BRUCE TATE – Keynote – November 4th

Bruce Tate is a kayaker, mountain biker, and father of two from Austin, Texas. The author of more than ten books including Seven Languages in Seven Weeks, Beyond Java, Bitter Java, Rails: Up and Running and From Java to Ruby.

Bruce founded RapidRed, a consultancy that has built several large websites including DigtheDirt, ChangingThePresent, ClassWish, and several others from the ground up. His company uses small teams with productive processes and technologies to rapidly put quality products into the marketplace. Earlier, Bruce served as the CTO of WellGood, a company that builds software for nonprofits, and as a developer and architect at IBM.
 

DIANNE MARSH – Keynote – November 4th plus Scala Koans Nov 5th

Dianne Marsh, Co-founder and President of SRT Solutions, has deeply rooted expertise in software programming and technology, including manufacturing, genomics decision support and real-time processing applications. Dianne works with a variety of languages and technologies; her preferred language of choice is currently Scala. A member of Women Presidents Organization, Dianne is also active in CodeMash and various Java user groups. She earned her Master of Science degree in computer science from Michigan Technological University.
 

MIKE AMUNDSEN – Building Hypermedia APIs with HTML5 and Node

An internationally known author and lecturer, Mike Amundsen travels throughout the United States and Europe consulting and speaking on a wide range of topics including distributed network architecture, Web application development, Cloud computing, and other subjects. His recent work focuses on the role hypermedia plays in creating and maintaining applications that can successsfully evolve over time. He has more than a dozen books to his credit and recently contributed to the book “RESTful Web Services Cookbook” (by Subbu Allamaraju). When he is not working, Mike enjoys spending time with his family in Kentucky, USA.
 

VIRENDER AJMANI – Google Maps API – Fusion Tables/Layers/Services

Virender Ajmani is a Mobile Apps Devloper at OnStar (Smart Grid) and an avid Google Maps developer in his own time. He is only one of a few Google Qualified Developers in the US. You can find the work of Virender on his site dedicated to his mapping applications at http://www.mibazaar.com. Virender’s mapping mashups have been featured on the Google Maps home page, and featured in a number of news articles across the country, including the Detroit Free Press, the Los Angeles Times, Information Week magazine, Sun’s Java site and more. For a complete list of his media mentions see http://mibazaar.googlepages.com/.
 

HENRY BALANON – iOS 5 Storyboards: The new way to layout app flow

I am the Co-Founder and Director of Mobile at Detroit Labs (funded by Detroit Venture Partners) where I create iPhone/iPad/Android apps. Recent and current brands: Stryker, Fathead, Quicken Loans, Caesars Entertainment, and Learning A-Z. Previously, I ran a company called Bickbot where I did iPhone/iPad apps.

I am a national speaker on mobile technologies (mostly iPhone/iPad). Most recently TEDx, #140conf, 360iDev, iPhoneDevCon, iCEAmsterdam. Every so often I’ll show up in places like the Detroit News, Detroit Free Press, NPR/PRI, BBC World News Radio, and the New York Times.
I co-founded food blog The Hungry Dudes. We’ve been featured in the Detroit Free Press and the Washington Post.

 

BARAA BASATA – Inside RSpec: The Ruby language and effective BDD through the RSpec gem

I am a consultant with Pillar, donning the technical lead and developer hats on Pillar client engagements for agile project delivery. On every project, my focus is on how to best contribute to the success of the teams I serve, and I’m constantly looking for every opportunity to make a positive impact and to delight my clients. I care about creative problem solving, effective communication, determined focus on delivering value, and big picture thinking that puts lines of code in context.
My technical specialties include Java, Perl, Ruby, JavaScript, agile programming, and web application development. My software development experience in Michigan spans the automotive, education, manufacturing, and marketing industries. I studied Mathematics and Computer Science at the University of Michigan and Lawrence Technological University, and I currently reside in Flint, Michigan. I’m @baraabasata on Twitter.
 

MIKE BOBINEY – Cross-platform Mobile Apps with jQuery Mobile

Mike Bobiney is the founder of Tap Through Apps, an iOS and mobile web application consulting business based out of Livonia, MI. Mike is also a Mobile Software Engineer for the nation’s largest online mortgage lender, Quicken Loans, where he played a large part in delivering their flagship iPhone application. In addition, he is trusted with guiding their front-end interface and usability design of internal line-of-business web applications. Mike’s wide range of interests as it applies to software craftsmanship has lead him to begin experimenting with open source products. As a result, he’s taken it upon himself to bring the Detroit Ruby user group to Downtown Detroit where Mike regularly speaks at during their monthly meetups. Follow him on twitter @mikebob.
 

ONORIO CATENACCI – Why Start Learning Functional Programming Today

Onorio Catenacci is a software developer and currently leads the FSharp Special Interest Group in conjunction with the Michigan Great Lakes Area .Net User Group. Onorio has been developing software professionally since 1987 in several different languages and a few different paradigms. One of Onorio’s most memorable jobs was supporting an application written in the Excel 4.0 macro language: “It was like trying to write War and Peace with a fifth grade vocabulary.” Ask Onorio about his Capuchines at your own risk.

 

AMBER CONVILLE – WTF is a ‘software craftsman’?

Amber Conville is a software craftsman and coach who works for Pillar Technology. She is the ring leader of Ann Arbor’s Craftsman Guild and spends her free time learning, coding, playing video games, or watching horror movies.
 

PAUL CZARNIK – A Better Mousetrap

Paul Czarnik talks about technology as part of Compuware Ventures. As Compuware Chief Technology Officer, Paul provides leadership for the company’s technical strategy and innovation delivery. A programmer at heart, Paul has spent his career focused on technical performance, coding everything from music-keyboard controllers to medical-laboratory interfaces. Paul leads a team of ‘proficient and prolific’ consultants who deliver world-class Compuware innovation to customers around the world. Paul serves on the Boards of the Mobile Technology Association of Michigan, iRule, and Motown Museum.
 

KEVIN DANGOOR – New Tools for the Web

Kevin Dangoor is product manager for Mozilla’s developer tools. Though he’s worked with many languages in many environments, he is best known for his Python work as the founder of theTurboGears web framework and Paver project scripting tool. He has spoken at numerous conferences and is a co-author of Rapid Web Applications with TurboGears. More recently, his work at Mozilla has involved the Bespin browser-based code editor, starting the CommonJS project, and a new generation of developer tools for Firefox. He lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

 

MARK DAVIDSON – The Journey From Developer to Technical Lead

Mark Davidson is a Great Lakes Region Director at Pillar Technology. Mark joined Pillar as a Delivery Lead in January 2010 and was promoted to the Director position in January 2011 with the goal of growing Pillar’s offerings in the region. Mark has focused his career on finding the most effective ways to deliver value to the businesses he is working with. He has been a developer, business analyst, project manager and leader during his 30 year career.

Prior to joining Pillar, Mark was a Director of Finance and Sr. Development Manager at Hollywood Video. He has 10 years of experience at major consulting firms including holding a Director position at CBSI, and 10 years of experience in commercial software development. During this time, he was involved in designing Oracle’s initial process manufacturing suite, managing the integration of Platinum’s financial suite and managing construction of financial applications at Hyperion. At Chrome Systems his team successfully replaced the automotive configuration engine for the site in less than 120 days, with a full Java solution using XP. One of the most complex assignments Mark has accomplished was building and implementing the GM BuyPower automotive configuration engine.

Mark enjoys mentoring people and has given thousands of hours feeding the homeless. For fun, he and his wife of 30 years, Yolette, have remodeled 15 homes.

 

TIMOTHY FISHER & KATE PRICER – High Performance Developer/Designer Collaboration

Tim Fisher has over 20 years of experience in the software development field. He has served in roles ranging from lead developer to chief architect for a variety of large and small companies. He is also the author of the Java Phrasebook and the Ruby on Rails Bible. Currently, Tim works as a technical consultant for Compuware in Detroit, Michigan where he is currently leading the technology teams for Compuware Ventures. Tim’s main area of development focus over the past year has been mobile app design and development. In addition to his development work, Tim works closely with the Compuware CTO evaluating new projects, technologies, and innovation. Outside of his day job, Tim is active in the local development community as an member of local user groups and a lead developer on multiple open source projects.

Kate Pricer is a recent graduate of the International Academy of Design &amb; Technology. Since joining Compuware in early 2011, Kate has already made a big impact at Compuware. Her accomplishments have included being the lead designer for several web, and mobile projects, as well as leading the design for several start-ups that are funded by Compuware Ventures. Kate has become a passionate advocate at Compuware for integrating design throughout a project’s lifecycle. Her success is also fueled by her willingness and ability to understand the technology that powers her designs. Kate also carries her passion for design and creativity outside of Compuware, having worked on many print and web design projects for a variety of clients.
 

LEON GERSING – ‘You’ and A Ruby on Rails Primer

Leon Gersing is a software artisan with EdgeCase, LLC. (edgecase.com) He works primary with web technologies providing custom solutions to our worldwide clients. He has recently started a new endeavor No Spoon Software, with co-founder Jerry Nummi, that seeks to bring new and exciting solutions to the emerging mobile markets. No Spoon’s first app is a Campfire business chat client called Sparks which is available now for iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch in the Apple App Store. You can read more about No Spoon Software at http://nospoonsoftware.com. You can follow Leon’s tweets @RubyBuddha

 

DAVID GIARD – Effective Data Visualization: The Ideas of Edward Tufte

David Giard has been developing solutions using Microsoft technologies since 1993. In the past, he has spoken at Day of .Net, .Net University, Microsoft DevCares and many user groups around the Midwest. He is a recovering certification addict and holds an MCTS, MCSD, MCSE, MCDBA, a BS, an MBA, and numerous other letters of the alphabet. You can read his latest thoughts at www.DavidGiard.com. He lives in Michigan with his two teenage sons.

 

RICK HARDING – Python, PEP8, and why reading code matters

Rick Harding (@mitechie) is an application developer for Morpace Inc in Farmington Hills. He has spoken
at PyOhio and CodeMash. He’s a lover of all things web and spent three years finally getting a job in the programming
language of his dreams, Python. Rick is the co-host of Lococast.net and author of Open source delicious.com replacement Bookie. (http://docs.bmark.us)

 

NATHAN HUGHES – Making Stuff Up: The floor is lava and other life lessons from Improv

Nathan Hughes is Co-Founder and SVP of Engineering at Detroit Labs, a services company that puts the superpowers of a high tech startup team in the hands of businesses needing help. Nathan has been delivering technology in Southeast Michigan for 15 years. Through those years he’s learned to love things like Oracle database administration, ERP implementation, a handful of programming languages, system administration, leadership and mentorship, and mountains of late night project launches. He’s currently in love with Ruby, jQuery, Android, iOS, and the people that do cool things with them.

Prior to co-founding Detroit Labs, Nathan was a Delivery Lead at Cengage Learning, VP of Technology at ePrize, and rode the acquisition roller coaster at sigma6/AppNet/Commerce One/i33 Detroit. He spent the late 90s doing database and ERP consulting for various Michigan based companies, and in 1998 he co-authored the book “Special Edition Using Oracle 8″.

Nathan is passionate about keeping humanity in engineering, and is drawn to the philosophies of lean and agile development as a means to find joy and delight at work. He loves being the daddy of two awesome girls, trying to play barre chords on guitar, making stuff up with his improv team, and watching Buffy and Angel re-runs.You can find Nathan at @ndh313 on twitter.

 

NIKITA IVANOV – Functional Cloud Computing with SCALA and GRIDGAIN

Mr. Ivanov has almost 20 years of experience in software development with the last 12 years spent developing grid computing and distributed middleware software. In 2005, Mr. Ivanov founded the GridGain project that has become one of the most rapidly growing JVM-based software middle for real-­time compute and data intensive applications – with GridGain sofware starting every 10 seconds around the world.

Back in 1996, Mr. Ivanov was one of the pioneers in using Java technology for server side middleware development while working at T-­‐Systems GmbH, one of the largest European System Integrators.

Mr. Ivanov has held various positions architecting and leading software product development for start-­up companies and working with well-­established companies such as Adaptec, Visa and BEA Systems.

Mr. Ivanov is an active member of Java middleware community and is a contributor to Java specifications as a member of JSR-­107 and JSR-­237. Mr. Ivanov holds a Master’s degree in Electro Mechanics from BalRc State Technical University, Saint Petersburg, Russia.
 

CHRISTOPHER JUDD – A Day With Android

Christopher Judd is the president and primary consultant for Judd Solutions (http://www.juddsolutions.com), an international speaker, an open source evangelist, the Central Ohio Java Users Group (http://www.cojug.org) and Columbus iPhone Developer User Group leader, and the co-author of Beginning Groovy and Grails (Apress, 2008), Enterprise Java Development on a Budget (Apress, 2003) and Pro Eclipse JST (Apress, 2005) as well as the author of the children’s book “Bearable Moments”. He has spent 15 years architecting and developing software for Fortune 500 companies in various industries, including insurance, retail, government, manufacturing, service, and transportation. His current focus is on consulting, mentoring, and training with Java, Java EE, Groovy, Grails, Cloud Computing and mobile platforms like iPhone, Android, Java ME and mobile web.
 

AIMME KEENER-WTF is a ‘software craftsman’?

Aimme Keener is the very late scheduler of MAE Events. She has been a software developer in the Detroit metro area for the past thirteen years. She caught the agile bug four years ago and has been adding practices that help meet agile principles to her toolkit ever since. Aimme is an avid reader and follower of anything agile. You will find her at most Michigan Agile Enthusiasts and local Code Retreat events. Currently, Aimme is a software developer and manager at Gale Cengage in Farmington Hills.
 

JEFF KELLEY – Beginning IPhone Development

Jeff Kelley is a senior-level iOS developer at Detroit Labs. Jeff’s skills include a mastery of the Objective-C language and the C language it builds upon, advanced iOS drawing and animation skills, and advanced networking and multithreading skills. Jeff has spoken at conferences and local Cocoa programming groups on topics such as the Objective-C Runtime and Grand Central Dispatch. Currently, aside from his work at Detroit Labs, Jeff is writing an introductory book on iOS development, to be published mid-2012.
 

DAVE KOZIOL – iOS

Dave Koziol is the President of Arbormoon Software, Inc. Dave has been building native mobile apps since long before it was fashionable. Apps he’s worked on have spent time in the Top 10 Music and Sports apps, as well as receiving national awards. Dave also serves as the Organizer for the Ann Arbor CocoaHeads Developers Group and is working to facilitate communication and networking among iPhone and mobile developers in South East Michigan.
 

SCOTT MILLER – The Use of Burn Charts to Manage Projects

Scott Miller joined Atomic Object in May of 2005, bringing over 20 years of application development experience with him.

After working as an independent consultant as a means of paying for school, he began working as a developer full time in the late 80s. His participation in a wide range of projects early in his career prepared him nicely for the ever-changing environments at Atomic.

More on Scott can be found at: http://www.atomicobject.com/pages/Scott+Miller
 

GODFREY NOLAN – Decompiling Android

Godfrey Nolan is president of Southfield based RIIS LLC, where he specializes in website optimization. He is author of the Apress book Decompiling Java which discusses in detail, information about Java byte codes and the Java Virtual Machine (JVM). The book provides insights into the features and limitations of today’s decompilers and obfuscators, and offers a detailed look at what JVM’s actually do. He has written numerous articles for magazines and newspapers in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Ireland. Nolan has had a healthy obsession with reverse engineering bytecode since he wrote Decompile Once, Run Anywhere, which first appeared in Web Techniques in September 1997.

 

ERIK PRZEKOP – Designing for Test

Erik Przekopis a computer science professional with over 20 years of experience as a developer and technical lead. He has worked in many industries including automotive, nuclear power, insurance and publishing.

Erik has a passion for software craftsmanship. He has organized many events at Cenage Learning including a semi-monthly in-house software conference which features a variety of coding exercises and presentations.

Erik enjoys photography, biking, fine cigars and single-malt scotch. (Occasionally at the same time.)
 

PRIYA RAJAGOPAL – Beginning IPhone Development

Priya Rajagopal is a software architect at Compuware Corporation in Detroit, working on application performance monitoring solutions for the iOS platform. Her current passion is mobile development. She moonlights as an iOS app developer, building apps for the iPhone and iPad in her own time. She co-organizes the Mobile Monday Ann Arbor meetup group. Prior to mobile

development, she has worked on a wide range of technologies including IPTV, Social TV, targeted advertising, network management and security and was an active contributor to the IPTV standards. She has co-invented 20 U.S patents.

You can read more about her ramblings on technology and related stuff in her blog at: http://www.priyaontech.com
 

CHRIS RISNER – Staying in Sync with Cloud to Device Messaging

Chris is a senior software engineer and team leader at Quicken Loans. There Chris works on and leads the mobile development team responsible for bringing amazingly engineered products to people’s mobile devices. After graduating from Western Michigan University intent on making video games, Chris started working on Java at Quicken. He quickly transitioned and began to focus on C# and spent the next five years buried in ASP .Net, MVC, and Smart Clients. Chris recently made the unexpected switch over to Java, Objective C, Android, and iOS and hasn’t looked back.

In his spare time, Chris likes to work on simpler things like natural language processing, brewing beer, reading, and training for triathlons and marathons. You can read more about Chris’ interests, hobbies and rants at his blog at http://chrisrisner.com
 

JUSTIN SEARLS – Front-end craft with Jasmine (behavior-driven development for JavaScript)

Justin Searls helps people find ways to write better software. As a consultant at Pillar Technology, he coaches organizations working to adopt values and practices from the agile and software craftsmanship movements. As a member of the software community, he strives to lower developers’ barriers of entry to writing well-crafted software that matters. Recently, he’s been promoting sustainable web development by speaking on test-driven JavaScript, creating interactive demos for learning Jasmine and CoffeeScript (like http://try-jasmine.heroku.com), and maintaining an open source Maven plugin for including Jasmine specs in project builds (http://github.com/searls/jasmine-maven-plugin).
 

BARRIE SELACK – Liferay, Inc.

Barrie Selack joined Liferay in 2010 after working with Liferay for two years at an enterprise client. Since coming to Liferay, he has worked on new and upgrade Liferay installations with clients, as well as assisting with training materials development and on-site training. He has completed several architecture, design, and code reviews for clients and partners. Barrie’s background includes working at various Fortune 500 companies, as well as several startup companies. His expertise and experience include WebSphere, JBoss, Tomcat, DB2, Oracle, and MySQL.
 

ZACH STEINDLER – Unblock your team!

Zach Steindler is a co-founder at Olark, which puts visitors to your website in your buddy list, so you can have a human conversation with them. Olark has been growing rapidly since doing YCombinator in the summer of 2009. When he’s not at work coding, talking with customers, and geeking out over data, he can be found at a local CoffeeHouseCoders or occasionally outside enjoying a hike.

Previous to Olark, Zach helped build the P2P network at Zattoo, which delivered live television to 5 million Europeans.
 

KARL SWEDBERG – jQuery Beginner and Advanced

Karl Swedberg is a web developer at Fusionary Media in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He is the co-author of two books about jQuery. Karl is a member of the jQuery team and maintains the jQuery API site, which is based on his Reference Guide. He also publishes jQuery tutorials on his blog, LearningjQuery.com, and leads classes on jQuery through Idea Foundry in Holland, Michigan.
 

TIM TAYLOR – Java vs. Scala and Passion & Courage in Programming

• Learning; surrounding myself with people smarter than me
• Cluefulness and Agility and Craftiness
• Strong Testing over Static Typing
• User-centered Interaction Design
• Doing Good, not Evil^*

 

MARVIN TOLL – Pattern Enabled Development

Marvin Toll is an IT enthusiast with over two decades as an effective Consultant, Project Manager, Architect, Instructor, Supervisor and Developer. PMP certified for ten years beginning in 1999, he was an early adopter of Agile Practices while managing full life cycle development and COTS implementations. As a Java Architect he has “hands-on” skills in object-oriented design, Java EE application development and COTS product development. Marvin has experience in the automotive, education, financial, government, human resources, legal, and utility sectors.

In his spare time Marvin authored four (4) open source initiatives (beginning with the most current): SOAj, TestUtil, JSlim, protodev. During the past couple years Marvin founded both the regional “Agile and Beyond” conference (http://detroitdevdigest.com/2010/11/19/marvin-toll-founder-of-agile-and-beyond/) and the “Pattern Enabled Development” movement (http://PatternEnabled.com).

 

PATRICK WILSON-WELSH – Advanced Selenium RC Java

With over 30 years of professional software development experience, I’ve worn a lot of hats. Over the last 7 years or so I’ve worked as an agile consultant, specializing in building development teams, and training and mentoring them in agile development and agile testing practices. I’ve worked mostly in Java. Currently focusing on Storytesting as a struggling agile practice meme.

In the past I’ve also been an entrepreneur, producer, project manager, composer, and sound designer for award-winning games and multimedia titles for CD-ROM and the web. I’ve been a user interface designer for interactive television. I spent my first ten years in software as a technical writer, marketing writer, and manager of writers. Writing, speaking, teaching, mentoring, community-building, recruiting, and selling are what I am best at, however diligently I work at the craft of programming, which I certainly do.
   

MORE TO COME…..