Schedule
Wednesday, July 15 - 10:00 to 10:30 am
Welcome to the 2020 Triad Digital Technology Conference
In the welcome session Rob will talk about how the world is changing to meet the reality of current restrictions in having to deal with COVID. Digital technology is taking on added importance as business models evolve and working relationships change. Investing in digital technology can no longer be done incrementally. Digital Transformation needs to happen in a more expedited way.
We will also share how the conference will work with a short tutorial of how to navigate the virtual conference website.
Rob Robless and Andrea Howell – Conference Organizers
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Profile
Rob Robless, PhD
Rob Robless, PhD
VP Technology at Globant and Adjunct Assistant Professor of Software Engineering at Wake Forest University
Rob is the Managing Director of the Triad Digital Technology Conference having founded the event in 2014. The annual conference has been created as a way to foster the Triad’s capabilities and competitiveness in technology and software development. It provides a convenient opportunity for business leaders, entrepreneurs and government officials to learn about our area’s growing technology sector and its potential for continued expansion and innovation.
His day job is as a Vice President of Technology at Globant, where he leads the software engineering efforts of several teams working with leading companies in the Triad and the US. He is also an adjunct professor of software engineering having taught at Wake Forest University, UNCG, and the George Washington University where he obtained his PhD in Information Management and AI. Rob has been a recipient of Infoweek’s Top 25 Most Influential CTOs while he was at United Airlines and came to the Triad to help grow GMAC Insurance.
Wednesday, July 15 - 10:30 to 11:00 am - Session 1
Think Visually (and out loud!)
Today’s complex digital products require that product teams communicate clearly and continuously, but the written word has its limits. Show me another user story with a 300-word footnote and I’m gonna toss this MacBook across the room (which happens to be my garage thanks to COVID). Join me to explore how we can communicate VISUALLY to increase participation in product discussions and learn how some of today’s prototyping tools can replicate complex interactions like never before.
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Profile
Steve Vest
Steve Vest
UX Architect at Globant
After 18 years and several roles within the website and application business, Steve claims to know a thing or two about UI design, UX and working with clients and dev teams to build and evolve quality interactive products. He is passionate about delighting end users and enjoys working with teams to provide user experiences that evoke the “I really like how this thing works” rating. As a bit of an extrovert, Steve enjoys getting to know product users and the world in which they live. When he’s not in the user world, you can be found in the mountains on a bicycle or with his family at the beach.
Wednesday, July 15 - 10:30 to 11:00 am - Session 2
Cleaning up other people's messes: Strategies to deal with the technology clutter
Regardless of your role within your company, there is no doubt that you spend a large amount of your time cleaning up architectures, data, deployments, code, or processes. Deployments are out of control, highly manual or overly complex. Code is unbelievably verbose and untestable. Databases have become monstrosities that are impossible to change. Whether it was you or others that are the reason the cleanse needs to be done, in this talk I’ll share some strategies, utilizing Clean Architecture principles, and ideas from real life implementations that could help you in your cause!
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Profile
John Richardson
John Richardson
Technical Manager at Globant
John has been involved at almost every level of the software delivery life cycle, from proof-of-concepts for sales to production delivery of software solutions for enterprise clients’ needs. This experience led him to transition to a Engagement Manager role at Small Footprint, a division of Globant, that is able to leverage knowledge of Agile principles and his background as a software architect into a functional role that can aid the translation of client needs into innovative solutions with a high performance engineering team. He is an advocate for adopting software engineering practices that lead to a high quality, maintainable product and is also a proponent of putting sound process in place that supports that goal.
Wednesday, July 15 - 10:30 to 11:00 am - Session 3
Think Small, Grow Fast
Presented by Ben Gilman of Dualboot Partners
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Profile
Ben Gilman
Ben Gilman
Principal at Dualboot Partners
Entrepreneur, executive and engineer focused on building innovative software products. I am passionate about finding technical solutions for business problems. I’ve started several companies and enjoy working with organizations of all sizes to build creative software products.
Wednesday, July 15 - 11:00 to 11:30 am
Chat with Speakers, Discuss the Topics, Networking
Discuss what you’ve learned in the previous sessions with the speakers and other conference participants in an innovative and fun way on the online conference website.
Explore what our sponsors have to offer by connecting to them directly in our virtual exhibitor hall.
Wednesday, July 15 - 11:30 to 12:00 pm - Session 4
Using AI to Augment Software Development
Today there are amazing applications of artificial intelligence, particularly when it comes to increasing human capacity to solve certain problems and enhance processes.
Coding is at the heart of what we do at Globant. We have found ways to apply different artificial intelligence algorithms to improve software development, whether in speed, quality, capacity, etc. Our tool (Augmented Coding) offers developers a platform to search, navigate and document code in a novel way, and has shown to improve the speed of code development.
In my talk I will share some of the artificial intelligence techniques used for the development of this tool and some findings on its deployment and adoption.
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Profile
Haldo Spontón
Haldo Spontón
Head of AI Development at Globant
Artificial intelligence is changing the technological scenario as we know it, and the development of data science as a practice is one of the key factors for this evolution. Rooted in this conviction, I belong to the team that leads the practice of Data Science and the Artificial Intelligence Studio, and I lead every AI-related internal initiative within Globant, a world-class company, with more than 8,000 people in 14 countries.
I focus on Machine Learning, Deep Learning, and Artificial Intelligence algorithms, with particular interest in the analysis of unstructured data for later insight discovery and decision making (audio, images and video processing, etc.). All this, without losing sight of the business objectives and strategy, which are key to the successful implementation of these algorithms.
Previously, I worked for 6 years as a teacher and researcher at the Engineering School (Montevideo), as part of the Signal Processing Department and the Audio Processing Group, and at the École Normale Supérieure de Cachán (Paris), as part of of the Center for Applied Mathematics (CMLA).
Always deepening knowledge in entrepreneurship, technology business strategy, and startup ecosystem. Enjoy music, photography, motorbikes, and technological innovation.
Co-author of the book “Embracing the Power of AI: a Gentle CXO Guide” (ISBN: 978-1-944903-52-7). Keynote speaker in events and conferences, spreading the word for a data-driven mindset.
Wednesday, July 15 - 11:30 to 12:00 pm - Session 5
UNC Greensboro's IT Impact in the Region
The technology challenges facing the triad region have an impact across businesses, universities, and citizens. The IT department at UNC Greensboro is working on two exciting projects that will have an impact not only at the university, but also the surrounding community. Hear from UNC Greensboro’s Chief Technology Officer about 2 major efforts underway in the IT department: the NSF sponsored Gate City Research Network and the brand new Technology and Data Institute.
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Profile
Jeff Whitworth, PhD
Jeff Whitworth, PhD
Associate Vice Chancellor and Chief Infrastructure Architect at University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Wednesday, July 15 - 11:30 to 12:00 pm - Session 6
PODS - Mack/Volvo Truck's Digital Building Block
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Profile
Shawn Fitzgerald
Shawn Fitzgerald
Enterprise Architect at Mack Trucks/Volvo Trucks North America
Shawn started his professional career as a Wildlife Biologist but was quickly absorbed by the promise of Geographic Information Systems and their ability to solve the complex spatial problems unique to habitat management. From there his interest in software development was born and he joined a small Ag SW startup. It’s been 25 years since he transitioned to IT and his experience ranges from small start-ups to large global corporations and spans the Agriculture, Retail, Manufacturing and Business Services domains. With 10+ years as an Enterprise Architect, he’s spent the last one-and-a-half years providing technical and strategic direction for Mack/Volvo’s North American services catalog. The company has, among other strategic goals, the desire to digitalize their customer experience platforms as well as their extensive aftermarket service offerings and supporting business processes. Passionate about preparing the way for AI, Shawn is particularly focused on designing digital platforms and services that leverage digitalization and AI to maximize business agility, enhance the end user experience; and, safely make critical, real time business decisions. The goal of this presentation is help technologist change the way they think about how they design and deliver IT services in preparation for the coming digitalized, Age of Consciousness.
Wednesday, July 15 - 12:00 to 12:30 pm
Chat with Speakers, Discuss the Topics, Networking
Discuss what you’ve learned in the previous sessions with the speakers and other conference participants in an innovative and fun way on the online conference website.
Explore what our sponsors have to offer by connecting to them directly in our virtual exhibitor hall.
Wednesday, July 15 - 12:30 to 1:00 pm
Day 1 Retrospective
Panel discussion on highlights of Day 1 and what’s happening in Day 2 presented by Globant.
Richard Starets, Managing Director at Globant will be chatting with Tim Bigwood, President of Noregon Systems in Greensboro about Augmented Organizations.
Thursday, July 16 - 10:00 to 10:30 am
Welcome Day 2
Panel discussion on what might be the “new norm” because of how we had to work during the COVID-19 lock down. Presented by ettain group and Apex Systems.
Thursday, July 16 - 10:30 to 11:00 am - Session 1
Investing Experience Design Capabilities for ROI
Human-centered Experience Design Creates Value: Experience Design is a discipline focused on human outcomes… particularly, the level of engagement and satisfaction that the user derives from a product or service and the relevance of the experience to their needs and context.
The goal of Experience Design is to create solutions that are optimized for your users, which ultimately provides value for your organization.
A few data points to consider:
-Airbnb attributes its $10B valuation to good UX Design
-Amazon funds UX Design $100:0 over advertising
-Optimized e-commerce sites sell 70% more products
-Every $2 spent on UX yields $100
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Profile
David Muhammad
David Muhammad
Director of Digital Solutions at Apex Systems
David Muhammad has over 15 years of experience in the digital space. David has headed up digital, social, content and experience design capabilities of the some of the largest and well respected agencies in the industry. Those agencies include; Moxie(Atlanta), BBDO(Atlanta) Organic (NYC), Uniworld Group (Brooklyn) and GMR Marketing in Charlotte.
David’s currently Director of Digital Solutions at Apex Systems where he overees, Experience Design, Digital Marketing, AI and Digital Transformation solutions for clients like: Wells Fargo, Schwab, Google, Amazon, Uber and Anthem.
Thursday, July 16 - 10:30 to 11:00 am - Session 2
Coding That Sparks Joy With Quarkus
Does your heart beat faster when you’re developing your Java application? Does it spark joy when you’re coding? If not, then it’s time to leave some old ways behind.
Join us on this live coding session and get familiar with Quarkus. You’ll learn to love how your old and new favorite APIs will start in a matter of milliseconds and consume tiny amounts of memory. Hot reload capabilities for development will give you instant sparks of joy!
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Profile
Edson Yanaga
Edson Yanaga
Director of Developer Experience at Red Hat
Java Champion & Microsoft MVP. Software Craftsman. Empowering developers all around the world with Red Hat tools & expertise to allow better software delivered faster and safely.
Thursday, July 16 - 10:30 to 11:00 am - Session 3
Design Thinking is Bullsh*t. Long Live Design Thinking.
You’ve heard of design thinking as a way to solve problems through user research, novel ideas and rapid prototyping. Maybe you’ve even participated in a design thinking workshop before. While design thinking can be a powerful methodology, detractors argue the results lead nowhere. Novel ideas with non-actionable delivery. Concepts with no buy-in. Roadmaps with no roads. Meanwhile your day-to-day responsibilities creep back in (or perhaps they never left) while all those collective insights get put aside, never to appear again. In effect, bullsh*t. Yet design thinking lives on. Why? Join Eric Ellis as he dives into the true value of design thinking “underneath the phases” by looking at common pitfalls and using first-hand cases studies and useful tips from his work at Airbnb, Google, Dropbox, Intuit, and more.
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Profile
Eric Ellis
Eric Ellis
Director of Digital Solutions at ettain group
Eric Ellis is the Director of Digital Solutions at ettain group, a staffing solutions company based in Charlotte. With 15 years of experience in UX, Eric is passionate about applying design thinking to complex problems to create compelling experiences and real value. He’s applied his craft inside Google, Airbnb, Intuit, and Dropbox, and other successful brands who are all looking to deliver intentional, omni-channel solutions to their customers.
Thursday, July 16 - 11:00 to 11:30 am
Chat with Speakers, Discuss the Topics, Networking
Discuss what you’ve learned in the previous sessions with the speakers and other conference participants in an innovative and fun way on the online conference website.
Explore what our sponsors have to offer by connecting to them directly in our virtual exhibitor hall.
Thursday, July 16 - 11:30 to 12:00 pm - Session 4
3 Mandatory Investments for Digital Success
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Profile
Steve Stone
Steve Stone
Founder and CEO, NSU Technologies, LLC
Steve is the founder and CEO of NSU Technologies LLC, an executive advisory firm focused on IT strategy and governance, retail and retail technologies, and advanced analytics. He is the author of Digitally Deaf: Why Organizations Struggle with Digital Transformation ISBN 978-3-030-01833-7. Prior to founding NSU Technologies, Steve was Executive Vice President, Chief Information Officer at L Brands. Steve led the Mast Global Technology organization, which supported all aspects of technology for L Brands various consumer brands including Victoria’s Secret, Pink, Bath & Body Works, La Senza, and Henri Bendel. Prior to joining L Brands Steve was EVP, Technical Operations for MicroStrategy, Inc. In this role he was responsible for MicroStrategy’s public cloud product offerings and related technology infrastructure along with serving as the senior executive responsible for all corporate applications and infrastructure. Prior to MicroStrategy Steve was with Lowe’s Companies, Inc. for over 18 years, serving the final eight years as Chief Information Officer. During his tenure at Lowe’s the retailer grew from $3B in annual revenues to nearly $50B. Steve began his career in the computer software industry as a software engineer with Management Science America, before moving to Ernst & Young where he moved through various roles to a Senior Manager level. Steve is a 1983 cum laude graduate of Appalachian State University with a BSBA degree from the Walker College of Business. He holds a CPIM certification from the Association for Operations Management.
Thursday, July 16 - 11:30 to 12:00 pm - Session 5
Playing with Innovation: 5 personal strategies for driving innovation with new technologies.
Presented by Jon Boggiano, co-founder of Everblue.
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Profile
Jon Boggiano
Jon Boggiano
Co-Founder of Everblue
Jon is co-founder of Everblue. As a serial entrepreneur, he is an innovator, leader, and investor who focuses on forging organizations that positively impact the greater good. His twin passions are building things (products, experiences, and companies) and mentoring professionals. Jon serves as a board member and advisor to a number of companies and non-profits. He holds a BS from the US Military Academy at West Point and an MS from Stanford University. In 2011, the White House recognized Jon as a Champion of Change for his work at Everblue.
For him, Innovation and Making are the professionals’ version of a child playing with Legos.
Thursday, July 16 - 11:30 to 12:00 pm - Session 6
Launch is Only the Beginning; Planning the Post-launch Investment
Thursday, July 16 - 12:00 to 12:30 pm
Chat with Speakers, Discuss the Topics, Networking
Discuss what you’ve learned in the previous sessions with the speakers and other conference participants in an innovative and fun way on the online conference website.
Explore what our sponsors have to offer by connecting to them directly in our virtual exhibitor hall.
Thursday, July 16 - 12:30 to 1:00 pm
Day 2 Retrospective
Panel discussion on highlights of Day 2 and what’s happening in Day 3. Presented by TEKsystems and Loft.
Friday, July 17 - 10:00 to 10:30 am
Welcome Day 3
Panel discussion on what have we learned so far in this conference? What can we expect to learn today? Presented by TSG and Globant
Friday, July 17 - 10:30 to 11:00 am - Session 1
Rethinking Investment Valuation for the Agile Methodology
Conventional capital budgeting or cost benefit analysis doesn’t truly capture the essence of flexibility offered under the Agile methodology. A new dynamic valuation approach is required as a supplement to the conventional approach. This presentation will outline an approach that provides the flexibility of being able to choose a course correction for the initiative from several options.
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Profile
Prashant Dixit
Prashant Dixit
Senior Digital Strategy Leader
Prashant is a business driven technology professional with extensive experience in driving and delivering business initiatives by leveraging information technology. His career spans from working in startups to Fortune 500 companies, such as RewardsPlus, Accenture, AIG, GMAC and Lincoln Financial Group. He also serves as a CTO and a Board Member of the HBS Global Alumni Angels Association.
Prashant’s area of expertise is in driving digital strategy that defines how organizations uses people, processes, and technology to radically transform business performance.
He holds a BS in engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, an MS in Technology Management from Columbia University, NY and is an EMBA equivalent graduate and alumni of Harvard Business School.
Friday, July 17 - 10:30 to 11:00 am - Session 2
Why Business Requirements Should Drive Your Development Process
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Profile
Scot Whigham
Scot Whigham
CEO at Function-AI, Inc.
Scot Whigham is CEO and member of the board of advisors for Function-AI, Inc. He brings more than 20 years of technology industry leadership, managed services, service desk support, network/telecommunications, software development, and data center operations expertise to his role with the company. His current focus is on artificial intelligence ecosystem technology and its impact on organizational and digital workforce strategy. He has served in leadership positions at IHG, Aon e-Solutions, and Earthlink.
Scot earned an MBA from The Georgia Institute of Technology focused on strategy and analytics. He is a Six Sigma Black Belt, ITIL Practitioner, and was named Intercontinental Hotel Group CIO’s 2016 Carpe Diem award winner, 2017 Delivery Excellence award winner, Technology Association of Georgia’s 2017 Excalibur award winner for Most Creative Solution, Technology Association of Georgia’s 2017 Product Launch of the Year award winner, and named by CIO Executive Council and CIO Magazine as 2018’s One-To-Watch winner.
Scot currently resides in Atlanta, GA with his wife and 2 sons.
Friday, July 17 - 10:30 to 11:00 am - Session 3
Reactive Frontends in a Data-Centric World
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Profile
Andrew Johnson
Andrew Johnson
Lead Software Engineer at Fluree, PBC
Andrew Johnson is a lead software engineer at Fluree, PBC, a Winston-Salem-based Public Benefit Corporation focused on transforming data security, ownership, and access with a scalable blockchain database.
He has worked on software development solutions for projects that include university student information systems, patent publication records, consumer data ownership, and federal public housing policy.
Friday, July 17 - 11:00 to 11:30 am
Chat with Speakers, Discuss the Topics, Networking
Discuss what you’ve learned in the previous sessions with the speakers and other conference participants in an innovative and fun way on the online conference website.
Explore what our sponsors have to offer by connecting to them directly in our virtual exhibitor hall
Friday, July 17 - 11:30 to 12:00 pm - Session 4
Leveraging Startups to Expedite Your Digital Efforts
This year’s theme for the Triad Developers Conference is on Investing in Digital Technology. In this session, we are going to look at three startups that have a presence in our community and are transforming their industries and disrupting and improving traditional processes. The three companies that are representing are: Benekiva (Insurance) – Bridging the gap between insurance carriers, policyholders, and beneficiaries by claims transformation and asset retention. Ampogee (Manufacturing) – Helping manufacturers engage every front line worker in continuous improvement. SwipeBy (Food) – Transforming the curbside process by capitalizing on dine-out demand, differentiate against delivery, and take back control of takeout.
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Profile
Bobbie Shrivastav
Bobbie Shrivastav
Chief Product Officer and Co-Founder of Benekiva
Bobbie Shrivastav is an award-winning serial entrepreneur, author, technology and digital transformation expert whose unwavering innovation, customer-centric approach, and continued success have earned her the reputation as an industry leader. Over the course of nearly two decades, she has cultivated extensive knowledge in the information technology space and leading enterprise-level initiatives. Currently, Shrivastav serves as the Chief Product Officer and Co-Founder of Benekiva, a software company intended to bridge the gap between life insurance companies and their intended beneficiaries, through claims automation, beneficiary and policyholder management, and asset retention. Her team has won several awards and recognition, most recently being part of 2020 MassChallenge FinTech program in Boston.
Shrivastav earned her MBA from Wake Forest University, Masters in Project Management from Western Carolina University and Bachelors in Information Systems and Marketing from Appalachian State University. She has numerous project management certifications from the Project Management Institute (PMI) and Scrum Alliance. She is passionate about helping organizations weather the paper storm through digital and process transformation. She gets invited to speak and share thought leadership about process re-engineering, innovation, digital disruption, and entrepreneurship.
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Profile
Carl Turner
Carl Turner
Founder of Swipeby
Carl founded SWIPEBY during his final semester at Wake Forest University where he graduated with Bachelors in Finance and Computer Science. He was born and lived most of his life in Berlin, Germany and had the honor to gain experience before SWIPEBY working with Google (Hamburg), A.T. Kearney (Dubai) and The Boston Consulting Group (Kuala Lumpur) and co-founding SEON, a startup democratizing access to fast security response, starting with South Africa and neighboring markets.
SWIPEBY is bringing curbside pick up, pioneered by retailers like Walmart & Target to any restaurant, with our fully automated curbside pick platform and aggregator consumer apps – turning any restaurant into a virtual drive thru. We launched summer 2019 and are seeing strong traction in NC and are now expanding fast.
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Profile
Jennifer Biggs
Jennifer Biggs
CEO at Ampogee
Jennifer Biggs is the CEO of Ampogee, a technology company focused on helping manufacturers engage every front line worker in continuous improvement. She received national recognition as a STEP Ahead Emerging Leader by The Manufacturing Institute for her results at Procter & Gamble. She has a BS in Chemical Engineering from NC State University and an Executive MBA from UNC Chapel Hill.
Friday, July 17 - 11:30 to 12:00 pm - Session 5
Friday, July 17 - 11:30 to 12:00 pm - Session 6
Friday, July 17 - 12:00 to 1:00 pm
Virtual Reception
Enjoy an old time string band duo performance by Jason and Greyson of Hothouse Cucumbers, a local Greensboro, NC band.
Party on! Join everyone in the conference at a virtual reception. Network with other participants.
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Profile
Jason and Greyson
Jason and Greyson
Reception Performers
Jason and Greyson are a fiddle and banjo duo based in the Greensboro area of North Carolina. They enjoy preserving the traditions of old-time string band music as well as pushing the boundaries of the fiddle and banjo. They are the core of a larger 5-piece band called The Hothouse Cucumbers.
