The second day keynote is always a highlight of mine. Until a few years ago there were three keynotes, with the third day including a session from Microsoft Research. Recently this has changed, and the third day keynote rolls into the second. Today I’m expecting some new announcements, some updates on how PASS is tracking, an acknowledgement of the outgoing president, and more. Plus the Microsoft Research session. And again I’m blogging as we go. Also, it’s SQLKilt Day, in support of the PASS Women in IT initiatives to encourage women to consider IT as a career option and to support women in the IT community.
The information about PASS finances, membership numbers, and reach continue to impress me. I used to be on the board, and was involved in some of the globalisation initiatives. I love that PASS is so much more than North America. While I would love it to be easier to get to the US from Australia, I have come across quite a lot of people from other countries (even quite a lot in Australia). PASS has committed to hosting the Summit in Seattle until at least 2019, and I’m very pleased with this, and 2016 will be in the week of October 24-28.
Lance Harra (@sqlfarmer) has won the PASSion award. I’m really not surprised at this – over the years I’ve been involved with PASS, I’ve seen his name as one of the regulars.
Before I know it, Dr Rimma Nehme from Microsoft Research has taken the stage, and she’s speaking about the Internet of Things. Dr David DeWitt is doing part of the talk, and these two complement each other really well. David is a regular at PASS keynotes, while Rimma did her first one last year. I’m not going to try to describe all the points that they’ve covered – but if you are interested in IoT, this is a great talk that covers IoT from basics up to some of the issues they are seeing with it. Even people experienced with IoT will get something out of this, and it’s explained in a nice simple way, as we’ve come to expect from these two.
Later today I have the Women in IT lunch to attend, another booth session and another main session to deliver, as well as catching up with a lot more people.
