APIdays Melbourne Agenda
What's Big in the Next Twelve Months
The APIdays Melbourne agenda is up and the main themes for the conference this year revolve around what will be important in the next twelve months: open data, voice and AI, microservices, containers, security and internet of things.
Open Data and Open Banking
Open Data and Open Banking was put onto the Australian the agenda by the Farrell Review released in February this year but it is just a local manifestation of a global phenomenon driven by legislation & other initiatives in Europe, the UK, Hong Kong and Singapore. In Australia, Open Banking is founded on the Consumer Data Right which is the right for consumers to have access to their own data and to share these data with third-parties. This right will extend beyond financial services into other areas, thus forming the basis for a general Open Data right. Data access and sharing is mediated by interoperability and web API standards. Hence APIs are at the centre of some of the biggest shifts in consumer data rights in Australia and across the world. APIdays will have a number of sessions related to Open Banking, Open Government and Open Data in general from James Bligh (Data61), Van Le (Xinja), Paul Rohan (Google), Jordan Walsh (Victorian Government) and others.
Voice and AI
Voice is shaping up to be the next channel. We’ve already lived through the age of the web browser, the mobile app and it is clear that the next channel for interaction will be voice and “chat” interfaces - once again mediated by APIs. Voice has started to infiltrate our mobile experience and home appliances through Siri, Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa. These services are provided by APIs which allow developers to use and extend chat interfaces to support a range of different conversation topics and business use-cases. Australian businesses are already starting to use Voice and AI technologies to open up new conversational channels for customer service. We’ll have talk on this topic and the related topic of Artificial Intelligence from Simon Stefanoff (Deloitte Digital), Mark Chatterton (inGenious AI), Susan Sheldrick (Silverpond), Ines Almeida (APD) and Eliot Spira (GorillaStack).
Microservices and New Platforms
The way that we build, deliver and run applications is changing rapidly. Microservices are becoming a popular application architecture because they provide autonomy to development teams and the ability to add features faster. However microservices come with significant operational challenges and demand major cultural and organisational change. As experience with microservices increases, tools are catching up with many of these challenges being addressed by containers for isolation, Kubernetes for orchestration and new tools for service interaction and monitoring. Service Meshes and new open source projects such as Istio will also become important features of microservice architectures. APIdays devotes the core of it’s technical stream to these new platforms including talks from Mark Nottingham (Fastly), Ben Mostafa (MessageMedia), David Codelli (Red Hat), Rob Crowley (Readify), Beth Skurrie (DiUS), Cristiano Betta (Work Better), Andrew Dent (MuleSoft), Dan Toomey (Mexia), David Peterson (Confluent), Phil Scanlon (Solace), Grahame Grieve (HL7 Inc) and others.
Security and Privacy
Of course with all that data accessible via APIs - how do we ensure security and privacy in an increasingly connected world? Among other speakers, Troy Hunt will provide a white-hat hacker perspective on the obligations and challenges of security and privacy. Omaru Maruatona (aiCulus) will tell us how his startup is using AI technologies to actively monitor and data accessed via APIs
Internet of Things
The boundaries between the physical and digital worlds are dissolving. APIdays has a lot of content on this emerging technology in our “New Vistas” stream including renowned futurist Shara Evans keynote on the dissolution of boundaries between the physical and digital worlds with the advent of cars, drones and other "things". These interfaces are often mediated via voice, touch, and augmented reality. Aiden Ray and Ben Doherty (BVN) provide a fascinating insight into architecture and the design of spaces informed by data and sensors. Stefano Fratini (NNNCo) shares his experience with designing APIs for an IoT platform
Stories and Case-Studies
Many of the topics we’re talking about are in early adoption stage but they are starting to become mainstream. Adoption, experience and sharing our stories are key elements to the APIdays agenda. We’ll hear from a wide range of local technologists, strategists and entrepreneurs including: Dave Clark (THE ICONIC), Lloyd Carroll (Domain Group), Laurent Fresnel (Star Entertainment Group), Russell Parker (Service Victoria), Trey Zagante (Venturetec) and more.
With more than 35 speakers, three streams, keynotes and an amazing array of sponsors, this year APIdays Melbourne will be better than ever. Bring a friend because you’ll need more than one person to take it all in.
The full agenda and tickets are available at https://apidays.com.au.
