More than 130 tech lovers found out how HP and Nestlé are keeping a whole army of printers and coffee machines connected through IoT. And then just kept the good vibes rolling and networked over pizzas & beers at the event’s 11 edition, organised together with Ocado Technology. Here’s a quick recap:

Albert Such, Digital Ecosystem & Solutions Architect at HP & Roque Bonilla, Domain Chief Engineer at HP

HP has over 270,000 printers connected for telemetry and more than 32,000 printers connected for operational data and control…”IoT at Large”. Albert Such and Roque Bonilla discussed various use cases such as business analytics, service support, and device monitoring, emphasising the importance of quality of service considerations. They also addressed the management of data volume and storage requirements across diverse devices and architectures, alongside security measures to protect data integrity and privacy. Furthermore, they highlighted the evolution of connectivity from basic unidirectional to bidirectional communication, with advancements in latency and bandwidth for improved performance.

Francisco Javier Cabello, Global IoT Product Manager at Nestlé

Nestlé is also creating new business models and data insights from connected coffee machines. Why is this international corporation investing so much in IoT then? To enable differentiation and engagement, to create value for consumers, and to improve efficiency and to support product evolution through data-driven insights.

Tech Up Nights celebrated its 10th edition with a bang. 197 tech lovers from all over the world went deep into the use of AI in business processes (by Damm & Nennisiwok) and ecommerce retail media (by Ocado Technology). And of course, pizza and Damm drinks followed, making networking so much easier.

Here’s a recap:

Laura Gil, Director Transformation in Damm & Lluis Pallarès, CEO & Founder of Nennisiwok

How an old brewing company such as Damm is transforming into a data-driven organization? Transitioning from disorganized external data to a sophisticated data analysis framework, Damm aims to establish a comprehensive data lake to fuel over 100 upcoming projects, including an Intelligent Sales Proposal solution leveraging AI for optimized product assortments and real-time margin insights.

Marie Masselot, Group Product Manager at Ocado Technology

Ocado Technology is revolutionising retail media strategies, enabling partners to boost their revenue streams. Their approach includes a world-class monetisation platform offering tailored digital marketing content to shoppers. Key features include optimised product showcases, advanced advertising banners, precise segmentation, and dedicated advertising pages, promising benefits like dynamic expanded brand opportunities, enhanced coverage, and improved customer targeting for an elevated shopping experience.

The 9th edition of Tech Up Nights, hosted by Tech Barcelona at Pier01, kicked off with an intriguing question –”Why Your Washing Machine Can Become Your Worst Enemy?”– which set the stage for a highly technical yet practical discussion:

Albert Such, Digital Ecosystem & Solutions Architect at HP &  Nadim Zubidat, Security Architect at HP

During the session, Such and Zubidat delved into the complexities of protecting modern devices against cybersecurity threats. The discussion not only highlighted the potential vulnerabilities present in everyday appliances, such as washing machines, but also emphasized the critical necessity of implementing robust security measures across all connected devices. Including printers.

Attendees gained insights into the innovative approaches employed by HP to protect their own and customer’s devices. Through an exploration of cutting-edge security protocols and technologies, Such and Zubidat provided practical knowledge essential for safeguarding against threats in today’s interconnected world.

Adevinta Spain and Ocado Technology rocked the stage at the very first Tech Up Night held at Pier07, Tech Barcelona’s Health & Life Sciences hub.

While we eagerly await more editions in the upcoming months, here’s a quick rundown of what we took away from this session made by and for techies:

Joan García – Senior Cloud Engineer at Ocado Technology

When running a new business, it’s typical to start with a single AWS account, where all your services run. However, as your business grows, you might start facing scalability issues when it comes to AWS infrastructure. For example, the workload of a client can impact the performance of another client’s service, or you might have trouble auditing all your infrastructure in a structured manner. To solve that problem, it’s recommended to use a multi-account architecture. In this session, we’ve seen what a multi-account architecture is, how to build it, and how you can leverage it to boost your infrastructure at scales and improve its performance while keeping it secure and auditable.

Marc Planaguma – Director Data Platform & Governance at Adevinta Spain

Marta Diaz – Product Owner Data Platform at Adevinta Spain

Adevinta Spain, as a leading player in the tech industry, has been working on its data journey to go from a data platform to a data products platform. Here’s how to do it:

• Balance Centralization and Decentralization. It’s important to balance control and accessibility in building a Data Products Platform.
• Change Management is Crucial. Effective change management is vital when transforming data practices. Clear communication and adaptability are key.
• Speed and Scale Matter. There’s a need to efficiently manage data in real-time, matching the pace of business growth.

That’s a wrap. The 7th edition of the Tech Up Nights, Tech Barcelona’s event made by and for the tech community, featured captivating presentations from industry giants MediaMarktSaturn and Ocado Technology, and gathered an audience with great interest and curiosity.

Let’s sum up some key highlights and learnings from the sessions:

Gintė Skersytė – Product Manager at Ocado Technology

In her session “Shift to outcome-based product development: why it matters”, Ocado Technology’s Product Manager walked us through one of the latest product development methodologies. As product management professionals, it’s easy to get caught in output and deadlines that leave little time to focus on the problems that really matter for the business and the customers. Gintė showed us a way to shift our mindset and commit to delivering real value to our customers: the outcome-based development mindset. By prioritising measurable outcomes over outputs, we are empowered to think more creatively and strategically about our products. After discussing her team’s approach to outcome-based product development, exploring its value, and offering practical tips for success, Gintė answered many interesting questions from the audience, such as: how often should you revisit the outcomes you have on your roadmap; for how long shall you run experiments to have a better understanding if it works or it should be stopped; in what cases the traditional output based roadmap would still be the one to go; how to apply outcome-based development when you are building the product from scratch, and what’s the best way to measure the impact.

Dieter Berwald – Competency Lead “Analytics Services” at MediaMarktSaturn

MediaMarktSaturn, the biggest consumer electronics retailer, has been utilizing the cloud for big data analytics since 2018. As a result, its data lake has grown exponentially, and already stores 6 Peta-Byte on Google BigQuery, with more than 8 millions queries executed on average per month. Dieter Berwald shared some lessons on how to build a proper Peta-Byte scale Analytics Platform with the focus on meta data management and data governance:

• Building a data swimming pool is a journey. Together with enterprise architecture, they are driving a data life cicle process.
• The right tools are needed. MediaMarktSaturn uses DataHub as Data Catalog tooling.
• Central Responsibility and Change Management. The central platform needs to provide services (e.g. Data Integration), but also central infrastructure (from data lake to cloud data warehouse).
• Setting and providing standards. Blueprints and Guidelines increase interoperability between data domains, but allowing data driven domains to innovate can help the organization.

The 6th edition of Tech Up Nights was a roaring success! It was an evening filled with fascinating conversations, insightful talks, and lots of networking opportunities. As the sun set, it painted our happy faces with a beautiful array of colors, while we listened attentively to the speakers from Ocado, Nestlé, and Vottun.

On Wednesday, March 15th, we were transported to a world of innovation and inspiration. The event was a true reflection of the dynamic tech industry that we all love. The speakers shared their experiences, insights, and perspectives on various tech-related topics. It was a learning opportunity that we could not afford to miss!

We also had a chance to capture some amazing moments at our photocall. The pictures are a testament to the fun we had and the connections we made.

Johnny Willer, Senior Software Engineer at Ocado Technology

In this presentation, Johnny shared his insights on transforming a “big ball of mud” monolith into a modular monolith, using ideas and principles from hexagonal architecture, also known as ports and adapters.

The presentation highlighted a real-life case study within the Ocado Technology Payments team, where this decomposition took place in the payments domain.

Johnny outlined the advantages of decomposing a monolith, which include faster development, reduced coupling between classes and modules, easier testing, simplified infrastructure replacement, and a smoother transition to microservices, if needed.

Throughout the presentation, Johnny emphasised the importance of applying hexagonal architecture concepts to separate concerns and define clear boundaries between components. He demonstrated how these principles were instrumental in achieving a successful transformation in the Ocado Technology Payments system.

To help the audience better understand hexagonal architecture principles, Johnny introduced an analogy involving two characters, Ana and Jordi. This narrative served to simplify the concepts and make them more relatable, enabling attendees to grasp the potential benefits and applications of the hexagonal architecture approach.

By the end of the presentation, attendees gained valuable knowledge on how to transition from a monolith to a modular monolith using hexagonal architecture and understood the advantages of such a transformation in the context of the payments domain.

Humbert Costas – Cybersoc Analytics Senior Specialist & Manuel García – Strategic Product Portfolio Architect at Nestlé

The Nestlé session titled “The Influence of AI in Your Security Operations” was conducted by Humbert Costas – Cybersoc Analytics Senior Specialist and Manuel García – Strategic Product Portfolio Architect. These experts shared their insights on how AI is transforming security operations and the benefits it offers in terms of threat detection and response.

Alex López – CTO & Martí Ras –  NFT Director

Alex Lopez (CTO) and Martí Ras represented Vottun at Tech Up Nights 6. They had the opportunity to explain what Vottun does, from a more technical point of view, showing how any developer or company can adopt Blockchain technology without any knowledge about how to develop.

It was a gratifying experience for them to attend a networking event where the focus is on the technical area and they were able to go into more detail about their technology, in a very close and informal atmosphere.

Now, the only question left is, will we see you at Tech Up Night Vol. 7? We can’t wait to meet you and continue the discussion on how technology is shaping our world. Don’t miss out on the next big event!

Tech Up Nights Vol. 6

Tech Up Nights Vol. 6

Tech Up Nights Vol. 6

Tech Up Nights Vol. 6

Tech Up Nights Vol. 6

Tech Up Nights Vol. 6

Tech Up Nights Vol. 6

Tech Up Nights Vol. 6

Tech Up Nights Vol. 6

Tech Up Nights Vol. 6

Tech Up Nights Vol. 6

Tech Up Nights Vol. 6

Tech Up Nights Vol. 6

Tech Up Nights Vol. 6

Tech Up Nights Vol. 6

Tech Up Nights Vol. 6

Tech Up Nights Vol. 6

Tech Up Nights Vol. 6

Tech Up Nights Vol. 6

Tech Up Nights Vol. 6

Tech Up Nights Vol. 6

Tech Up Nights Vol. 6

Tech Up Nights Vol. 6

Tech Up Nights Vol. 6

The 5th edition of the Tech Up Nights was, once again, a complete success. A top tech community gathered at Payment Innovation Hub instead of our beloved rooftop not to blew away with the wind.

We discovered leading tech projects being developed in the city and to share best practices and challenges in an open dialogue. Tech Up Nights is an initiative of tech talks originally created together with Ocado Technology. Here you have a recap of the speeches:

In this presentation, Stefana Fratean, Software Engineer at Ocado Technology and Eduard Capell, her Engineering Team Lead, took the audience on the fascinating journey of investigating the root cause of incidents and uncovering the lessons learnt. The talk followed the steps that Cado, an avocado-shaped fictional character, needs to follow during a postmortem. Stefana and Eduard walked us through the stages of a postmortem process: from the analysis of what happened, checking what went well, the alerting, all the way to finding the root causes and then sharing the learnings. In this interactive session, the audience and the speakers went on to explore how a postmortem process is initiated and the difference between genuine mistakes and malicious intents.

As a serial innovator on an ambitious mission to change the way the world shops, Ocado Technology embraces failures as opportunities to learn fast. This way of working entails instilling a no blame culture, which is at the core of postmortems.

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Are you curious about the trends & opportunities AI algorithms are bringing to our society?  Have you found yourself recently in a discussion about how good or bad chatGPT will impact many professionals jobs?

Over the course of his presentation, César Pérez Aznar offered the audience an overview of HP Data Science business positioning in Edge AI segment which tries to bring computational power much close to the place where data is actually being generated. After a massive adoption of cloud computing past year in many environments the need to feed AI algorithms with massive volumes of data is changing the way companies design their data flows so as to ensure AI algorithms are not only making them more competitive but also more profitable.

César Pérez also opened a reflection about AI algorithms fairness of usage with the mentality to replace human job contribution, carbon footprint impact of AI algorithms and the creation of new regulatory frameworks that try to ensure AI algorithms operate with full respect to basic human rights like gender equality, absence of racial biases and universal accessibility to all layers of our society.

We learned a lot and, of course, we had so much fun talking and having a drink!