TAG SUMMIT

Building on the keynote session, participants will use real-time examples to learn and
practice specific tools proven to increase their ability to adapt.

Join three Pros as they share their distinctly different wisdom on getting great work done. Whether you call it Project Management, Agile, Scrum or … we all can recognize those people who just have a knack for getting great work done while building relationships with their team. We all want to work with them and glean from their top tips. Connect with Josh Burdick from Veritas Media Pros, Celeste Fiorillo, Project Manager from Faithlife and Leigh Woody, Scrum Master from Emergency Reporting. Moderated by Meg Weber.

We know that the war for talent is real, and that we yearn to work on teams where we can learn, stretch and thrive. Real world takeaways on these complex issues delivered by a dynamic group. Join Andy Skipton of Faithlife, Mark Peck of Emergency Reporting, Nick Sanchez of Western Washington University, and CJ Seitz of the Small Business Development Center in a dynamic discussion of top talent topics. Moderated by Meg Weber.

Join Kevin and the student run Bellingham Technical College Network Team in a dive into the problems and fun that come with building a network for a two day festival dedicated to all things Linux and open source: Linuxfest Northwest. https://lfnw.org

Learn the skills and qualities in high demand in IT/Cybersecurity and how organizations are building their teams for success. Moderated by Austin Baar.

This 20 minute talk will go over at a high level things one can do to improve their networking, both in your career, personal, and professionally. Personal branding do’s and don’ts will be covered as well.

With the seeming never ending data breaches showing up in the news, and countless others that are not publicly disclosed, it is necessary to up our game on protecting our IT systems and services. If you are not already using password management and two-factor authentication, then this is a must attend. For others who are already practicing this, we will also talk about some tactics the hackers are doing to circumvent two- factor and adding two-factor to important services you may not have thought about or done in the past.

MSPs (managed service providers) have special risks around password management. Because we have access to client assets, we have a special responsibility to keep them safe with good security practices, and we are a particular target for attackers. This session will cover some of the tools and practices we use for managing passwords and some other security practices around authentication, in the hope that others will adopt them and improve their own authentication practices.

While many Insider Threat assessments only include two categories (malicious and unintentional), there exists a strong argument to include a third category, the NonMalicious insider – employees that knowingly violate security policy, but not for malicious purposes. These employees present significant risk that may be at worst overlooked, at best underestimated, and impact both cyber and physical security.
The presentation delves into the underlying causes of NonMalicious Insiders, with examples of how NonMalicious insiders unwittingly participated in major data breaches by malicious insiders and outsiders. Research-based and practical non-technical approaches will be presented for recognizing and managing the NonMalicious Insider Threat, resulting in an improved overall security posture.

Learn the skills and qualities in high demand in technology and how organizations are building their teams for success. Moderated by Kevin Stock.

Mobile is the new battleground in retail, as consumers increasingly turn to their mobile devices to search, price compare and buy products. However, an unreliable and slow mobile web has long been a barrier to strong mobile revenue growth. Two new technologies—Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) and Progressive Web Apps (PWA)—are changing this, breaking barriers and unlocking new possibilities by delivering a fast and rich mobile user experience. This session will provide an overview of what’s possible with AMP and PWA.

Do you know how fast your web app loads? How about for someone running a five year old drug store phone? We’ll cover some of the tools you can use to answer that question, like some of the new web performance APIs around first contentful paint, listing expensive page resources, and strategies for deferring expensive requests. You’ll leave this talk with some instrumentation code samples you can try in your production app, and widely supported improvements your team can be planning for this next year (http2, selective polyfills, server rendering for SPAs).

Microsoft announced .NET Core in 2014, and released .NET Core 3.0 in September. This session will introduce this increasingly-popular software development framework, explain its history and differences with Microsoft’s .NET Framework, and review the major improvements in .NET Core 3.0. You’ll learn when and why you might want to develop your next project with .NET Core, and how to get started.

Users want fast and easy access to information. Every website, every app, and every company has data that users want to see. Furthermore, Google has defined the user experience and expectations for search. How can we deliver the data that users want to see in the way that they expect to search for it but without the budget of Google?

At Faithlife we use the free and open source Elasticsearch (https://www.elastic.co/) to deliver a scalable, fast, intuitive search experience for our users. This talk will go into the basics of: What is Elasticsearch? How does it work under the hood? and How can I quickly spin up a working search experience for my users?

Dive into Schematron and explore how it can be used. Introduce the NEMSIS 3 standard and describe how patient records are validated. Pros/Cons will be covered, as well as an example solution using Azure and related benefits and challenges.

This session will discuss the many options available for small scale, custom manufacturing and prototyping available with current technology, by giving examples from the recent project of building a science-fiction themed escape room using tools available at the Bellingham Makerspace. Topics will cover the usage of 3d printing, laser cutting, CNC milling, vacuum forming, woodworking, and integrating electronics such as Arduino and Raspberry Pi, to create an immersive physical environment full of puzzles and challenges, and showcase the many possibilities of small scale manufacturing.

Augmented Reality (or AR) is a blending of both virtual and real environments. Applications for this new technology are nearly limitless, from immersive gaming and escape rooms, to adding virtual effects for concert venues, to police and paramedic training, and many more. This session will introduce Augmented Reality and present details about the hardware and software that is driving this new wave of innovation.

3d printing and other democratic rapid prototyping technologies have been empowering the development of cost effective alternatives to prosthetics, adaptive controls for games and other day to day devices, to serve people with disabilities and special needs. This session will discuss the group Makers Making Change, which specializes in providing low cost solutions tailored to the needs of individuals, and how the use of 3d printing and basic electronics can be put to use to improve their mobility and independence in the world.

Modern technology and the development of Augmented reality, which overlays virtual information on top of the world around us, has opened up interesting possibilities of providing people who suffer from physical or mental challenges. Augmented reality can give direction and guidance in performing simple tasks that would otherwise require another person to physically be present to give, allowing the users greater autonomy and self-reliance.

Plan a future in a world with almost unimaginable possibilities: What will technology be like in 20 years? Let’s build it! In the past we imagined real time media generation, media networking, media servers, computer tablets and the whole concept of IoT as the foundation for home control and media interfacing. The world of the future will include remote presence, transportation, energy systems, media experiences and, of course, personal assistance. Moore’s Law predicts exponential imagination. Can hardware be the driving force of technological advances?