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It’s not just the arts and humanities that see the creative world flock to Edinburgh in August, we geeks have our own festivals too.  And we like to think of ourselves as creative too.

By Mark Westwood, Technical Analyst 

Last week we had Turing Fest, now an established event in the Edinburgh technical calendar.  This year’s happening saw 1000 hipsters – and one aging-wannabe-hipster, carrying Jumpstart business cards – gathering underground (yeah, the arty types get sunlight streaming in through windows, we geeks get a Twitter dead-zone. Although being off-net for a while isn’t entirely a bad thing…) at the EICC for two days of presentations on the hottest topics in the consumer facing digital world, and two days of intense networking.  People came from far and wide to learn the hottest new ideas from sunny California and points east west north and south, and to rub shoulders with their peers and betters.

First rate speakers

The speakers were first rate, and even in the sessions less immediately appealing – your correspondent was engaged and educated by people on top of their game speaking passionately about their interests.  To speak passionately about the art of writing release notes for your app updates (you know, the message that says ‘V1.2.3 – Minor bug fixes’) doesn’t come naturally to every Mac-toting software craftsperson. And if you’d been in that session, your release notes would now sound more like ‘V1.2.3 – We fixed the bug that stopped you using the app on a bus’– you only get a line of text in the app stores, use it productively to engage with your customers!  For a jaded R&D tax relief specialist, the session on the use of open-source software by the Government Digital Service was a real eye-opener too.  It almost makes you warm to the tax man.

I’ll close off with my top three Turing Fest Innovation highlights. 

1. From virtual machines, through containers, towards unikernels.

2. Building robots with ethics.

3. The cloud on tap!

For Jumpstart the event was a great opportunity to engage with old customers, some existing customers, and, who knows, maybe a few future customers too.  I’ve already pencilled the 2018 event into my diary, and next year I’ll probably drag along a colleague or two too.

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