Report from Qt Developer Days 2014 San Francisco

This week I'm here at the Qt Developer Days North America  conference and I wanted to share a brief report on the first day of the show.

The event is being held in the Bay Area at the San Francisco Airport Marriott Waterfront in Burlingame, California, the same venue as last year.

The North American Developer Days is similar to the European show held last month in Berlin, Germany with many dynamic speakers, some of whom spoke in Germany as well. The two shows have a slightly different flavor. My perception is that most of the people attending the European show are experienced Qt developers, while the North American show, in the heart of Silicon Valley, also attracts local people who are new to Qt and want to learn more about it.

ICS has once again organized this California conference. We have about twenty-five staff on-site who are very busy doing all the work behind the scenes to keep the show running smoothly.

The conference started on Monday with an optional training day.  Six full-day courses related to Qt were offered as well as a free "Try Qt" session.

Tuesday, is the first day of the show proper, which runs for two days. We have over fifty (50) talks scheduled within twelve (12) different tracks including keynotes, technical talks and 10-minute lightning talks.

This year we are also offering post-show two-day training courses on Thursday and Friday for people who want even more Qt training.

In addition, there is also "The Business of UX 2014" a separate one-day event for product and engineering managers to be held Thursday, November 6. This program is for product management leaders to learn about the business impact of implementing user experience (UX) upfront in the beginning of the development process and why it matters.

So far, the first day of the show has gone well, with interesting keynotes and technical talks. We saw good traffic in the vendor area, with many people coming to talk to us in the ICS booth. We have been displaying a number of technologies that we build for customers, with emphasis on embedded development. A popular demonstration in the ICS booth is the Qt-controlled robotic arm, which was developed specifically for the show. The robot has been happily pouring drinks for the guests in our booth.

Tomorrow, we are looking forward to the second day of the show, which will feature more talks that are technical as well as the always fast-paced lightning talks.