Web Directions Year round learning for product, design and engineering professionals

A few weeks ago, we announced the first two of what will be 28 speakers in total for Summit 17, our end of year design and development conference in Sydney on 9-10 November.

The response to the announcement of Chris (Mr Hashtag) Messina and returned Australian technologist Genevieve Bell has been genuinely overwhelming, with 20% of the available conference places already filled.

Today, we’re announcing our next four Summit speakers, again across the design and development tracks, all from overseas.

Some you’re very likely to have heard of before, others perhaps less so. All of them work in areas that are key to the way our industry is developing. I know you’ll find them equally engaging.

The Next Four Speakers

Born in Miami Beach and now living in London, Dan Rubin is a designer, photographer, and founder / creative director of webgraph, a multi-disciplinary studio based in the US. He often leaks small chunks of his brain directly to Twitter, posts photos to Flickr, 500px, and Instagram, and on rare occasions uploads works-in-progress to Dribbble.

A long time expert on web performance and dev ops, after stints at Soasta and Radware Tammy Everts is now Chief Experience Officer at SpeedCurve, a provider of developer performance tooling. Tammy is the author of the recent Time Is Money: The Business Value of Web Performance for O’Reilly, and is a co-chair of O’Reilly’s Fluent and Velocity conferences.

Kyle Simpson is an Open Web Evangelist from Austin, TX. He’s passionate about JavaScript, HTML5, real-time/peer-to-peer communications, and web performance. Otherwise, he’s probably bored by it. Kyle is the author of the You Don’t Know JavaScript series, a workshop trainer, tech speaker, and avid OSS community member.

With a background in journalism, UX research, design and strategy, Lauren Lucchese is now head of AI Content at one of the world’s largest financial institutions, Capital One. There she leads a team of writers who shape trusted, likable conversational UIs, including voice. They’re part of a larger Conversation Design team at Capital One, working together to bring humanity and clarity to every experience they design.

These four highly regarded speakers from overseas join the two keynote speakers we’ve already announced – and this is not yet even the limit of the international contingent at Summit 17. 

Expect more announcements soon.

Chris Messina invented the use of the hashtag for Twitter, a convention now adopted across almost all social media. But Chris’s contributions to the web go far beyond this one small, significant innovation, from co-working (he was one of its originators), Microformats and Web Standards, to deep thinking about the broader impact of technical advances on society, the economy and culture, and working with companies as diverse as Yahoo!, Firefox, Google and Uber.

A renowned cultural anthropologist at Stanford University, Genevieve Bell moved to Intel in the late 1990s, eventually becoming Director of Intel’s User Experience Research Group. Now back in her home country as a Professor at the Australian National University College of Engineering and Computer Science, Genevieve focuses on “how to bring together data science, design thinking and ethnography to drive new approaches in engineering” and explores the questions of what it means to be human in a data-driven economy and world.

Program

Summit 17 is going to be two very full days in November packed with inspiring, challenging, entertaining and thought-provoking presentations from our four keynote speakers plus over 30 Australian and international speakers addressing key topics relating to our role in the ongoing evolution of the web, digital technology, design and engineering.

Some of those local speakers will include successful submissions to our Call For Presentations – which closes midnight tonight (AEST), Friday 28 July.

Once we have reviewed all the submissions, we’ll announce the successful speakers and release the full conference program.

Pricing

We always keep our prices as low as we can, and we have complete confidence in the quality and relevance of our speakers and their presentations, but we also know that a little incentive can sometimes make it easier to find room in a limited budget, especially if you have to convince someone else.

First, we have our Early Bird discounts. Register during the Primary Early Bird period up to 15 September and get $200 off the regular cost.

• • Classic Summit ticket (conference only) for just $999 (save $200)
• • Silver Summit ticket (conference plus videos) for just $1,199 (save $200)
• • Gold Summit ticket (conference, videos and speaker dinner) for just $1,299 (save $200)

AI Bonus Deal

If you’re also interested in attending our brand new AI conference (and, given it’s about how AI and machine learning are influencing all our design and development work right now, why wouldn’t you be?), we have an extra special deal for you.

Until 1 September (when the AI Early Bird closes), you can get a Silver ticket to Summit (usually $1,199) plus a ticket to AI (usually $599) for just $1,399.

And even if you register for this deal after 1 September and before 28 September (when the AI conference is on), it’ll still only cost you $1,499.

Do also remember that, whatever deal or combination you choose for our events, if you can’t allocate funds immediately, you’re welcome to register now and pay later.

I hope you’ll be able to join us.