What to expect from Progress360 2022
Progress is a flexible company – the organisation has been through (arguably) more platform-level developments than most enterprise software businesses, but in the contemporary age of cloud, data science and machine autonomy, that may be no bad thing.
But this is not a potted history of one company’s journey (these days the company describes itself as a trusted provider of infrastructure software), this is focal point on where the organisation is now in light of its forthcoming Progress360 developer event, which will be staged September 11-14, 2022, live from the Westin Waterfront Hotel, Boston, USA, as well as virtually around the globe.
The first thing to know about Progress is how to say it.
While native North Americans pronounce Progress as praw-gress, us quaint old Brits pronounce Progress as prow-gress. The difference is subtle enough and most Europeans quickly slip into a more mellifluous drawl once they spend any time with the company… but let’s move on.
As the Computer Weekly Developer Network team packs its lobster crackers and goes on a baked bean detox in order to prepare for the show, what can we expect from Progress 360 this year on the ground?
Hey, it’s emotional
The last time we were able to attend a Progress developer convention was way back in 2019, so this gathering will no doubt be emotional in a possibly-post-pandemic kind of a way.
Who should attend?
Progress says it’s a broad church and whether attendees are front-line developers, IT operations staff or security professionals (or indeed, an executive decision maker) attendees will leave Progress360 energised and armed with useful technical learning points… okay, someone said ‘actionable takeaways’ too, but you can’t keep the marketing team down forever, right?
A multi-dimensional event
This is something of a multi-section event, made up of three key elements: DevReach, ChefConf (Progress initiated its acquisition of Chef in 2020 for its infrastructure automation and configuration management competencies), plus also Progress Executive Forum, a by-invitation-only mini-symposium for senior business, IT and security leaders.
Looking at the first two elements then… Progress has said that DevReach is known for being one of the largest (if not THE largest) developer conferences in Eastern and Central Europe. Now staged in the USA for the first time, DevReach brings together industry experts and influencers for hands-on sessions into the latest software application development technologies and best practices
So to ChefConf, which must also now logically be part of the Progress event family, this section (Ed: you mean dimension, right?) of the event brings together the Chef community and DevOps professionals to dive into the innovations and practices in DevOps and DevSecOps, as well as the full Progress Chef portfolio.
According to Progress, ChefConf is a ‘true user conference’ that ensures attendees get as much in and out of the scheduled sessions, talks and breakout sessions. There are activities outside of scheduled sessions with an experience zone, cocktails hours as well as networking opportunities to meet other Chefs, customers and contributors.
“Over the last few years businesses across all industries have dramatically evolved. Every business must now adopt an innovator mindset to stay competitive and software infrastructure is playing a key role in making progress happen,” said Yogesh Gupta, CEO, Progress. “Progress360 will be the event where technology decision makers and practitioners want to come year-after-year, to gain access to thought-provoking content, actionable insights and community connections they can leverage to power their businesses.”
Gupta will share the stage with other members of the Progress family as well as number of special keynote speakers.
Speaker selection collection
DevReach speakers include: Julia Lerman, software coach, Pluralsight author, .NET & DDD; Emma Twersky, developer relations engineer at Google; Adedwale Akinfaderin, data scientist at Amazon; Rachel Kang, software engineer at Microsoft ; Layla-Porter, live coder, Microsoft MVP and GitHub Star; and Alisa Duncan, senior developer advocate at Okta.
ChefConf speakers include, Jay Thoden Van Velzen, head of security operations at SAP; Brittany Woods, manager for server automation at H&R Block; and Stephanie Laingen, software Engineer at TapHere!
Special guest speakers include futurist Jason Pontin. A partner at deep technology venture capital firm DCVC, Pontin will explain how companies can solve urgent global challenges in energy, health, agriculture, manufacturing, space and other sectors using emerging technologies and breakthrough science.
Progress tweets at @ProgressSW and notable hashtags here include #ProgressPROUD #Progress360 #DevReach22 #ChefConf22 – extra baked beans please, we’re looking forward to the show.
