Two Uncomfortably Exciting Conference Talks

This week I did something uncomfortably exciting: I gave a talk at the Rockstars Valley conference about evals and how we’re using them at Rabobank to build useful and trustworthy AI solutions.

The next day I gave a keynote at Frontmania. That talk was about the creative things I like to build with code, but also how AI is changing that for me and what that means for my skills and creativity. I also talked about the work Rabobank is doing with agentic coding and why I’m betting on a future where engineers are not replaced but enhanced by AI.

This is me struggling with the technical difficulties at the start of my Frontmania keynote. Even that taught me something new: how to stay calm for 10 minutes with nothing to say while a room full of people is looking expectantly at me. I'm glad it worked out in the end and I was still able to tell my story.

What I noticed at both events was that conferences are starting to feel interesting again. It reminded me of the frontend conferences from a decade ago, when everyone was trying to figure out what new frameworks and libraries made possible. That period was so cool, and it feels like we’re in one of those moments again.

Looking forward to my next uncomfortably exciting thing.