Hazel chatting about security
For October's Tech Nottingham we wanted to try something a bit different to our usual format, and floated the idea of hosting Lightning Talks, alongside our excellent speaker for the evening, Hazel Seanor. We were a little nervous because (a) we had never done this at Tech Nottingham before and (b) what if no-one wanted to speak?!
Our worries were completely unfounded. The community rose to the challenge and the evening was filled with fun, laughter and more information than the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Speakers prepared slides, wrote songs (and sang them!) and made the evening one to remember. A lot of people said it was their favourite Tech Nottingham ever! A wonderful endorsement of a community led event - we'll be making it an annual occurrence for sure.
Will explaining how coffee is made
To kick off the event, Hazel, one of our youngest ever speakers, gave us an entertaining and informative talk on her battle with attitudes to security and what we could learn from it. A quick break for food and drinks and then it was ⚡ LIGHTNING ⚡ time!
14 excellent talks, all with very different subjects - some technology related, some not, but all delivered with panache. From Kate, we learned about Elmer McCurdy, who died in 1911 but wasn't buried until 1977... Will chatted about coffee, the who what where when and why. We had a crash course in Git rebasing from Rob, and Anna told us about Hacktoberfest, and why we should get involved (to win a t-shirt!). Tom presented a very personal talk on how he'd like to give his son a 'voice in the home' using IoT technology, and Greg blew our minds when we found out that his talk had already been written. Rosanna gave us a whistle-stop tour of Wolfram Mathematica and Jonny really wants us to start using Arch Linux. Annie donned a Santa hat and told us all about the NVA's plans for Christmas; Vikram showed us how we can use bacteria as passwords - this provoked some interesting questions! Sean talked us through some of his technology adventures in China, and Adam told us how an innocent pie inadvertently broke an infrastructure project. Matthew SANG his talk - you can see a clip in the video below!
Matthew Walton singing 'When I was a boy'
It was a hugely enjoyable evening and we can't wait for the next one!
With heartfelt thanks to all our speakers*:
Hazel Seanor, Kate Bolin, Matthew Walton, Adam Field, Will Ellwood, Annie Parry, Rob Waring, Tom Jepson, Anna Dodson, Vikram Chhapwale, Rosanna Nichols, Sean Varney, Greg Bowler, Jonathan Balls
Look at all that awesome!
* The eagle eyed amongst you may spot that we are one name short - there is a post-it missing, and we don't have the name of the 15th speaker! If this is you, let us know, and we'll update this blog with your details so you can revel in your well-earned fame and glory.