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2023 Sessions

AI and the Future of Work
Michelle Mannering
  • AI
  • Human Skills
  • Tooling

With the rise of AI and automation, how do we as humans find our value in the workplace? How do we work with these new technologises? How do we build resilience to changes? What skills are needed for us to thrive in this new world?

People have often felt apprehensive about change, especially big changes to the way we work. It happened in the industrial revolution and now it's happening with the rise of artificial intelligence. Five years ago these things existed, but now they are accessible to almost everyone. In this session Michelle will cover:
- why people want to work
- why it's important for us to have a place in the world
- what skills are needed for the "future of work"
- how we build resilience, problem solving, and critical thinking

AI Expert Panel
Michelle Mannering
Mike Benkovich
Christopher Crowhurst
Eric Carr
  • AI

Let's talk about AI! How will it change the way people work? Which industries will be affected the most by it? How reliable or usable is it in its current stage? Will it replace software developers or be more of an enhancement to the work they already do? You should expect a lively and constructive discussion surrounding AI from our panel and walk away with ideas to use and share in your organization.

This group of panelists is sure to provide a wide variety of thought-provoking perspectives on AI and its numerous applications. Don't miss out!  

HTTP Security Headers You Need To Have On Your Web Apps
Scott Sauber
  • Security
In this session, we'll explain a handful of HTTP Security Headers (including HSTS, CSP, XFO, and more) from the bottom up. We'll  explain what they are, what they do, and how you can implement them to secure your sites. On each of these, we'll demo a before and after so you can see first hand what each of these security headers do.
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Kubernetes Security Workshop
Jacob Beasley
  • DevOps
  • Security
  • Cloud
Are you new to Kubernetes Security? In this workshop, taught by m9sweeper co-founder Jacob Beasley, we will secure a Kubernetes cluster using open source Kubernetes security tools such as kube-bench, kubsec, kube-hunter, trivy, and project falco. It sounds like a lot, but we will make it easy and finish in under 30 minutes!
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UAT and E2E - Automating and Lessons Learned
Mark Kalal
  • Tooling
  • Testing
No testing effort is complete without a thorough end-to-end and user acceptance test.  This session will include some best practices and we'll discuss some things that haven't worked out so well when implementing browser automation.  We'll also talk about tools and strategies for improving testing efforts.
Bridging the Gap: How Bootcamps Empower Developers
Melody Monyok
  • Tooling

Tech Bootcamps have been around since the early 2010s and are growing in popularity as an additional pathway to a career in tech. They are a key piece in growing our community both by bringing in developers that are unable to follow a 2 or 4 year path or by growing the knowledge base of existing developers.

In this talk, we'll show how bootcamps increase the diversity of our community through their financial and social accessibility, how a bootcamp's fine-tuned curriculum can prep developers for success in tech, and how they hone adaptability and learning skills in their developers that will benefit any team that works with them.

Capture the Flag
Robert Boedigheimer
  • .NET/C#
  • JavaScript
  • Security
  • Tooling
We’re not talking about the outdoor game where you are trying to steal a physical flag and bring it back to your base, this capture the flag is a series of computer security challenges you solve to retrieve a flag and get points! Solving these challenges require various skills including decrypting content, SQL Injection, reverse engineering and more. Learn about how capture the flag works, where you find challenges/competitions, and some techniques required to solve them. I went from never having tried one to winning a competition the next year. The challenges are not only interesting, they helped change my perspective about how web sites are attacked and how I could better protect them.
Slides
Sharpen your “Architecture Documentation” Saw: Architectural Decision Records and Diagrams-as-Code
Kevin Hakanson
  • Architecture
  • Tooling
All solutions implicitly have an architecture, ideally one which is both intentional and documented. The Architectural Decision Records (ADR) process distributes architectural decision-making across team members. Accelerate the time-consuming process of hand drawing diagrams by rendering from a text-based source. Communicate effectively by committing both your markdown-based ADRs and text-based diagrams into your source code repository. This talk will review these techniques, provide actionable steps to adoption, and even live-code some examples.
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Free Parking
Brett Hazen

Relax and enjoy this beautiful space.  Warning: the "conversations" from the AI Expert Panel may spill over into this time...

Choose Your Azure Messaging Adventure
Brett Hazen
  • .NET/C#
  • Cloud
  • Architecture

You've determined you need messaging or events in your application, but what which one? And which service in Azure is the right choice based on your needs? A quick glance at the options offered in Azure can be overwhelming. In this session we'll take a tour of three of the mostly commonly used options: Service Bus, Event Grid, and Event Hub. You'll walk away from this session with an understanding of when to use which service, how the services differ from each other, and how to get started using each service.

Code Examples

Coding with ChatGPT and Copilot: A Hands-On Approach
Mike Benkovich
  • AI
  • Tooling
  • .NET/C#

In this session, attendees will learn how to work with ChatGPT, a cutting-edge language model developed by OpenAI, and GitHub Copilot. This session will cover the basics of Azure's OpenAI Service and the Chat models, including how they work and how it can be integrated into various applications. We will also explore the potential use cases for ChatGPT, including natural language processing, conversational AI, and more. Attendees will be guided through a series of demos that illustrate how to work with ChatGPT in a hands-on manner, using tools such as GitHub Copilot and ASP.NET Core.

 

Hacking Your Vacation: Using Data for Fun
Becky Gandillon
  • Data
  • Human Skills

Data can be powerful, meaningful, AND fun. Making data-driven decisions can level up your family vacation from awful to awesome. In this session, attendees will walk through a specific example showing how to analyze various data sources to avoid crowds, save money, and piece together a Disney World vacation that's more enjoyable for everyone.

Hostile JavaScript: Attacking and Defending the Browser
Todd Gardner
  • JavaScript
  • Frontend
  • Security
In this session, we'll explain a handful of HTTP Security Headers (including HSTS, CSP, XFO, and more) from the bottom up. We'll explain what they are, what they do, and how you can implement them to secure your sites. On each of these, we'll demo a before and after so you can see first hand what each of these security headers do.
AI: Your Personal Intern - Enhancing Productivity and Creativity
Joe Brinkman
  • AI
  • Tooling

Often, you'll find media narratives suggesting that AI is set to usurp your job. Indeed, the past year alone has witnessed a surge in AI capabilities, with some large-scale language models now solving a vast array of programming tasks in mere seconds. However, what if we shifted our mindset? Instead of considering AI as a job competitor, imagine it as a personal intern enhancing your programming efficiency.

Throughout my 40-year journey in programming, Joe has seen various technologies, such as CASE and RAD tools, come and go. Many predicted these tools would eliminate the need for programmers. However, in each instance, these tools didn't replace us, but rather facilitated our work, freeing us to delve deeper into the creative aspects of our profession.

In this session, Joe will delve into the merits and limitations of the most recent AI tools. Joe will guide you on how to utilize these tools to elevate your programming prowess. You'll understand firsthand why there's no need to fear AI. Instead, embrace it as a resourceful intern, taking care of the mundane and repetitive parts of programming, leaving you free to focus on the creative and nuanced aspects of transforming customer requirements into elegant software solutions.

 

How to grow your six-figure salary into eight-figure wealth
Christopher Crowhurst
  • Human Skills
Christopher has done it, he has been in your shoes, and now is barefoot, on the beach, enjoying the fruits of a successful IT career spanning 4 decades. He will share with you how to find motivation, expand value, be seen as a partner with the business, future proof skills, and establish a bullet proof career. An entrepreneur who built and sold several technology businesses, a survivor of numerous technology evolutions, layoffs, and personal transitions, Christopher will share the special sauce that has allowed him to retire young and enjoy both the journey and the destination.
Lock it down! Token Authentication to ASP.NET Web API
Matt Milner
  • Frontend
  • JavaScript
  • .NET/C#
  • Security
The ASP.NET Identity system has been evolving to keep up with changing security standards and provides a turnkey solution for authenticating users to your web applications. However, cookies and server-side authentication UI have made authenticating to a WEB API tricky in certain scenarios, especially when building a Single Page Application (SPA). With .NET 8, the ASP.NET team is introducing an identity API and token authentication that you can use to secure your API. In this session you'll learn about this identity API and how it relates to the ASP.NET identity system and see how to use it from your SPA. You'll also learn about other options for token-based authentication such as Azure Active Directory and how they compare to the ASP.NETIdentity API. 
Slides
Protecting Secrets in your C# MVC projects and Azure Services using Key Vault and Azure App Config
Brian Gorman
  • .NET/C#
  • Cloud
  • Security
You are a developer and you have knowledge of secrets. You're aware that you should not be putting secrets into GitHub. How do you prevent the secret from getting checked in? How do you get alerted if a secret is checked in? Is there a tool at Azure that can be easily leveraged for managing secrets?
Becoming a Leader: What to do when everyone looks to you?
Gary Keeler
  • Human Skills
We've all been there, you are working on a project, seeing the path to take but seeing your team not take it. How do you speak up? How do you shift to leading instead of following? Or maybe you've just been given your first management level role. You have a team but don't feel equipped to guide them. Or maybe you've been running teams for a long time but always seem to hit a wall that prevents you from achieving your vision?
This session is designed to take all the bumps and stumbles along the way and equip people for leading regardless of if it's your first time leading or if you are an old hat at it.
The session will start by setting up the context and framing the question. Pulling people in with a personal story of first-time leadership. Then we will identify the "Leader Point". How do you recognize that moment in time where you can make a dent in the universe. Once we've covered how to recognize where you are we'll go into strategies for leading all driven by the principle that a good leader maximizes the results of the team they serve. Lastly, the session will end with practical takeaways to practice at your job.
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Everyday AI: Automate Life's Little Details
Kamran Ayub
  • AI
  • Human Skills

In the rapidly evolving landscape of AI, it's easy to get caught up in applying it to large-scale business applications. But what about the small-scale personal tasks that eat into our time? This session will teach you how no-code and low-code AI workflows can streamline and enhance our day-to-day experiences. Want your weekly Instacart groceries ordered seamlessly? Or maybe you're looking to ask your budget spreadsheet questions? Kamran has got real-world examples using Zapier and Azure OpenAI to inspire you. We're moving beyond the hype and into hands-on demonstrations to bring AI's practical benefits to the forefront. Whether you've worked with AI already or are still noping out, they'll show you some delightful ways AI can subtly yet significantly improve your daily life without compromising your privacy.

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Micro Frontends in React: A Modular Approach to Building Web Apps
Justin Nichols
  • Frontend
  • JavaScript
  • Architecture

 In this Session, Justin unpacks an innovative solution to the complexities of frontend development. Through the lens of his experience, he'll introduce you to micro frontends. A modular approach, mirroring the successes seen in Microservices architecture. Imagine an application where every component navigation to footer, is a self-contained React app with its dedicated repository. This talk will cover some of the essentials setting up these micro frontends, the challenges and benefits of hosting multiple isolated units, and provide a balanced view of the pros and cons. By the end of this session, you'll have  actionable insights needed to assess if this architecture aligns well with your team's goals and upcoming projects.

Transforming Legacy to Leading Edge: Dive into the World of Application Modernization!
Chris Steele
  • Cloud
  • DevOps
  • Architecture
  • Human Skills
Are you struggling with outdated and legacy applications that are holding your organization back? It's time to embrace the power of application modernization! Join an Application Modernization Practice Lead as we explore the latest trends and best practices for updating and transforming your applications to meet the needs of today's dynamic and fast-paced business environment. We'll explore how cloud migration, microservices architecture, and modernization frameworks can help you improve performance, scalability, reliability, security, and user experience. Learn from real-world examples and case studies of successful application modernization projects and gain insights into how you can overcome common challenges and obstacles.
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mdc 2023 | ILM Professional Services