Star East is next week and we are pumped! The TechWell Star East software testing conference in Orlando is one of our favorites (if you’re interested, you can see our list of the Top Software Testing Conferences for 2016). The QASymphony team will be there.

Make sure to stop by booth #18 to meet our team and pick up some free schwag. Also, make sure to take our “Tester Personality Quiz” and we’ll give you a laptop sticker with your personality.

The agenda for Star East this year is amazing. Here are some of the sessions we’re looking forward to.

1) Keith Klain
 Lessons Learned in (Selling) Software Testing

Keith kicks off the day on Wednesday, May 4th. Keith is a great speaker and has a very interesting background in software testing. Many people don’t know this, but he was an art history major in college (go figure?). Then he went on to become the head of testing at UBS, Citi and Barclays. You can see a recent video interview with Keith on our blog. This will be one of the highlights of Star East so don’t miss it.

2) Michael Cooper, Chief Quality Officer, W3, LLC
 Evolve or Die: What Testers Need to Do to Survive and Thrive

Mike Cooper is the former Software Quality and Testing Evangelist for HP. This session will focus on the ways testing and development is changing and what software testers need to do to succeed in a fast-moving and highly complex world.

3) Testing Trend Presentations

It’s always good to come back from a conference with plenty of stats to impress your colleagues. If you want to get the latest updates and research on what’s happening in the industry, don’t miss these presentations.

Kalyan Rao Konda, Gallop Solutions
 10 Emerging Trends in Software Testing: Predictions for the next decade

Michelle Walker, Capgemini
 Discover Current Trends in Quality Assurance and Testing for Your Digital Enterprise

4) Gerie Owen, Eversource Energy and Peter Varhol, Technology Strategy Research
 Testing in the New World of Off-the-Shelf Software

Gerie always delivers highly engaging presentations. The topic for this session should be interesting. A lot of companies buy off-the-shelf software and don’t think about the testing needed. You can read more of Gerie’s insights on our blog.

5) Women Who Test

Friday at Star East is dedicated to “Women Who Test”. Men outnumber women in the tech industry 7:3. This program covers a range of topic like re-engineering your life, growing your personal brand, setting goals and discovering your career superpowers. Speakers include Jennifer Bonine from TapQA, Melissa Benua from
 PlayFab and Tania Katan from Axosoft.

6) Joe Colantonio, TestTalks
 Boost Test Coverage with Automated Visual Testing

If you are focused on automation in your job, don’t miss this session. Joe is the undisputed king of automation. Click here to view Joe’s recent QASymphony webinar.

7) David Bialek, American Greetings
 Defect Metrics for Organization and Project Health

I always like attending the sessions with the real practitioners. It’s not just thought leadership.  It’s a true view into what’s really going on within a testing department. This session from David Bialek looks very interesting because it’s focused on analytics. This is a must-see for anyone who is swimming in data but thirsting for knowledge.

8) Comcast Sessions

There will be two speakers from Comcast at Star East. Their sessions are below. Given all the technical issues and complaints people have with Comcast, these sessions should be fascinating to watch.

Stephen Frein, Comcast
 Customer Experience (CX): How to Build an Army of Fans

Matt Barbour, Comcast
 End-to-End Automated Testing: Lessons from Zombieland

9) Stephen Burlingame, Navicure
 The Canary in the Coal Mine: Create an Early Warning Tool to Help Your Testing

This session sounds very interesting and Stephen is from our hometown of Atlanta, GA. So we’re a bit biased and wanted to give him a plug.

I hope that gives you a good list of sessions to check out at Star East 2016. We hope to see you there!