerance, the network breaking and latency are all things that are inherent to scalability with noSQL solutions and with this talk you will learn how to use MongoDB effectively considering all the above mentioned situations.

Bio

Derick Rethans has contributed in a number of ways to the PHP project, including the Xdebug debugging tool, and various extensions and additions. He's a frequent lecturer at conferences, the author of php|architect's Guide to Date and Time Programming, and the co-author of PHP 5 Power Programming. He is now working at MongoDB to work on the PHP and HHVM drivers for MongoDB.