Devoxx BE '23 Top Rated Talks

As usual we'll share the top-100 talks for our 20th edition of Devoxx Belgium.

This year was a bit different, as we now also have insights into the number of connected devices present in each room during each talk ??????

Of course one attendee can be connected via multiple devices, so the Max Attendees metric should be taken with a grain of salt!

Unique devices per room

This year, we successfully tracked the number of devices connected to each access point at 15-minute intervals. By aggregating this information for each room and pinpointing the peak value during the length of each talk, we were able to extract the maximum number of devices in each room for each specific talk ??

Each room had the following wireless stats!

The "Unique Clients Trend Over Time - Client Count" was the most interesting CSV to calculate the number of unique users per room. Extract of the CSV:

By correlating the start/end times with the Devoxx Belgium 2023 schedule, we can pin point what the total connected users were for any given talk ??

Hey ChatGPT. What are the best formulas to calculate top rated talks based on total ratings, average rating, number of attendees and maximum capacity of room?

Typically, the most time-consuming part of the process is aggregating the data and integrating it with additional resources. Once you've compiled the final CSV, ChatGPT can handle the rest effortlessly through its 'Advanced Data Analysis' plugin.

The awesome part about multiple statistical perspectives is that you can cherry-pick the one that makes your talk look the best ??

Let's have a closer look...

The Popularity List

I did add one extra "formula" which was the popularity view, basically the maximum number of users/devices linked to the room capacity.

The Popularity Score formula can be summarised as a ratio of the number of unique attendees to the maximum room capacity, scaled by 100. In mathematical terms.

This formula gives a percentage-based score, making it easier to compare talks across rooms of different sizes. It's a simple yet effective way to gauge the popularity of a talk while accounting for the room's capacity.

Most popular talks were :

As you can see there were more connected devices than seats available, which makes sense when attendees could have a connected portable, phone, tablet and phone during a session.

The Weighted Score

The Weighted Score formula combines both the Average Rating and Max Attendees of a talk. It assigns 60% weight to the Average Rating and 40% weight to a normalized version of Max Attendees. This balanced approach ensures that both quality (ratings) and popularity (attendance) are factored into the final score, providing a comprehensive measure of a talk's overall impact.

I've also included the top-100 list for all the other formulas, which can be found

???? HERE ????

Thanks again to all the speakers for making the 20th edition of Devoxx Belgium an amazing experience.

Make sure to mark your agenda for our 21st edition which will take place in the same venue from October 7th until the 11th. See you there!

-Stephan