Check out the full schedule here and learn more about our great talks here!
Keynotes
Vaidehi Joshi
Vaidehi is an engineer at Tilde, in Portland, Oregon, where she works on Skylight. She enjoys building and breaking code, but loves creating empathetic engineering teams a whole lot more. In her spare time, she runs basecs, a weekly writing series that explores the fundamentals of computer science, and is co-host of the Base.cs Podcast, as well as a producer of the BaseCS video series.
Nasma Ahmed
Navigating an Equitable Digital Future
Nasma Ahmed is a technologist and community organizer that works within the intersections of social justice, technology and policy. She is currently Director of the Digital Justice Lab, an organization that focuses on building a more just and equitable digital future. Nasma was the Ford-Mozilla Open Web Fellow in 2017-2018 focusing on organizational digital security and building better literacy around privacy with youth.
Invited Speakers
Melissa Tedesco
Thomas the Tank Engine and You: The Future of Rail Technologies
Melissa Tedesco is a fourth year Electrical Engineering student at the University of Waterloo. She loves tinkering with electronics, and has an interest in systems integration and RF communications. When she needs a break from engineering, you can usually find her baking; she’s also doing an English minor so she can pretend to be an English student sometimes.
Aashni Shah
Hype Yourself, You’re Worth It!
Aashni Shah is a Software Engineer at Square by day and a CEO of Elixir Labs by night. At Square, Aashni works on delivering an innovative experience for Cash at Square. She has also found a way to mix her two largest passions, technology and philanthropy with her work at Elixir Labs, a non profit startup that empowers other non profits by building products for social good.
Speakers
There will be 17 total lightning talk speakers - the full list will be available soon.
Falah Shazib
How Not To Build A Virtual Escape Room
Falah Shazib is a third year Computer Science student at the University of Waterloo. She’s passionate about building tech for non-profits with UW Blueprint and working to encourage VR development with UW Virtual Reality. She’s also involved with the Waterloo Women in Computer Science Undergrad Committee and the Pakistani Women in Computing Systers group.
Doug Moen
Creative Coding: Making Art on a 3D Printer
Doug Moen is a computer programmer, maker, and aspiring digital artist from Waterloo, Ontario. He works on the Curv open source software project, and is a member of the Kwartzlab makerspace, where he makes things using the 3D printer and the laser cutter. Doug is also a trustee for the KW Awesome Foundation, which funds awesome community projects.
Vaibhav Sagar
Tarjan’s Algorithm: Now You’re Cooking with DAGs!
Vaibhav likes writing software without bugs. He also likes barbells, disco, hugs, scuba diving, and sparkling water.
Kayleen Hamelin
Web Accessibility is More than Colour Contrast
Kayleen has been working as a web developer for ten years. Starting her career in Barrie as a contract full stack developer, she moved to Kitchener where the tech sector is thriving and moved her focus to front end. She spends her time as a web developer implementing designs and advocating for scalable and accessible solutions.
When not working Kayleen is reading, working on jigsaw puzzles, and collecting rubber ducks.
Manish Goregaokar
Ghost in the Compiler: Backdooring Rust
Manish works on Servo and Rust at Mozilla Research. He’s self-taught and likes making it easier for others to do the same, particularly through the medium of open source as a learning experience.
In his spare time he likes learning about languages and walking up hills.
Toria Gibbs
Search Engines: How They Work and Why You Need Them
Toria Gibbs is a Senior Software Engineer on the Search Platform team at Shopify. She is interested in back-end development, distributed systems, information retrieval (including databases and search systems), cloud platforms, and container orchestration. Toria holds a computer science degree from the University of Waterloo. In her spare time, Toria plays flag football and plays the bassoon in a wind orchestra.
Wesley Aptekar-Cassels
Wesley likes asking surprising questions, ranting about computers, and attempting to think about systems far too large to fit in their brain.
Aaron Levin
Conjure ye File System, transmorgifier!
Aaron Levin is a mathematician excited about programming and using it to empower creative expression.
Holly Oegema
Holly Oegema is a Software Engineering Student at the University of Waterloo. Her current passions lie in everything data related, with a soft spot for Big Data. In the past, she has worked as a Data Engineer at 360insights and Braintree. When she is not obsessing over data, she enjoys visual novels, bullet journaling, pettings dogs and laughing at bad jokes.
Bradley Dettmer
Unlock your ROM Sniffing Superpower
Brad is a creative, collaborative and outspoken hacker and Software Engineer at Peloton with experience working at Google, Apple, NASA and Fairchild (now OnSemi). He recently completed three months at the Recurse Center where he paired with dozens of amazing engineers, co-led study groups and a coding bee, built a weather reporter using LEDs, hacked a SNES game cartridge, and built an ASL translator app to help him learn his favorite language. Brad likes hiking, yoga, and spending time with his friends in Brooklyn. Brad likes it when folks speak up if someone gets his pronouns wrong. He also appreciates technical feedback that is both actionable and kind.
Cory Dominguez
software, sailboats, sandwiches
Chris H-C
Collecting User Data Responsibly and at Scale
Hi, I’m :chutten. I work at Mozilla as a Firefox Telemetry Engineer and Data Steward ensuring we collect anonymous user statistics responsibly and efficiently. I know things about data collection, data analysis, consumer application development, web development, data visualization, working on a distributed team, and making waffles. I have opinions about responsible data practices, public transit, active transit, public education, and squirrels who eat my tomatoes.
Vincent Castaneda
AWK-nowledge the power! Conquering text in a single line of code
Mixologist, shiba onwer, and player of video games, Vincent works as a professional programmer at FLYR in San Francisco.
Vibhanshu Bhardwaj
Functional Programming on the Web
I am a Computer Science student at University of Waterloo. I write software to pay my bills and for fun. I have too many interests to list them all, but I like reading, running, martial arts, philosophy, science et al. I like learning about things, and I strive for polymathy.
Patrick Melanson
Patrick is a student at UW, but his days there are now numbered. Some of his favourite ‘C’ words are Charlemagne, CS Club, Canoe, and uniCode. When not thinking of other ‘C’ words, Patrick is usually messing with Python or C++ code (C++ is its own reward, and also another ‘C’ word!).
Brandon Reid
Converting Off-the-Shelf Video Games into Exergames
Brandon is a software developer with a background in geophysics. He has years of experience working with mining, as well as oil and gas, companies dealing with different types of data streams and their relevant processing workflows. Currently, he holds a scientific software developer position at Meta Innovation Technologies, while pursuing his MSc in computer science at Queen’s University. In his spare time, he enjoys engaging in new projects, playing games, and running.
Last year’s speakers can be found here.