Please join the Capital Region GDG community for this inclusive event (every member of the community is invited). The event theme is: "Building a New Horizon".

The goal of the event is to inspire you to envision how your involvement in the tech industry does, or could, impact the world, or even a small corner of it.

We'll bring you two inspirational and motivating keynotes from Pamela Pavliscak and Janet Carmosky, as well as networking periods and lightning talks.

Pamela is an author, founder and speaker who focuses on human / technology interaction.

Janet is the Executive Director of Albany Can Code, where she is focused on equipping aspiring software developers with the tools to enter this field and excel.

Both Pamela and Janet are engaging speakers and each have a wealth of experience in and around the tech industry.

In addition to Pamela and Janet, we will have networking and lightning talks as well! Our venue host, CommerceHub will be providing the space and food/drink. Great thanks to CommerceHub!

So, if you would like to gather to share experiences and build each other's confidence in how the technology industry can be impacted with our collective skills, please do join us!

Agenda:

10:00am - 10:30am: networking and refreshments
10:30am - 11:15am: Keynote #1
11:15am - 11:45am: Lightning talks
11:45am - 12:30pm: Networking and group interaction
12:30pm - 1:15pm: Keynote #2
1:15pm - end: Networking

Pamela's Keynote:

Title:
How to Create a Human Future with Machines

Summary:
Depending on how you look, you can see two futures for our lives with technology. Put on your rose-colored VR headset and you’ll see the promise of unparalleled ease. Scroll, bleary-eyed through your social media feed and you’ll spot all manner of dystopian futures. Yet, the goal of designers, developers, and anyone creating tech futures is to make the world tangibly better. How do we design a human future with machines? In this session, we'll try out 3 ways to shift our perspective and move beyond boom and doom.

Janet's Keynote:

Software Across our Society and Culture

We're all aware of how many aspects of our functioning in the economy and society are intermediated - in fact shaped - by software. We're also aware that our dependence on apps and devices is increasing, and the aspects of our lives that do not yet involve software are vanishing rapidly. These facts should call into question what role technology companies and software developers play in our culture as a whole. For those of us who are economically secure, stable, and well educated, technology presents opportunities for greater productivity. What does the seemingly irreversible ascendancy of software mean for those of us who are not economically secure, stable, and well educated? Who is being left out, and what do all of us lose when the makers of technology do not represent the full diversity of our society? How can we view a drive to increase diversity in the developer community, and code literacy across the board, as an imperative rather than an option?

Come for these great talks and our lightning talk session also.

If you are interested in sharing a tech talk in the future, please reach out to: [masked]