Scottish Summit 2024 - That's a Wrap!

Now that the dust has settled on Scottish Summit 2024 - and I've slept a couple of nights in my own bed - it's time to reflect on what has been another incredible event for the 微软 tech community.

Scottish Summit has always been one of my favourite events in the conference calendar - even prior to becoming part of the organising team - and this year was no exception. This year saw hundreds of attendees descend on the P&J Live venue in Aberdeen for a full day of pre-conference workshops, two full days of conference sessions covering all parts of the Microsoft technology stack, and evenings filled with laughter, fun, and fundraising for a fantastic cause.

We have Mark Christie and Iain Connolly to thank for the community wonder that is Scottish Summit, originally starting this event back in 2019, and returning this year for it's fifth installment. We've had three events in Glasgow, last year was Scottish Summit on Tour in Manchester, and 2024 saw our triumphant return to Aberdeen.

We were delighted this year to be joined by Scott Hanselman , who delivered a fantastic keynote session title AI: Hero or Villain. Scott received a full Scottish introduction, being escorted to stage by a bagpiper and side-drummer playing Auld Lang Syne, and then being welcomed to stage by indoor fireworks. His keynote session lived up to the extraordinary welcome, as he delivered an entire keynote with no slides, tonnes of live demos, and an engaging storyline that demonstrated how AI is essentially just a large probability engine, with the human essentially being the villain in any nefarious uses of this technology.

This was such a great way to open the conference, and has certainly set a high bar for 2026.

A truly international event, this years Scottish Summit featured 93 speakers traveling from 29 different countries, and hundreds of attendees, volunteers and sponsors who journeyed from around the world to take part, in many cases battling flight cancellations, travel issues and heavy storms to get there and back.

We are so grateful for the support of all of our sponsors, without whom we wouldn't be able to run events like this, and it was great to see the expo hall so busy during lunchtimes and breaks. Lots of great sponsor interactions and entertainment.

Alongside our sponsors, this event was driven by so many people across our community giving up their time to contribute both prior to and during the event. Our organising committee supported the Scottish Summit charity board members with everything from recording and editing our podcast episodes, implementation of our event tech stack - including our website - as well as ensuring us and our speakers had everything in place for a great event. We are eternally grateful for everyone who played a role in making this event happen, whether on our organising committee, volunteering as a helper over the weekend, or giving up their time and effort to deliver sessions or workshops across the three days. Thank you!

Despite being incredibly busy behind the scenes, I was also lucky enough to be involved in two separate sessions across the conferences. Firstly, Kevin McDonnell and I hosted a Connecting the Copilots panel discussion, where we had José Lázaro Pinos , Chris Huntingford ?? , Dona Sarkar and Sara Fennah as special guests for a lively 90-minute discussion on all things Copilot.

Myself and Carl Cookson joined Alison Mulligan in her panel session on Saturday morning, How to Plan your Career Like a Boss, where the three of us shared our perspectives on career planning, strategies for personal development, what we look for as hiring managers, and key lessons that we've learnt throughout our own career. I thoroughly enjoyed taking part in this session which was a little bit different to my usual, and a huge thank you to everyone who joined for your thought provoking questions.

This event also saw the first Saturday Night Live style skit included in the closing keynote hosted by Dona Sarkar , where several members of the tech community were volun-told to take part in a play acting out how the Copilot orchestration system works, live in stage. This was an absolutely hilarious way of demonstrating what happens behind the scenes from the moment you enter your prompt into Copilot, as well as showing how important the Responsible AI checks and purview are throughout this process!

A community conference is not complete without evening shenanigans, and this year was no different. On the Friday night, we hosted our first ever drag cabaret presented by Lady Rampant and their team of wonderful artists. Alongside this, nine members of our very own tech community took part in a charity drag competition to raise money for our charity partner, Time for Inclusive Education (TIE) . This is the second year that we've partnered with TIE to raise valuable funds which are used by the small team who deliver LGBTQ+ positive education in Scottish Schools, with the aim of reducing transphobia, homophobia, and promote awareness and inclusivity.

Please join me in giving the team a huge congratulations - they were all very good sports, and together we raised over ￡5,400 for TIE.

On the Saturday evening, Tricia Sinclair and Andrew Bibby hosted the community pub quiz alongside the The Microsoft Community UK Spotlight and Recognition Awards . With my team having won the last three community pub quiz events, all of the other teams were gunning for us this year, and unfortunately Rex de Koning ?? and his team stole my crown. Well done Rex - a well deserved victory.

However, my table didn't go home empty-handed, with myself and Kevin taking the Best Podcast award for Copilot Connection , jointly sharing the category with Damien Bird who was awarded Best YouTube. I also took home the Modern Work Evangelist award which was just fantastic - especially considering I was a finalist alongside two incredible women who were both equally deserving of the award, Sara Fennah and Amanda Sterner ???? .

While I've tagged many people who played a key role in this weekend, there are so many others who contributed as a speaker, sponsor, organiser, volunteer or attendee who I've not been able to tag. Thank you to each and every one of you - this is an event run for the community, by the community, and we appreciate each and every one of you.

With that said, the organising team are taking a well earned break, and in 2025 we'll be passing the baton to South Coast Summit - A Microsoft Cloud Technology Conference which will be the highlight of the 2025 event calendar in the UK. We can't wait to attend (and will enjoy not having to work quite so hard), but in the meantime, planning is already underway for the next Scottish Summit event.

Save the Date: Scottish Summit 2026 will be held on the 3rd of October 2026, at the Murrayfield Arena in Edinburgh. We can't wait to bring the Scottish Summit sparkle to yet another new location.

I started this article by recognising the significant contribution that Mark Christie and Iain Connolly have made to the community since starting this event five years ago, and this year was a very special year for both of them, as they take a step back from the event and hand the reigns over to myself and Matt Beard as the lead members of our brand new organising committee. Thanks to Mark and Iain for everything that they have done for the tech community over the years - the influence they have had and the inspiration they have provided has been felt far beyond Europe.

Matt and I are enormously thankful for everything we've learnt from you - and grateful that you trust us enough to pass the baton. (As well as being very conscious that we have a lot to live up to in 2026!)

We're delighted to be joined for 2026 by our new organising committee, many of whom supported the event in 2024. Carl Cookson Gemma Adair Mike Hartley Patrick Byrne ???? Rex de Koning ?? Sara Fennah Areti Iles and Rani Colquhoun