For two days, the historical Hofburg Imperial Palace was ‘the place to be’ for developers who are interested in artificial intelligence, blockchain, cloud and Internet of things. Over 2,400 developers had the chance to enhance their skills and get inspired by tech pioneers, heroes of innovation and experts. The opening keynote was held by the prodigy Tanmay Bakshi (16 years old) who amazed all of the attendees about machine learning technology.

Vienna, 02.12.2019 – WeAreDevelopers Congress Vienna 2019 gave the stage to “wunderkinder” Tanmay Bakshi (16 years old, IBM Cloud Advisor). The prodigy opened the congress with his keynote on next-generation technologies and how developers are the drivers for change in technology. The audience learned how machine learning technology can make a difference in improving the lives of millions of people around the world like with Bakshi’s heart ID application and AI-based quality assurance algorithm.

After the impressive keynote, all of the attendees were able to visit 4 different tracks, workshops and expo areas, which were related to the most dynamic topics for developers such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, cloud and Internet of things. More speakers took the stage and shared their insights on the latest trends in technology such as deep learning methods (Noa Barbiro, Booking.com & Siddha Ganju, Nvidia Corporation), cloud environment (Christopher Feussner, Palo Alto Networks) and artificial intelligence (Dat Tran, Axel Springer AI & Eric Steinberger, Climate Science).

Eric Steinberger shared which actions need to be taken in order to continue progressing and advancing the field of AI. While Steinberger may only be 21 years old, he is continuously striving to apply deep learning to complex real-life problems, and in order to do so, he works with institutions like MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), TU Wien (Vienna University of Technology) and the University of Luxemburg. During his talk, Steinberger emphasized the importance of educating future generations to be prepared for the coming advancements in technology.

During the second day of the event, Cassie Kozyrkov (Google, Inc.) and Alexandra Waldherr (17-year-old student) stole the stage. Kozyrokof shared insights on how developers can stay safe in an AI-dominated future. Since AI will continue to lead disruption, developers should not trust technology blindly. Waldherr presented innovative insights on quantum computing and quantum supremacy, which positioned her for many as a role model for future scientists. She is an example of the roles needed by the coming generations in order to face digital disruption.

In today’s dynamic business environment it has become crucial to foster diversity and inclusion to maintain a competitive advantage. With the current gender gap in the tech industry, it has become more important than ever to support women in the field. During both congress days, organizers hosted significant events discussing female leadership, role models and incentives to start change and generate solutions for the current gender gap. Mali M. Baum (WLOUNGE) moderated a discussion on current diversity issues and future incentives with Sophie Seiwald (Mercedes-benz.io), Dr. Claudia Viehweger (Axel Springer Digital Media) and Gertrud Kolb (Axel Springer Digital Media). Or Jillian Augustine (Data Scientist, Mondi Group), who talked about data-driven process optimization by Mondi.

The co-founders of WeAreDevelopers were overall pleased with the event. “The WeAreDevelopers Congress Vienna 2019 has managed to consolidate its status as one of the most relevant developer congresses in Europe, and now we are all the more excited about the WeAreDevelopers World Congress in Berlin in May 2020,” said WeAreDevelopers founders Thomas Pamminger, Sead Ahmetovic and Benjamin Ruschin.