Recap: #UKSTAR and Swiss Testing Day 2019 - Inflectra Meets QA & DevOps Professionals in Europe
March 29th, 2019 by inflectra
Team Inflectra were pleased to sponsor the 2019 UK STAR conference in London and annual Swiss Testing Day / DevOps Fusion earlier this month. We met a lot of inspirational speakers, visited some of our key customers in the UK and Switzerland and learned a lot about the business needs and opportunities for customers adopting Agile and DevOps practices across northern Europe in general. We have included some of the highlights in this blog.
Inflectra at UK STAR
Team Inflectra was proud to attend the 2019 UK STAR conference in the hip and happening Spitalfields area of London's tech scene. Just a stone's through from the legendary Spitalfields Market and the famed Silicon Roundabout (at Old Street), the conference brought together London's leading luminaries of the software testing, agile, quality and devops world.
However the attendance was far more diverse than the name suggests. Approximately 50% of attendees were from neighboring countries (Benelux, Scandinavia, Eastern Europe) as well as some visitors from the USA and some unexpected but most welcome Inflectra clients from Mauritius.
Representing #TeamInflectra at UK STAR were Adam and Simon, who flew in from our headquarters in Washington, DC specially for the event. The EuroSTAR team made us feel very welcome, and the prefabricated booths made our job much easier in terms of logistics and transportation.
For the 2019 conference season we have a new range of luxury swag items, including wireless charging pads for modern cellphones and bluetooth wireless headphones, as well some of last year's favorites, including the SuperTester stickers that provided very popular at Agile Testing Days in Potsdam, Germany.
In fact, based on an informal and highly unscientific poll, the attendees voted the Inflectra swag, the best at the entire conference, with many other vendors only offering pens and notebooks! C'mon chaps need to raise your game for UK STAR 2020 :-)
Inflectra at Swiss Testing Day / DevOps Fusion
Following on from UK STAR, #TeamInflectra headed off to the hectic maelstrom of the annual Swiss Testing Day / DevOps Fusion 2019 event. A one day extravaganza of software development, testing, agile, devops and quality assurance, the Swiss Testing Day was a great way for us to reconnect with our partners in Switzerland (shout out to Effimag and Zaar Teach IT).
Reprising his role from UK STAR, Adam was in attendance from Inflectra, complete with our now (in)famous range of electronic goodies and giveaways. During the prize raffle at the end of the event, we announced that we had leftover charging pads and headphones... within 10 minutes they had all gone. If you didn't manage to get one, don't worry, we plan on being back next year in 2020.
The event was also a good time to catch up with our partner - Brigitte Ilsanker from Effimag - as well as meet Anna-Christina who runs the ASQF @Berlin meetup group throughout Germany. Inflectra has been a proud sponsor of their group and it was nice to reflect on the changes in the software testing industry and see how Inflectra can support their group and its outreach in the coming year.
In addition to our company booth, #TeamInflectra also had the opportunity to speak at the event, with our technical director - Adam Sandman - speaking on the subject of helping Developers and Testers work together in harmony.
The talk was a big success, with over 200 people attending the presentation, and one attendee - Thomas Rinke - creating this very cool sketch of the talk, that (spoilers ahead) had a happy ending.
Relaxing at the Inflectra-Effimag Pizza Plausch After-Party
With the intense day almost drawing to a close, we thought it would be good to have a relaxing way to unwind after the day's sessions and workshops. Inflectra and Effimag organized a traditional Swiss after-work event called a "Pizza Plausch" with a central beer tap and choice of delectable pizzas.
Attended by many of our key clients and partners in the Zurich area as well as guests to our booth, it was an enjoyable and pleasant way to finish off our European adventure...
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