Conference Details

About the Event

Venue


Dominion Energy Center

600 E. Grace Street,  Richmond, VA 23219

Parking info may be found here.

Date & Time


February 6, 2025 / 8:30am – 5pm

What to wear?

Cyber Casual –

T-shirts and jeans will get you all the clearance you need. Come as you are.

Registration

2025 Agenda

rvatech/Data Summit Series Happy Hour

Date: June 23, 2021

Time: 5:00 pm until 7:00 pm

Location: Hardywood West Creek

Sponsor: TBD

Register For This Event

Date

June 10, 2021

Time

12:00 – 1:00 PM

Roundtable Topics -

  • Enterprise Architecture

  • Cloud Application Modernization

  • DevOps

Register For This Event

Register to Attend

 


2021 rvatech/Edge Presented by –

Schedule

8:30 AM | Networking + Sponsor Exhibition

Welcoming remarks by rvatech/Data Summit Chair, Lori Jennnings + introduction of our Emcee, Vida Williams

9 AM | Keynote Abhijit Bose

Running time: 9:05 – 10 AM

 

“Machine Learning at Capital One – An Overview of the Advancements of Machine Learning at Capital One”

10:15 AM | Data Career + Growth Panel

Running time: 10:15 – 11 AM

 

In this panel discussion, you will hear from real folks who are hiring right now, what they are seeking, what is holding back candidates, and ideas on how to optimize your search.


Moderated by Todd Dube | Cloud Solutions Architect at CarMax

 

Featured Panelists:

Reginald Leonard II | Associate Director of Career Connections and Community Engagement at University of Virginia

Susan Gorney | Sr. Director Data Strategy & Technology at Altria

Rob Phillips | Director of Technology at CarMax

11 AM | 2020: COVID, Politics and Civil Unrest - What did it Mean for a Data Scientist?

Running time: 11:00 – 11:35 AM

 

Featured Speaker: Vida Williams | Chief Data Officer/Chief Diversity Officer at SingleStone

11:35 AM | Lunch + LIVE! Podcast with feat. guest David Der of Spring Oaks Capital

Running time: 11:35 AM – 1:00 PM

 

Hosted by Ford Prior with featured guest, David Der | Head of Engineering at Spring Oaks Capital

1 PM | Data Mesh - Scalable Data Architecture

Running time: 1:00 – 1:35 PM

 

Organizations have long leveraged centralized data teams to design and build analytic data solutions such as data lakes and data warehouses. As these data platforms expand in scope and usage, these centralized teams often reach a point where they can no longer keep pace with business needs.

 

Data Mesh is a new approach that directly addresses this challenge. It represents a paradigm shift away from legacy best practices and established enterprise data architecture frameworks, and towards federating data product development across business domains.

As part of this presentation, we aim to provide organizations with:

  • A fundamental understanding of Data Mesh concepts and value proposition
  • Benefits the Data Mesh has brought to Mission Lane
  • How to navigate the “people” aspect of making a shift to Data Mesh Architecture

 

Featured Speakers:

Rick Vasko | Data Architect at Impact Makers

Mike Carpenter | Data Steward + Reporting Specialist at Mission Lane

1:35 PM | VA's Consumer Data Protection Act - Following California Into the Privacy Frontier

Running time: 1:35 – 2:05 PM

 

Explore the Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act. Discuss exemptions, tasks, security mandates
under the Act alongside the new rights that are unfolding for consumers under both Virginia’s CDPA
along with the myriad of other state laws percolating. This session will also delve deep into developing
a battle plan for future-proofing against the onslaught of new privacy regulations nationwide.


Featured Speaker: Beth Burgin Waller | Chair Cybersecurity & Data Privacy Practice at WOODS ROGERS

2:20 PM | Encrypted Traffic Analysis with Machine Learning: Cybersecurity for all Network Traffic

Running time: 2:20 – 2:55 PM

 

Featured Speaker: Andrew Fast | Chief Data Scientist & Co-founder at CounterFlow AI, Inc.

2:55 PM | Machine Learning in Production

Running time: 2:55 – 3:30 PM

 

Featured Speaker: Paul Hurlocker | Chief Technology Officer at Spring Oaks Capital

3:30 PM | Happy Hour + Networking

Data Summit '21 Speakers

Abhijit Bose

Managing Vice President Center for Machine Learning

Capital One

Andrew Fast

Chief Data Scientist and Co-Founder

CounterFlow AI

Rob Phillips

Director Of Technology

CarMax

Paul Hurlocker

Chief Technology Officer

Spring Oaks Capital

Todd Dube

Cloud Solutions Architect

CarMax

Reginald Leonard II

Associate Director of Career Connections and Community Engagement

University of Virginia

Vida Williams

Chief Data Officer/Chief Diversity Officer

SingleStone

Susan Gorney

Sr. Director Data Strategy & Technology

Altria

Beth Burgin Waller

Chair, Cybersecurity and Data Privacy Practice / Principal Attorney

Woods Rogers

Rick Vasko

Data Architect

Impact Makers

Mike Carpenter

Data Steward + Reporting Specialist

Mission Lane

Past Speakers

Hilary Mason

Co-Founder of HiddenDoorCo | Founder of FastForwardLabs (acquired by Cloudera ) | Data Scientist in Residence, Accel

Carlos Rivero

Chief Data Officer

State of Virginia

Adam Wenchel

CEO

ArthurAI

Chris Peterson

Managing Vice President, Data Science

Capital One

Ranju Das

Amazon Rekognition & Amazon Textract

Amazon

Renee M. P. Teate

Director of Data Science

HelioCampus

Vida Williams

Chief Data Officer/Chief Diversity Officer

SingleStone

David Der

Engineering Manager

Facebook

Rob Finnegan

Chief Executive Officer

West Creek Financial

Miriam Friedel, Ph.D

Director, Software Engineering

Capital One

Ben Harden

Principal - Data and Analytics

CapTech

Beth Waller

Attorney & Chair of Cybersecurity and Data Privacy Group

Woods Rogers

Keynote - Dr. Laurie Forlano

Deputy Director - Office of Epidemiology

Virginia Department of Health

Keynote - Tim Powell

Director - Division of Informatics and Information Systems

Virginia Department of Health

Renee Teate

Director of Data Science

HelioCampus

Mentor - Gabriel Rushin

Senior Machine Learning Engineer

Procter & Gamble

Mentor - Courtney Layman

Senior Data Scientist

Astraea, Inc.

Mentor - Kerry Jones

Machine Learning Engineer

Data Machines Corp

Mentor - Todd Dube

Cloud Solutions Architect

CarMax

Mentor - Vida Williams

Chief Data Officer/Chief Diversity Officer

SingleStone

Mentor - Andrew Fast

Chief Data Scientist & Co-founder

CounterFlow AI, Inc.

Mentor - Paul Hurlocker

Vice President - Center for Machine Learning

Capital One

Mentor - David Der

Engineering Manager

Facebook

Mentor - David Moxley

Sr. Data Science Consultant

Impact Makers

Mentor - Malcolm Charles

Senior Data Scientist

Oncology Analytics

Mentor - Zach Anglin

Director, Data Science

S&P Global Market Intelligence

Mentor - Dr. Miriam Friedel

Director, Software Engineering

Capital One

Mentor - Julia Barnhart

Team Manager - Machine Learning Engineering

CarMax

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Kick-off Agenda

11 AM | Welcome

Conference will begin after opening remarks from our Edge Committee Chair, Gaurav Chawla.

11:15 AM | Keynote - Yefim Natis

Presentation Title – “Strategic Architecture Roadmap for Composable Enterprise”.

12:25 PM | Breakout Sessions

Tune in to your favorite breakout session featuring a panel of community builders + tech leaders.

 

Available Sessions:

 

Lessons Learned in DevOps

 

Leading Edge in Cloud

 

What’s Next in Enterprise Architecture

Meet the Keynote

Yefim Natis | Distinguished Vice President + Fellow at Gartner Research

Yefim Natis is a Distinguished Vice President and Fellow in Gartner Research. His main research themes include the Future of Applications, Composable Enterprise, and Intelligent Composable Business; also the key trends in enterprise platforms and PaaS; event-driven and service-oriented computing architectures. He leads Gartner’s PaaS, Composable Future of Applications, and event-driven computing research communities. Mr. Natis’ work spans key trends, best user practices, and vendor strategies across these research themes. He regularly presents at Gartner conferences, executive briefings, and webinars.

 

Prior to joining Gartner, Mr. Natis worked at Magna Software, a software startup where he was the Director of Software Architecture and the principal architect of Magna X, a generator of service-oriented enterprise transaction processing applications. His experience also includes IT architecture and IT management positions at Hogan Systems and Citi Group. He has over 35 years of experience in enterprise IT.

Breakout Sessions | 12:25 - 1 PM

Breakout #1 | Scars from DevSecOps

Join Session

Breakout #2 | Leading Edge in Cloud

Join Session

Breakout #3 | What's Next in Enterprise Architecture

Join Session

Speakers + Community Builders

Chair - Gaurav Chawla

Senior Director | Software Engineering

Anthem

Chair - Alex Otanez

Chief Executive Officer

Shockoe | Mobile by Design

Deborah Cassidy

Global Chief Information Officer

PRA Group

Gurushyam Mony

Director | DevOps and Quality Engineering

Markel

Ian Tyndall

Sr. Director Digital Strategy and Innovation

Altria Client Services

Steve Fuller

Enterprise Account Manager

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Matthew Douglas

Chief Enterprise Architect

Sentara Healthcare

Chandra Ragyari

Asst Vice President, Software Engineering

PRA Group

Atul Chowdhory

Business Intelligence Architect

Virginia Lottery

Chris Tignor

Chief Information Security Officer

PRA Group

Victor Andrade

Head of Software Engineering

PRA Group

Rob Pollard

Enterprise Architect

Virginia Lottery

Chris Burroughs

Chief Technology Officer

PRA Group

Steve Wisner

Director of Enterprise Data Management and Solution Architecture

Genworth Financial

Paul Busick

Vice President, Software Engineering

Capital One

Upcoming Summer Series Events

Round Tables

Workshops

Panels

Edge Topics

  • Cloud Data Management and Analytics

  • Modern Application Development

  • Chaos Engineering - Infrastructure | Network | Application | Security

  • Serverless and Event-Driven Architecture

  • Cloud Native and Cloud Centric

  • Edge Computing and Distributed Architecture

  • Collaborative, Efficient, Secure and Autonomous Design

  • Prioritizing Edge

Register For This Event

 

Tracks

Keynotes

Agenda

2023 Speakers

Ian Major

Co-Founder, Co-CEO

Joltz

Paul Hurlocker

Chief Technology Officer

Spring Oaks Capital, LLC

Amyli McDaniel

CEO

MINTangible

Andrew Elliott

CEO

RoundlyX

Stuart VonCanon

Detective

FBI

Sean McDermott

Intelligence Analyst

FBI

Bob Stolle

​CEO & President

Virginia Innovation Partnership Corporation (VIPC)

Nick Bawa

Founder, CTO

Warehowz

Conference Agenda

2021 Speakers

Keynote - Max Furmanov

Managing Director / Partner

Accenture

Drew Firment

SVP, Cloud Transformation

A Cloud Guru

Kevin Hazzard

Cloud Strategist

Altria

Diane Schnupp

EVP & CIO

Kinsale Insurance

Jeremy Davis

Chief Architect

RedHat

Dennis Sharpe

Chief Technology Officer

Ippon Technologies

David Elizondo

DevOps Engineer

Ippon Technologies

Scott Miller

Software Engineer

Invoice Cloud

Chris Barker

Assistant Vice President

The Federal Reserve

Darrell Norton

Principal

CapTech

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Conference Agenda

2024 Speakers

Keynote Speakers

Jillian Anderson

Founder & CTO

HERide

Shannon Chapman

Senior Director of Enterprise Service Management

Southern Glazer's Wine and Spirits

Katie McMahon

Start-up Builder, Researcher, Tech Advisor

Berryville Institute of Machine Learning

Session Speakers

Chris Burroughs

Director Data Protection and Governance

Commonwealth of Virginia

Cynthia Chinworth

Innovation Teacher

Trinity Episcopal School

Somiah Lattimore

Investor

Extra Credit Ventures

Patsy Daniels

Software Engineering Manager

Atlantic Union Bank

Jen Finn

Co-Founder & CEO

HIO

Ashley Ford

Director of Data Science

CarMax

Janaki Ganapathi

Lead Software Engineer

Capital One

Nikki Hastings

Executive Director

CvilleBioHub

Laurie Head

Co-Owner & CMCO

AIS Network

Elizabeth Mejia-Ricart

Senior Data Scientist

2nd Order Solutions

Aesha Mehta

Senior Associate

Fed Tech

Rohana Meade

President & CEO

Synergy Technical

Marlo Reveley

CEO & Co-founder

Zero Touch Digital

Karen Sorber

CEO & Co-Founder

Micronic Technologies

Keying Zhou

Senior Data Scientist

2nd Order Solutions

Conference Sponsors

This Event Is Currently Accepting Sponsors

2024 Call for Papers

The Women in Technology Conference is a platform for women technologists to speak and share their knowledge with others. Conference participants are looking forward to hearing from engaging speakers who are informative, articulate, and able to provide recommendations. Attendees seek the ability to transform the viable examples provided into opportunities to expand their capabilities.

Learn More & Submit a Proposal

2023 Agenda

Meet the 2023 Speakers

Nazzic Keene

CEO

SAIC

Christina Smith

Director of Consulting and Salesforce Architect

CGI

Belinda McDowell

Vice President, Head of Operations

Capital One Software

Shalini Goyal

Senior Manager Team Lead - Cyber Technical

Capital One

Lyn McDermid

Secretary of Administration

Virginia

Nick Anderson

AVP, Data Science

Carmax

Ashley Ford

Director, Data Science

Carmax

Amy Braden

Director Security Governance

VITA

Diane Carnohan

CISO

Virginia Department of Education

Stephanie Williams-Hayes

CISO

VDH

Ayisha Minter

Flight Instructor

Wing

Terry Ellis

Vice President, Government & Regulatory Affairs

Comcast

Amelia De Jesus

Vice President of Workforce Solutions

Wireless Infrastructure Association

Tamarah Holmes

Director, Office of Broadband

Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development

Neera Jain

Technical & Team Lead, Enterprise Directory Services

AIS Network

Keira D'Amato

Athlete & Owner

PR Run & Walk by Keira D’Amato

Laurie Head

Owner & CMCO

AIS Network

Jessica Beavers

Information Security & Risk Management Officer (ISRMO)

Library of Virginia

Heather Walker

Managing Director

Deloitte

Dr. Joi Williams

Professor of Information Logisitics Technology,

Virginia State University

Lessie Oliver-Clark

Professor of Information Logisitics Technology

Virginia State University

Dr. Carol Parish

Professor of Chemistry

University of Richmond

Khawlah Harasheh

Professor of Information Systems Technology

Reynolds Community College

Allison Boulais

VP Cyber Security

Capital One

Rebecca Haydock

Director

Central Virginia Small Business Development Center

Dan Myers

Co-Founder & Managing Director

42Phi Ventures

Tracey Greene

Executive Director

Charlottesville Business Innovation Council

Meg Pryde

CEO

Brandefy

This Event Is Currently Accepting Sponsors

Conference Schedule

8:30 AM | Registration + Morning Cocktail Hour

Welcome to 2021 rvatech/Drive! Grab a mimosa and/or a bloody morning at our morning brunch
bar + reconnect with Richmond’s technology community!

Take time to engage with the #rvatech community + our conference sponsors by visiting the
exhibition booths with a cocktail in hand – Cheers!

9:05 AM | Keynote - "What Rocket Science & Banking Have in Common"

Melanie Frank | Managing Vice President – Cyber Engineering at Capital One


What Rocket Science & Banking Have in Common

When you think of Rocket Science and Banking you probably don’t think of them as interchangeable careers, but they actually have a lot more in common than you might imagine. Join Melanie Frank as she talks about how her dream to become an astronaut led her down the unanticipated path to software engineer.

 

9:35 - 10:10 AM | How Data Analytics Was Used to Address the ‘Twindemic’: COVID-19 and the Opioid Epidemic

Track Category | DRIVE to SECURE


Speaker:

Lyd Paull-Flores Sr. Director at Qlarion

 

The impact of COVID-19 on the opioid epidemic has been well established. Called the “twindemic” among public health service professionals, people with addiction and mental health needs were deeply impacted by enforced social isolation. While this has led to increased challenges for health and safety professionals, the silver lining is that it has accelerated the adoption of technology, data exchanges, predictive analytics, and programs that center around social determinants/informants of health to formulate a response that supports individuals battling both addiction and the pandemic. For instance, the Affordable Care Act and the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act resulted in the Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PDMP) and the collection of data that shines a light on prescribers whose practices contributed to addiction.

In this session, Lyd Paull-Flores, Senior Director of Healthcare at Qlarion, will highlight:

• How states, localities and healthcare organizations have leveraged data analytics to combat the “twindemic”: COVID-19 and the opioid epidemic

• Combining data exchanges with social determinants/informants of health

• How predictive analytics can change provider behavior Additionally, she will cover key trends that have proven effective for health and safety professionals looking to improve the quality of life for patients needing addiction support in the age of COVID-19.

These include:

• Housing as a vector of healthcare

• Healthcare infrastructure modernization

• Non-punitive collaborative social support programs

10:10 - 10:45 AM | Building for Reliability Panel

Track Category | DRIVE to BUILD


Speakers:

Nicole Carry | Principal Infrastructure/Operations Engineer – ADP

Briana Augenreich | Sr Software Engineer – HubSpot

 

Join the conversation as Nicole Carry and Bri Augenreich talk us through building reliable products, both from the hardware and software engineering perspectives. They’ll discuss change management, resilient architecture, and some of the key lessons learned over their careers so far. Moderated by Dana Haddon.

11 - 11:35 AM | Cyber Roles w/ Kristi Horton

Track Category | DRIVE to SECURE


Speaker:

Kristi Horton | Founder | Horton Innovations

 

“All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players;” – William Shakespeare, “As You Like It”
Shakespeare wrote of a different set of roles, but the diverse needs in cyber security and related disciplines might surprise you!

Learn about the different functions in cyber security and related fields and the skills valued in each.
Everyone has something to contribute. Discover how to identify the positions that suit your abilities and interests, how to spot candidates with unconventional talents, and how to connect the two.

11:40 AM | Break for Sponsor Booths/Networking Table Cards

Break time – 11:40 AM – 12:25 PM

Lunch will be served at 11:45 PM in the sponsor exhibition room.

12:25 - 1 PM | The Cloud: It’s Not just Someone Else’s Computer Anymore

Track Category | DRIVE to BUILD


Speaker: Allison Boulais | VP – Architecture Strategy & Governance at Capital One

1-1:35 PM | Drive to Innovate Panel

Track Category | DRIVE to INNOVATE


Speakers:

Rashonda Adkins | Director, Project Delivery & Quality Assurance at Ferguson

 

Jamie Sanderson Reid | Director, Cyber Governance, Risk and Compliance at The AES Corporation

1:40 - 2:55 PM | Cyber Carnival

To celebrate Cyber Security Awareness Month (CSAM) and the critical role of Cyber Gaming in building a strong workforce, Katzcy Cyber Games has assembled a virtual festival filled with games of skill and chance, scheduled thrilling performances, and lined up activities and drawings that bring home the sights, smells, and tastes of the carnival!

After our final session, enjoy some time in the exhibition hall to play games, win prizes and strengthen your cyber skills!

3 PM | Closing Remarks

Breakout Sessions

DRIVE to SECURE Tracks

Track #2

DRIVE to BUILD

Track #3

DRIVE to INNOVATE

Featured Speakers

Melanie Frank

Managing Vice President – Cyber Engineering

Capital One

Lyd Paull-Flores

Senior Director of Healthcare

Qlarion

Rashonda Adkins

Director, Project Delivery & Quality Assurance

Ferguson

Nicole Carry

Principal Infrastructure Engineer

ADP

Briana Augenreich

Senior Software Engineer

HubSpot

Allison Boulais

VP – Architecture Strategy & Governance

Capital One

Kristi Horton

CEO

Horton Innovations, LLC

Jamie Sanderson Reid

Director, Cyber Governance, Risk and Compliance

The AES Corporation

Register For This Event

rvatech/Data Virtual Kickoff

Date: March 11, 2021

Time: 9:00 am until 12:00 pm

Location: TBD

Sponsor: TBD

Register For This Event

Track #1: Drive with Data

Big Data

Cloud

Privacy

Track #2: Drive your Skills

Automation

Dev

Cyber Security

Track #3: Drive the Journey

Program/Product

UX/UI

Agile

The 2020 MLM Awards

The Margaret Lyn McDermid Awards recognize women technologists in the greater Richmond area. The awards program is named after Margaret Lyn McDermid who has had a direct impact on Central Virginia’s tech economy, Virginia’s image across the country, opportunities for women and young people in technology, and most especially our continued growth as an organization at RVATECH. Lyn should be an inspiration to any young person, and especially any woman, who has a desire to become a technologist.

WATCH NOW

Event Speakers

Christina Hollingsworth

VP, Information Technology

Hamilton Beach

Courtney Rowell

Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Leader

Thomson Reuters

Elaine Cheng

VP and Chief Information Officer

Shentel

Emma MacMullan

Cyber Intelligence Analyst

Federal Reserve

Jimma Elliot-Stevens

Chief Privacy Officer

Thomson Reuters

Johanna “Jojo” Leasiolagi

Senior Technical Advisor

Defense Intelligence Agency

Katia Mastropas

Senior Data Scientist

James River Insurance

Lauren Hill

Product Lead

Capital One

Mary Glerum

Director of Product Management

InRythym

Megan Overton

Product Management Consultant

The Mom Project

Santhi Sridharan

Head of Engineering, Open Source Office

Capital One

Sara Demeria

VP, Business Information Security Officer

Federal Reserve

Teresa Washburn

Senior Manager, User Experience Design

Workday

Crystal Harris

Agile Transformation Coach

CapTech

Karen Rodd

Agile Transformation Coach

CapTech

LaLisha Hurt

Deputy Chief Information Security Officer

GDIT

Tanya Madison

Chief Privacy Officer

Aristocrat Technologies

Charlene Mowery

Director, Strategic Initiatives

Red Hat

Viji Natarajan

Enterprise and Solution Architecture Leader / Director

Veracity / Women Who Code

Date

April 21, 2021

Time

11:00 AM – 12:00 PM

About the Event

In March of this year, Virginia signed into law the Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act (VCDPA) joining California (CCPA) as the second state to enact comprehensive data privacy legislation. Other states are also working on their own privacy laws. Data Privacy legislation means more than just legal and business challenges for corporations, it means empowering the consumer to have more access and control over their data which is a valuable commodity.

In this rvatech/Data Summit series’ event, come and join the discussion as business leaders share their thoughts on what the recent Data Privacy legislation means for the business community as well as for you, the consumer.

Webinar Speakers

Moderator | Jeanine Cook

Manager

CapTech Consulting

Kyle Fondren

Senior Manager, Consumer Identity Management and Privacy

Altria Client Services

Caroline Stapleton

Assistant General Counsel

West Creek

John Duncan

Director + Head of Data Governance and Master Data

CarMax

Christopher Jones

Attorney

Sands Anderson

Register For This Event

Join the conversation via Zoom – Click Here to Register

Created for product managers, designers, & leaders, ProductFest is the East Coast's premier event for the product curious. Supercharge your product career at ProductFest - the conference that doesn't feel like one.


Enjoy a day surrounded by the most forward-thinking voices in the industry as we gather for incredible presentations and working sessions given by a diverse lineup of speakers that will leave you feeling inspired and motivated

Conference Details -

About the Event

Join us in Richmond, Virginia, and let’s stray away from your average workday and dedicate some time towards you. Get ready for a day of innovative sessions focused on connecting with the Richmond product community and growing your career.

 

ProductFest RVA promises a full day of skill development, new ideas, and connections to supercharge your product career.


Date + Time

May 22, 2024 | 9 AM – 5 PM


Venue

Altria Theater

6 N Laurel St, Richmond, VA 23220


Parking Info

  • VCU West Main Street Deck, 801 West Main Street, Richmond, Virginia 23284
  • VCU West Cary Street Parking Deck, 1201 West Cary Street, Richmond, Virginia 23220
  • Street parking is also available in the area, though limited, including three (3) handicapped parking spots on Main Street just west of Laurel Street.

For details on parking rates, payment options, handicapped access and more visit: https://www.altriatheater.com/visit/directions-parking

Register for the Conference

Conference Agenda

2024 Speakers

Christian Idiodi

Partner

Silicon Valley Product Group

Cyrus Bakhshi

Director of Platform Success

Sunny Day Fund

Patrick Quattlebaum

CEO, Service Designer, & Co-Founder

Harmonic Design

Mike Thomas

CEO

Upstream 360

Jessica Allison

Director, Product Management

CarMax

Luke Farrell

Product Manager and Lead at the United States Digital Service

The White House

Zuzana Love

Product Strategy, Office of Public Health Data, Surveillance, and Technology at the Centers for Disease Control

The White House

Ankit Mathur

Chief Technology Officer

United Network for Organ Sharing

Jeff Beck

CEO & Co-Founder

AnswersNow

Lindsay Jones

Director of User Experience

CapTech

Jill Palkoner

Director of Product Delivery

CapTech

Kelley Williamson

Chief Purpose Officer

Wellist

Patrick Moran

Chief Operating Officer, Co-Founder

Look North World (LNW)

Megan Sowder

Product Manager

United States Digital Service

Kasey Hayes

Partner

CURE

Thank You for a Great Event!

Huge thank you to our sponsors, committee + volunteers, and, of course - our attendees!

View the Event Photos!

Introducing rvatech/ ProductFest RVA

Join us for Richmond’s inaugural Product Management conference, ProductFest RVA, created for Product Managers by Product Mangers. Enjoy a day surrounded by the most forward-thinking voices in the industry as we gather for incredible presentations and working sessions given by a diverse lineup of speakers that will leave you feeling inspired and motivated.

Register Today

Conference Details -

About the Event

Join us in Richmond, Virginia, and let’s stray away from your average workday and dedicate some time towards you. Get ready for a day of innovative sessions focused on connecting with the Richmond product community and growing your career.

 

ProductFest RVA promises a full day of skill development, new ideas, and connections to supercharge your product career.


Date + Time

June 8, 2022 | 9 AM – 5 PM


Venue

Science Museum of Virginia – Thalhimer Pavilion

2500 West Broad Street

Richmond, VA 23220

 

Parking: 2301 W Leigh Street Richmond, VA 23220

 

Science Museum parking is ample and free. Spaces near the front of the building are designated for guests with mobility challenges. All other guests should park in the lot located directly behind the Science Museum off West Leigh Street or DMV Drive. Signage will provide you with WALKING directions to the Thalhimer Pavilion.


You may also view a detailed parking map here.

One Room,
Two Stages + Simultaneous Content.


Welcome to our Silent Conference. Powered by Silent Events® – we’re bringing our attendees a conference experience they’ve never seen before. Each attendee will receive their own headset enabling you to listen to whatever speaker you want by tuning into that channel via your headset.

 

We’re making it easier for the product community to come together to learn, engage, and have fun!

 

Love both speakers – there’s no need for FOMO, just switch the channels.


There’s no breakout commitment – change the channel and check out what’s happening on the other stage!


Feeling Social? That’s cool too – take off your headset + chat it up without fear of disruption.

 

 

 

 

Silent Events | DJ Service Niagara | Liquid Entertainment

2022 Agenda

9:00 - 9:30 AM / Registration

Registration / Networking – Doors Open at 9 AM

9:30 - 9:45 AM / Welcome

Welcoming remarks from rvatech/ + ProductTank Organizers

9:45 - 10:30 AM / Morning Keynote -
RVA as a Product Town

Speakers: Garret Westlake - VCU, Bill Harney - Keeping Current Matters, Casey Humphries - UNOS + Shannon Eastwood - Aquent

RVA as a Product Town – Past, Present + Future

 

Speakers:

 

Garret Westlake – Executive Director at VCU da Vinci Center for Innovation

Bill Harney – CEO at Keeping Current Matters

Casey Humphries – Logistical Products Service Line Leader at UNOS

Moderator – Shannon Eastwood – Senior Product Manager at Aquent


Over the years, Richmond has grown significantly as a product and technology town. Our Morning Keynote panelists will share their experience and perspective regarding how the product scene has evolved in RVA, past, present, and future.

10:40 - 11:25 AM / "It Pays to Discover… Properly"

Speakers: Amy O'Callaghan - Vangst + Victoria Lawson - CarMax

Speakers:

 

Amy O’Callaghan – Head of Product at Vangst

Victoria Lawson – Director, Product Management at CarMax


Discovery is an incredible tool, but it’s all too easy for bias and assumptions to derail our efforts. Join Victoria and Amy as they share how cognitive shortcuts show up in discovery, and how to build a learning agenda to outwit them. You’ll walk away with actionable techniques that you can immediately apply – whether you’re an experienced pro refining an established toolkit, or just starting out.

 

10:40 - 11:25 AM / Storytelling with Product Analytics

Speakers:

 

Chandler Tyler – Product Strategist at Shockoe


With hundreds of different data analysis tools and the allure of “big data” superpowers, it’s easy to get lost in a sea of meaningless reports and graphs. As product people, we have to not only make sense of the data we collect, but also tell a compelling story about what the data actually means to the customer or the business. In this session, Chandler will explain how to effectively leverage data to tell product stories using a combination of visualizations and narratives that create actionable outcomes.

11:35 AM - 12:20 PM / "The Value of Building Inclusive Product Teams"

Speakers: Dr. Kendra Cabler - Etsy, Somiah Lattimore - U of R + Charlotte Dales - Inclusively

Speakers:

 

Dr. Kendra Cabler – Senior Manager, DEI at Etsy

Somiah Lattimore – Director, Creativity, Innovation & Entrepreneurship at University of Richmond

Charlotte Dales – CEO of Inclusively

Moderator – Shannon Morales


It’s easy to build high-performing product teams that get the job done. But what’s the value in the team if it doesn’t reflect its’ users or generally is not inclusive? Today, we want to unpack some of the stories, experiences, and perspectives on building inclusive product teams – from the team itself all the way to the organizational level of inclusion and diversity.

11:35 AM - 12:20 PM / "Driving Decisions From Experience Data"

Speakers:Ann Marie Guzzi - Koalafi, Jordan Silton - Apartments.com + Odean Maye - Capital One

Speakers:

 

Jordan Silton – Senior Director of Product, SE at Apartments.com

Ann Marie Guzzi – Senior Product Manager at Koalafi

Odean Maye – Director of Technology at Capital One


Our world is full of data. From the things we read, the content we watch, and the products we interact with daily. We need data to help understand our customers and products that help us make decisions to drive your business forward.

 

Making decisions with data is great in theory, but what does it mean to be data-driven in practice? Join Ann Marie, Jordan, and Odean as they share how they share some of their experiences on using data (or lack thereof) to build products and drive decisions forward. From their experience, hear how data-driven decision-making can enable you to be a more effective product leader in your organization or entrepreneur in your venture.

12:20 - 1:20 PM / Lunch + Live-cast

Lunch / Networking / LIVE Product Podcast

Lunch will be provided by local food trucks!

1:20 - 2:05 PM / "Building Healthy Product Manager Teams"

Speaker: Abhi Agrawal - VP of Product Management, Ceridian

Speakers:

 

Abhi Agrawal – VP of Product Management at Ceridian


A lot of time is spent discussing how to build the right roadmap (“Outcomes over Outputs!”) or the right process (Agile vs. SCRUM vs. SAFe), but little time is spent on leading healthy product teams. In this talk, Abhi will discuss some of the principles that have worked for him in the past, and the tactics that you can try as you build your PM team.

1:20 - 2:05 PM / "The Path to Yes"

Speaker: Lauren Fox - Director of Product Management, Capital One

Speakers:

 

Lauren Fox – Director of Product Management at Capital One


Influence is the skill of the 21st-century workplace. As a product manager, you wrangle and bring together stakeholders from numerous functions, businesses, and in many cases external partners to deliver your vision to the market. In this talk, we break down what goes into influencing successfully, especially when you aren’t leading from a position of hierarchical authority, and build you a roadmap to successfully get a “yes” to your great ideas.

2:25 - 3:00 PM / Afternoon Keynote -
The Art of Being Ridiculous

Grayson Scott @ Sony Music Entertainment

Speaker:

 

Grayson Scott – Director of Product Design at Sony Music Entertainment


There is a power within that endows us with a healthier, more productive, and less stressed-filled life. This superpower grants the user the ability to lead teams better, communicate more effectively, and protects them from career burnout. It even generates additional neural connections within the brain leading to a boost in memory.

 

However, this power has a dark side. When used inappropriately, it isolates you from your family and your coworkers. If left unchecked, it will have a corrosive effect on everyone around you. So how do you harness this amazing power without becoming a supervillain?

 

At the end of the session, attendees will understand:

 

  • What multiple scientific studies and even Albert Einstein attributed to becoming brilliant
  • Increase your verbal and non-verbal intelligence while managing stress and adversity
  • Open the learning centers of your brain and become more creative
  • Know when it’s time to save the day, and when it’s time to walk away

3:00 - 4:30 PM / Happy Hour

2022 Speakers

Amy O'Callaghan

Head of Product

Vangst

Abhi Agrawal

VP of Product Management

Ceridian

Victoria Lawson

Director, Product Management

CarMax

Jordan Silton

Senior Director of Product, SEO

Apartments.com

Grayson Scott

Director of Product Design

Sony Music

Shannon Eastwood

Senior Product Manager

Aquent

Lauren Fox

Director of Product Management

Capital One

Garret Westlake

Executive Director

VCU da Vinci Center for Innovation

Dr. Kendra Cabler

Senior Manager, DEI

Etsy

Isaiah Harvin

Product Manager

HBO Max

Charlotte Dales

CEO

Inclusively

Casey Humphries

Logistical Products Service Line Leader

UNOS

Shannon Morales

CEO

Tribaja

Bill Harney

CEO

Keeping Current Matters

Ann Marie Guzzi

Senior Product Manager

Koalafi

Odean Maye

Director, Technology

Capital One

Chandler Tyler

Product Strategist

Shockoe

2022 Sponsors

Register For This Event

About the Event

Welcome to the first full-day DigitalRVA conference. Here Richmond’s digital marketing community will come together to learn, share, and network.

 

Who Should Attend:

The DigitalRVA conference was designed for digital marketers, by digital marketers. No matter where you are in your career you’ll gain insights from industry leaders at organizations like CarMax, The Martin Agency and Meta.

 

What You’ll Learn:

Throughout the day speakers will share the latest in cutting-edge digital marketing tactics and strategies with an eye towards AI and automation, marketing technology, and analytics. You’ll leave with a better understanding of the tools and techniques you can apply to your daily work to move the needle.

Date + Time

September 7, 2023

9:00 – 9:30 AM – Doors open & light breakfast

9:30 AM – 5:00 PM – Conference

5:00 – 5:30 PM – Happy Hour

Venue

The Park RVA

2601 Durham St., Richmond, VA 23220

 

Registration

2023's Featured Keynote Speaker Jaclyn Ruelle

About Jaclyn
Work that transcends culture. That’s what you get with the lightening-in-a-bottle mind and personality of Jaclyn Ruelle, a 16+ year industry vet with an earned-first brand approach that’s catapulting brands into consumers’ hearts and minds. Still talked about, Jaclyn was the strategic storyteller behind one of the most famous viral campaigns: “World’s Toughest Job,” by American Greetings during her time at MullenLowe. She created the first-ever Cultural Impact Lab at the Martin Agency, deploying earned media to the forefront of innovative, cultural storytelling for brands like Buffalo Wild Wings, CarMax, DoorDash, Old Navy and GEICO— to name a few. The Cultural Impact Lab was a fusion of specialists, including comms strategy and paid media experts who create magnetic campaigns engineered for global impact. Now in her first brand-side role at Papa Johns, Ruelle is paving the way for a more humanity driven, pizza-eating occasion brand platform.

What's On Tap

9:30 – 9:45 a.m.

Intro + Welcome

More Details

Kick off the conference with a welcome from Workshop Digital’s Andrew Miller.

9:45 – 10:15 a.m.

Embracing Change: An Optimistic Future for Digital Marketers in a Data-Driven World

Andrew Miller, Workshop Digital

More Details

Andrew will explore how machine learning and analytics are not just shaping, but revolutionizing, the field of digital marketing and how marketers can adapt to stay relevant. Can our strategies evolve fast enough to stay ahead of the tide? Or will we be left behind? The future might be built on silicon chips and algorithms, but it’s also brimming with promise for humans that can embrace the change.

10:15 – 11:00 a.m.

The Tipping Point of Social: How the Landscape is Shifting for Brands and Creators

Meg Craig and Bradley Wells, The Martin Agency

More Details

Unmasking the Challenges
In an era where digital transformation is the norm, we find ourselves at the tipping point of social media. As culture rapidly evolves, algorithms do too. We’re seeing content saturation and creator fatigue like never before. But in the midst of these challenges, how do brands and creators adapt and flourish?

The Martin Agency’s Edge
At CIL, we view these challenges not as obstacles, but as cues for innovation. We take on the battle against invisibility, injecting audience insights and cultural moments to bring brands to the top of the feed.

The Future of Social Media Engagement
The next evolution of social is an exciting realm of possibility, one that’s set to redefine brand and audience connection. We’re seeing audiences and influencers command a larger seat at the table, requiring in-depth audience segmentation, and continued integration of public relations and storytelling.

11:00 – 11:15 a.m.

Break

More Details

Grab some coffee and catch up with friends, old and new.

11:15 – 12:00 p.m.

Auditorium Stage: Know When Strangers Need to Buy

Chris Gatewood, Name Warden

More Details

Use public data to identify strangers’ specific moments of need. Specific events drive specific demand. Unsolicited marketing can be a nuisance, unless it is actually something you need, when you need it. Many of those events can be found in public records, once they are captured and organized.

Business events drive demand. Knowing about those events will drive revenue. Years ago, we started an automatic deadline-tracking service for lawyers. We don’t do that anymore. We now only sell event-driven demand. This is based on publicly reported events that we capture and organize so that a service provider only addresses a current and real need. This is our example. Across many industries, data from other licensing bodies and regulators show events that create demand. We will talk through a few examples such as professional service providers, auto dealers, equipment leasing companies, and high-growth startups.

11:15 – 12:00 p.m.

Beer Garden Stage: AI/Automation Panel

Chris Busse, Terazo, Subhash Jaini, Keiter, Ren Lacerda, CarMax, Patrick Cusumano, Workshop Digital

More Details

Details coming soon!

12:00 – 1:00 p.m.

Lunch

More Details

Need we say more? Grab some lunch and enjoy the good food, great networking, and awesome venue.

1:00 – 1:45 p.m.

Auditorium Stage: Whole Human-Centered Marketing: Personalizing the Customer Journey Using Modern Data Platforms and Sales Tactics that Return a More Holistic Customer View

Amee Mungo, Terazo

Victoria Flood, Terazo

More Details

The world is steadily continuing its shift from reliance on third- to first-party customer data, and new privacy legislation, including Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and California’s Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), have created unique and sometimes business-altering obstacles for marketers. With these challenges, however, come great new opportunities that, if leveraged correctly, can increase sales, trust, and customer loyalty.

In this session with Terazo’s Chief Strategy Officer Amee Mungo, you’ll gain insights on developing a whole human-centered marketing engagement strategy. Customize your modern data platform to gain a holistic view of your customers, track them across their sales journey, and personalize marketing touchpoints while meeting them where they are on their terms.

1:00 – 1:45 p.m.

Beer Garden Stage: The Future Of SEO Content: How To Rank & Stay On Top Of The SERPs

Bernard Huang, Clearscope

More Details

Google wants to serve users helpful content. What are the characteristics that make content relevant to searchers? And what does this mean for your SEO content strategy moving forward? We’ll cover the evolution of Google’s stance on SEO content and where we’re heading. Come prepared to learn about topical authority, information gain, ranch-style SEO, and the implications of AI generated content.

1:45 – 2:30 p.m.

Auditorium Stage: Influencers 2.0

Rosalie Morton, Padilla

More Details

Just a few years ago, trust in online influencers was at an all-time low, as many were exposed for boosting their follower counts with bots. Initially this led to backlash for the burgeoning industry, but eventually created an opportunity for micro-influencers to take centerstage. These authentic, often locally-focused influencers not only have highly engaged followers, they are usually more cost effective for brands. Their content easily can be repurposed as ads, sharing brand messages more meaningfully than typical advertising. Rosalie will show first-hand case studies of how Padilla has used influencers effectively to drive results, whether it’s for signatures on a petition, creating content that goes viral (yes, actually viral), or simply driving brand engagement.

1:45 – 2:30 p.m.

Beer Garden Stage: Go Beyond Reporting and Uncover the True Impact of Marketing

Brad Goldschmidt, KJ Travis, Zeke Brody, CarMax

More Details

The customer journey is only getting more complicated. Media consumption as at an all-time high and Marketers are tasked with identifying the most optimal way to allocate their spend to drive a true impact to sales. Join Brad Goldschmidt, KJ Travis and Zeke Brody from CarMax, the largest used car retailer in the Nation and find out how their Marketing Analytics team leverages data and Advanced Analytics techniques to measure the effectiveness of Marketing and drive spend decisions.

2:30 – 2:45 p.m.

Break

More Details

Stretch your legs and share your takeaways from the sessions during the afternoon break.

2:45 – 3:30 p.m.

Auditorium Stage: Herding Cats: Getting Organized for an Omnichannel MarComm Strategy

Casey Prentice, The Hodges Partnership

More Details

Gone are the days where marketers could get away with focusing on just a channel or two to get their message across. Now, there are half a dozen social media networks, a website or two, maybe even a mobile app or brick-and-mortar to account for. Whether you’re in-house or agency, when it comes to managing an omnichannel MarComm strategy, you’re juggling about a 1,000 parts and pieces. This presentation will cover off on three steps to getting organized and building a foundation before you write your first line of copy or bid on your first digital ad.

2:45 – 3:30 p.m.

Beer Garden Stage: Engage Your Audience Creatively with Instagram

Gibran Jones, Meta

More Details

Engage Your Audience with Meta

In Engage Your Audience with Meta, you’ll learn how to craft and optimize engaging content on Facebook and Instagram. You’ll discover best practices for communicating with your audience and creating content to maximize your business presence online.

 

In this session, participants will:

  • Identify what tools and creative formats to use to form a community on Facebook and Instagram.
  • Learn best practices for creating engaging content on Facebook and Instagram.
  • Learn best practices for communicating with your audience on Facebook and Instagram.

3:30 – 4:00 p.m.

The Bright Future of Black Boxes: Navigating Paid Media in the Age of AI and Invisible Attribution

Susan Wenograd

More Details

This talk will cover:

  • The warning signs no one wanted to see, and how it’s culled the pack for successful brands.
  • How we know more than we think about doing more with media and less data.
  • The inflection points of where computers outperform us – and how it empowers media buying humans to do our jobs even better.
  • Why this is all actually good for the future of marketing as a whole.

4:00 – 4:45 p.m.

Keynote: Innovation in Pizza: Creating Brand Differentiation

Jaclyn Ruelle

More Details

We’ll take a look at the innovative marketing efforts by Papa Johns, who is one of the brands leading the way in the mass pizza category.
How does product + consumer + marketing innovations create unique points of differentiation for the brand to stand out and breakthrough.

4:45 – 4:50 p.m.

Conclusion

Nick Serfass, CEO, rvatech/

More Details

Let’s close out the conference together.

4:50 – 5:30 p.m.

Happy Hour

More Details

Need we say more? Let’s end with a great happy hour and networking!

About DigitalRVA


DigitalRVA was founded in 2017 as a series of community meet-up events aimed at bringing together data-driven marketers of all levels of experience, from freelancers to Fortune 500, to create a welcoming, inclusive, diverse set of voices and perspectives to boost Richmond's growing digital marketing community.

Register for the Conference

2025 Conference Information

Agenda Launching Soon!

2024 Speakers

Sharon Gai

Author & Speaker

Bayan Bruss

VP, Applied AI Research

Capital One

Nick Agliano

Software Engineer

Simple Thread

Karen Akens

Lead Data Consultant

Merakata, Inc.

Kelly Bell

Senior Procurement Analyst

Defense Logistics Agency

Ace Callwood

Director

Envoy

Christopher Chin

Data Storytelling and Presentation Trainer

The Hidden Speaker

Shailesh Deshpande

Senior Vice President, Data Management

Bank of America

Tom Estella

AlphaAdvisors

Founding Partner

Andrew Fast

VP of Technology

DataShapes

Danica Fine

Staff Developer Advocate

Confluent

Ashley Ford

Data Science Director

CarMax

Rahim Islam

Solutions Delivery Manager

MAXX Potential

Subhash Jaini

Managing Director- Innovative Data Solutions

Managing Director- Innovative Data Solutions

Cristopher Kuehl

VP, AI & Data Science

Akkodis

Matt Leary

Analytics Manager

Markel

Aravindh Manickavasagam

Sr. Technical Program Manager

Instacart

Jason Merrick

Professor

Virginia Commonwealth University

Vishal Patel

Founder & Chief Data Scientist

Derive, LLC

Ina Poecher

Data Science Manager

World Wide Technology

Daniel Pries

Engineering Manager

M&T Bank

Malik Pullela

Head, Global Enterprise Analytics & Enterprise Reporting

Hamilton Beach Brands Inc.

Neelam Singh

Director of Data Analytics

United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS)

Jason Snook

Fellow

CapTech

Becky Tippett

Chief Accountability Officer

Virginia Early Childhood Foundation

Ankit Virmani

Sr. Cloud Data Architect

Google

RVA's leading Data Conference Returns March 2022.

Join the technology community March 2022, for our next conference full of innovation, in-depth workshops, and incredible presentations given by a diverse line-up of expert speakers + thought leaders at rvatech/DataSummit. Get immersed in the world of Data & discover the trends, and innovations shaping the future of technology!

Register Now

About the Event

Tech is continuously evolving and innovating, making it essential to stay ahead of the curve and explore the year’s trending technology. In 2022, artificial intelligence and data science are continuing to move from the realm of university research to be a critical part of a software developers toolkit and a key differentiator for forward-leaning companies.


Schedule

9:30 AM – 5:oo PM


Student Tickets

Discount Rate – The special discounted rate for student tickets is 25% off. That’s $50 off the regular ticket price!

 

Discount code: DATA22STUDENT

 

**All student tickets must provide a student .edu email address when registering**

Conference Registration

Purchase Your Tickets


Venue

Science Museum of Virginia – Dewey Gottwald Center

 

2301 W Leigh Street Richmond, VA 23220


Common Questions


Where exactly am I going?

The Dewey Gottwald Center is located behind the museum. Parking lot entrance located off of West Leigh Street or DMV Drive.

Where do I park?

Science Museum parking is ample and free. Spaces near the front of the building are designated for guests with mobility challenges. All other guests should park in the lot located directly behind the Science Museum off West Leigh Street or DMV Drive.


You may also view a detailed parking map here.

Meet the Keynotes

Dr. Scott Penberthy

 

Director, Applied AI, Office of the CTO

at Google


Session: Thinking like Newton

Dr. Scott will share his perspective and personal experience on the journey from being a kid playing baseball and writing code in Midlothian Va, to the rise of AI and Machine Learning, its use in business and most recently the discovery of the source code to life. He’ll show how simple curiosities can lead to grand discoveries, often by making naive observations and asking what at first appear to be stupid questions. These are now leading to the vaccination of millions against terrible disease, the prevention of cancer, and soon perhaps a cure for gray hair.

Dr. Timothy Haas

 

Professor of Statistics and Wildlife Conservation

Author at University of Wisconsin


Session: How Firms can Apply Data Science to Save Species

Ecosystem loss, extinctions and climate change are ongoing challenges to life on Earth, and coming up with a plan to tackle their effects requires an accurate picture of what’s happening where, and who is involved.

Prof Tim Haas, University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, has taught and refined such models for years. In his latest paper, he lays out the case for a model unifying human behaviour, climate and ecosystem data, the computational power required to run it, and the credibility criteria any model should meet to prove its worth.

Conference Agenda

9:30 - 10 AM
Registration + Morning Networking

10 - 10:50 AM | Keynote - Dr. Timothy Haas
"How Firms can Apply Data Science to Save Species"

Speaker: Dr. Timothy Haas – Univ. of Wisconsin

 

Ecosystem loss, extinctions and climate change are ongoing challenges to life on Earth, and coming up with a plan to tackle their effects requires an accurate picture of what’s happening where, and who is involved.

 

Prof Tim Haas, University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, has taught and refined such models for years. In his latest paper, he lays out the case for a model unifying human behaviour, climate and ecosystem data, the computational power required to run it, and the credibility criteria any model should meet to prove its worth.

10:50 - 11:20 AM | Keynote - Ovetta Sampson
V.P Machine Learning Experience Design & Responsible AI at Capital One

11:25 AM - 12:05 PM | Breakout Session #1
"Machine Learning Orchestration with Airflow"
Data Ethics Panel

Session: Machine Learning Orchestration with Airflow

 

Speaker: Dr. Santona Tuli – Astronomer

 

While more popular as a ETL and data engineering tool, Airflow is also extremely powerful at orchestrating machine learning pipelines. In this talk, I show how you can write complete end-to-end pipelines starting with retrieving raw data to serving ML predictions to end-users, entirely in Airflow.

 

A plethora of tools have flooded the field of data science, many of which have overlapping functionality. As a data scientist‚ especially as one from a traditionally disenfranchised background with limited resources‚ selecting and learning the right tools in order to maximize one’s competitiveness in the job market, can be intimidating and, possibly, challenging. In this talk, I will walk through an end-to-end data science workflow using only easily accessible open-source software (OSS). Many of these OSS in fact form the basis of the enterprise products that companies purchase as tools for their data professionals to use. Knowing the underlying software can give data scientists the competitive advantage of being tool-agnostic and quick at picking up new tools in an ever-evolving landscape. We will use OSS for data featurization, machine learning model training and serving as well as validation and visualization of results.


 

Session: Panel on Data Ethics

 

Speakers: 

Abigail Byram – Data Engineer at SingleStone Consulting

Jodi Kuhn – Director, Office of Data Quality and Visualization at Commonwealth of Virginia

Zachary Knitter – Data Engineer, Office of Data Quality and Visualization at Commonwealth of Virginia

12:05 - 1 PM
Lunch Break + Networking
Live Data Privacy Podcast Session

Lunch provided by Groovin’ Gourmet 

 

Live Podcast on Data Privacy and Governance

 

Featured Guests:

Marcus Thornton, Deputy Chief Data Officer – Virginia Office of Data Governance and Analytics

Souj Narasimhacharya, Senior Vice President of Engineering – Koalafi

Ford Prior, Principal Cloud Engineer – CarMax

 

1- 1:45 PM | Breakout Session #2
"From Model to Micro-service - ML Deployments At Scale"
"Achieving Data Acumen: Improving Workforce Literacy"

Session: From Model to Micro-service – ML Deployments At Scale

 

Speaker: Ed Shee, Head of Developer Relations at Seldon

 

Until recently, the data science / machine learning field has been pretty immature in it’s adoption of DevOps tools and processes. That’s now changing rapidly as engineering teams realise that, in order to gain any value from their ML models, they need to get them into production.

In this talk, Ed will introduce the open source Seldon Core library and show how it simplifies the steps required to containerise, serve, log and monitor an ML model during deployment. Ed will demonstrate live how to build a model using popular machine learning tools, save and store the model artefact and then deploy it to Kubernetes to handle production traffic.

You will learn how to turn an ML model into a production microservice that handles REST/gRPC traffic and how to scale your deployment. You’ll also learn how to use complex model deployment techniques and how to monitor both the infrastructure and the models themselves, spotting drift and outliers as they take place.


 

Session: Achieving Data Acumen: Improving Workforce Literacy

 

Speaker: Peter Aiken – VCU & Anything Awesome

1:50- 2:25 PM | Breakout Session #3
"Sculpting Data for Machine Learning"
"Principles of Building Greenfield Data Platforms"

Session: Sculpting Data for Machine Learning

 

Speakers:

Jigyasa Grover, Machine Learning Engineer at Twitter

Rishabh Misra, Machine Learning Engineer at Twitter

 

In the contemporary world of machine learning algorithms – “data is the new oil”. For the state-of-the-art ML algorithms to work their magic it’s important to lay a strong foundation with access to relevant data. Volumes of crude data are available on the web nowadays, and all we need are the skills to identify and extract meaningful datasets. This talk aims to present the power of the most fundamental aspect of Machine Learning – Dataset Curation, which often does not get its due limelight. It will also walk the audience through the process of constructing good quality datasets as done in formal settings with a simple hands-on Pythonic example. The goal is to institute the importance of data, especially in its worthy format, and the spell it casts on fabricating smart learning algorithms.


 

Session: Principles of Building Greenfield Data Platforms

 

Speaker: Sam Portillo, Data Engineer at Ippon

2:30 - 3:15 PM | Breakout Session #4
"The Pre-cloud to Multi-Cloud journey with Cassandra on Kubernetes"
"Not-so-good-vibrations: Electric Grid Oscillations and Unearned Data Wisdom"

Session: The Pre-cloud to Multi-Cloud journey with Cassandra on Kubernetes

 

Speaker: Raghavan “Rags” Srinivas, Lead multi-cloud Developer Advocate at Datastax

 

Although some of today’s cloud properties, like elasticity, scalability, self-healing, durability, DR, etc. seemed revolutionary during the pre-cloud days, Cassandra had many of these properties already. With the ever growing popularity of Kubernetes, the k8ssandra open source project is intended to bring Cassandra’s advantages to the cloud and help simplify operations.

The biggest challenge in the Kubernetes world today is multi-cloud. Although it is easy to conceptualize, it is hard to implement. Attend this session for a quick overview of Cassandra, k8ssandra and Astra (DBaas). You will see how the worlds of Cassandra and Kubernetes on the cloud collide in a remarkably cohesive way to incorporate the best of both.

After attending this primarily demo driven session, attendees will walk away with a good understanding of the k8ssandra project and how it is evolving to support multi-region and multi-cloud. Along this journey we will look at one-off deployments on GKE, EKS including multi-cloud (GKE and EKS). On EKS, we leverage EKS Kubefed.


 

Session: Not-so-good-vibrations: Electric Grid Oscillations and Unearned Data Wisdom

 

Speaker: Kevin Jones, Manager – Electric Transmission Operations Engineering Support at Dominion Energy

 

This will be a fun and novel session that will expose participants to new flavors of data as well as electric grid use cases that address some of the more pernicious challenges of decarbonization. The talk will be grounded (no pun intended) for the practitioner audience by then exploring the perils of applying unearned wisdom on data-focused digital transformation through the lens of this unique set of use cases and data types. It will conclude by providing a (possible) alternative framework, as well as its contemporary significance and necessity, for the transfer and application of such wisdom.

3:20 - 3:55 PM | Keynote - Dr. Scott Penberthy - Director of Applied AI, Office of the CTO at Google
"Thinking like Newton"

Session: Thinking like Newton

Speaker: Dr. Scott Penberthy, Director of Applied AI, Office of the CTO at Google

 

Dr. Scott will share his perspective and personal experience on the journey from being a kid playing baseball and writing code in Midlothian Va, to the rise of AI and Machine Learning, its use in business and most recently the discovery of the source code to life. He’ll show how simple curiosities can lead to grand discoveries, often by making naive observations and asking what at first appear to be stupid questions. These are now leading to the vaccination of millions against terrible disease, the prevention of cancer, and soon perhaps a cure for gray hair.

2022 Speakers



Dr. Scott Penberthy

Director, Applied AI, Office of the CTO

Google

Dr. Timothy Haas

Professor

University of Wisconsin

Ed Shee

Head of Developer Relations

Seldon

Dr. Santona Tuli

Staff Data Scientist

Astronomer

Sam Portillo

Data Engineer

Ippon

Peter Aiken

Associate Professor of Information Systems

VCU + Anything Awesome

Abigail Byram

Data Engineer

SingleStone Consulting

Jigyasa Grover

Machine Learning Engineer

Twitter

Rishabh Misra

Machine Learning Engineer

Twitter

Raghavan Srinivas

Lead multi-cloud Developer Advocate

Datastax

Kevin Jones

Engineering Analytics & Modeling

Dominion Energy

Marcus Thornton

Deputy Chief Data Officer

Virginia Office of Data Governance and Analytics

Souj Narasimhacharya

Senior Vice President of Engineering

Koalafi

Jodi Kuhn

Director, Office of Data Quality and Visualization

at Commonwealth of Virginia

Zachary Knitter

Data Engineer, Office of Data Quality and Visualization

at Commonwealth of Virginia

Register For This Event

What to Expect

The RVAjs conference is a must-attend event for JavaScript and web developers, UX/UI designers, DevOps and security professionals, AI enthusiasts, frontend developers, micro frontend and GraphQL enthusiasts, IoT developers, and anyone interested in software development. The conference covers a wide range of topics, from JavaScript in the age of AI to UX design, security, and IoT integration, making it an excellent opportunity to stay updated on industry trends and network with fellow technology enthusiasts.

Register Today

Conference Schedule

More Info

Location: Main Stage
This talk is a candid exploration of the intersection between AI and JavaScript engineering. Let’s confront our sobering new reality head on with clear eyes and an open mind. While we face the daunting reality that AI is replacing certain jobs this talk is not a doomsday prophecy. Instead, we’ll discuss strategies that can transform AI from a threat into a powerful ally. Let’s discover what it takes to not only survive, but thrive.

More Info

Location: RF&P Forum

Devs rely on Hot Module Replacement, but few know how it works. Not to mention the confusion between watch mode, live reloading, and HMR. In this talk, we’ll reinvent HMR from first principles, giving you the confidence to work with HMR where ever you find it (webpack, vite, etc..).

More Info

Location: Gottwald B

Are your JavaScript applications technically sound, but lacking that polish and special spark that makes users fall in love with them? If you want to create web applications that also leave a lasting impression on your users, it’s time to embrace User Experience (UX) design.

In this session, we’ll cover the secrets of creating web applications that go beyond being merely functional to becoming fun, intuitive, and memorable experiences for your users. The talk will cover the essential UX principles that every JavaScript developer should know, with practical examples of how to implement them effortlessly into your projects.

Whether you’re a seasoned JavaScript developer or just starting your journey, this talk will leave you with valuable insights to create applications that resonate with your users on a deeper level.

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Location: Main Stage
Unlock the exciting world of game development with JavaScript skills you already know! Learn the many ways that game dev mirrors web dev, and take away easy entry points for you to try it yourself. You will expand your horizons, and gain practical insights to level up your skills across the board!

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Location: RF&P Forum
Join me for an introduction to Melange, a game-changer in type-safe web development and the spiritual successor to BuckleScript/ReasonML. We will examine the current state of TypeScript, its strengths and weaknesses, and why it creates a compelling story for a solution like Melange.

Diving deeper, we’ll discuss Melange’s core offerings: OCaml’s unparalleled type system and its integration within the OCaml ecosystem and toolchain. We will also learn about Melange’s ability to compose and bind to existing packages and tooling in the JS/TS ecosystem with minimal friction.

Finally, we’ll explore the developer experience of Melange, touching upon its editor integrations, the friendly and growing community, available libraries, and state-of-the-art tooling.

Whether you’re a seasoned TypeScript developer or just getting started, this talk will offer a fresh and interesting perspective on type-safe web development, positioning Melange as the next frontier.

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Location: Gottwald B
Today’s JS apps have hundreds of dependencies. It’s extremely important to understand the risks of your software supply chain – in a manner that’s highly automated, stays out of the way and gives you context about your changes in each pull request.

This talk will begin with an overview of supply chain risks and the standards/tech in the space. Then we’ll dive into how to give engineers context right in a pull request/CICD pipeline about any security issues with their dependency changes. Of course, this is an ongoing process once your app is deployed, so we’ll discuss strategies to make the process as painless as possible.

As a bonus, it’s very likely that your full dependency tree is beyond npm, to everything else in your containers and the hosts that you’re running on. This interactions can be complex and hard to get a handle on. We’ll end by discussing what a holistic supply chain strategy looks like.

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Location: Main Stage
SolidJS is the fastest framework available with a programming API similar to React. JSX, Typescript, Reactive, Server side rendering – Solid has it all, including a Universal Renderer to allow you to create your own framework. Get an intro to Solid and how I built my own webgl renderer with Solid.

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Location: RF&P Forum
Web components are a set of technologies that encapsulate custom code within native HTML tags and DOM Nodes, no virtual DOM, bundler or build pipeline needed. We’ll review key concepts and features of web components, slots, template composition, and the role of StencilJS.

We’ll explore how we can use UI web component libraries and utility classes like TailwindCSS to help solve challenges in multi-tenant systems, WordPress/Shopify templates, and more.

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Location: Gottwald B
As a car owner, we *know* if we lose our access token (the key) anyone can drive your beloved Eleanor away. In the online world you can lose your access token without even knowing it’s gone. Let’s talk about ways we can help prove rightful possession of an access token when accessing sensitive data like bank accounts and NOC lists.

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Location: Main Stage

Have you heard of Web Bluetooth? It ties local devices to the Web through a browser using JavaScript. For example, this allows you to share your fitness tracker data in the cloud for analysis or sharing with others. The ease with which Web Bluetooth allows this flexibility will impact healthcare, home, and industry.

This presentation assumes no Bluetooth knowledge and will introduce the relevant concepts to understand Web Bluetooth and how to use the API in the JavaScript ecosystem. A demonstration will be given to show how a wearable device can communicate with the cloud using JavaScript and Web Bluetooth. Additionally, the development and testing hurdles which center around the requirement for secure connections such as HTTPS will be explained. Finally, the broader scope of this technology’s impact on healthcare, home, and industry will be discussed along with the security and privacy questions.

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Location: RF&P Forum
SemVer outlines how to communicate when breaking changes exist, but it doesn’t provide guidance on how to introduce breaking changes to application developers. Most of the time you get release notes outlining the breaking changes. If you’re lucky, you might get instructions on how to change your code. Beyond that there’s very little standardization around how to best prepare your users for breaking changes across major releases.
We’ve seen a few approaches work with varying degrees of success, but they often involve painful long-lived feature branches or feature freezes to adopt the new version all at once.

For Remix, we wanted to make this process as smooth as possible, providing the ability to adopt breaking changes one-by-one without the need for long-lived feature branches. Let’s talk about “Future Flags” and our plan to make Remix major upgrades boring for you and your team.

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Location: Gottwald B
In today’s fast-paced technological landscape, complexity seems to be the norm. However, there is a growing need to question this status quo and reevaluate our approach to software development. Simple software offers numerous advantages, from increased productivity and maintainability to improved user experience and reduced costs. In this talk, we will dive into the benefits of simplicity and how it can pave the way to success for software projects.

Key Takeaways:

Understanding the value of simplicity: We will explore why simplicity is essential and the benefits it brings to developers, businesses, and end-users. By examining case studies, we will demonstrate how simple software solutions have outperformed their complex counterparts in various domains.

Principles for simplicity-driven development: Discover a set of principles and best practices that can guide developers in writing or rewriting software with simplicity as a core principle. Learn how to prioritize clarity & modularity.

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Location: Main Stage
Kinsale has seen incredible growth over the past five years, increasing gross written premium from $275.5M in 2018 to $1.1B in 2022. As a result, Kinsale’s application development teams have gone from start up to scale up at a rapid pace, increasing the number of teams significantly. While this has led to an increased throughput by the IT department, it has also lead to some constraints. At one point in 2022, Kinsale had four teams working on the same Angular application with a single pipeline and one set of environments. When one team was testing, other teams were unable to make progress — becoming an ongoing challenge. This situation led Kinsale to consider Micro Frontends as a viable way to accelerate the development process and increase the reusability of code. Kinsale partnered with SingleStone to validate that their frontend architecture modernization effort was grounded in best practices and ensure they were considering all options for HOW and WHEN to leverage Micro Frontends.

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Location: RF&P Forum
Two members of the Apollo Client team, Alessia and Jerel, will show you how we built a non-trivial application using Apollo Client’s new Suspense features, GraphQL features like the @defer directive, and how to combine them to build great user experiences in your own apps.

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Location: Gottwald B
“This product would be so much faster to build if we only had a design system in place!” Well…. maybe. A design system takes care and feeding and requires a good foundation. If you want to achieve developer efficiency and interface consistency, you need to start with the right things.

Starting a design system can be daunting, especially on a more extensive app or family of applications. How do you start, and then how do you implement the plan? What are the pitfalls of common approaches and off-the-shelf setups? We’ll dive into how to start your team on the path of bringing a design system to your organization. We’ll examine and compare the common tooling available for implementation in component systems across multiple frameworks. We’ll identify steps you can take today to move the ball forward, and finally, we’ll discuss some of the pitfalls and concerns to watch for as you move towards a unified experience.

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Location: Main Stage

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Location: RF&P Forum

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Location: Gottwald B
Map, Locations, Driving directions, Nearby, Waypoints…
Join for an engaging “Supercharged Maps” presentation where Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Javascript converge to unveil captivating data stories. I will showcase innovative techniques, experiences, and valuable insights in leveraging the power of GIS visualization through front-end development.

Explore the seamless integration of mapping libraries, data analysis, and backend technologies. Through live demonstrations, you will experience the techniques as front-end developers to harness the full potential of Javascript, infusing life into data narratives through interactive maps.

2023 Speakers

Justin Schroeder

Founder

FormKit Inc.

Momin Khan

Game & Software Engineer

Meeshof & ROOT76 Games, RVA Game Jams

Pedro Cattori

Staff Developer

Remix / Shopify

Chris Lorenzo

Distinguished Engineer

Comcast

Brandon Boswell

VP, User Experience

Dorsata

Rob Szumski

CEO

EdgeBit

Dillon Mulroy

Staff Software Engineer

Skolem

Kevin Druff

Senior Lead Software Engineer

Capital One

Matt Brophy

Staff Developer

Shopify

Alessia Bellisario

Staff Software Engineer

Apollo GraphQL

Paul Otto

Senior Software Developer

Teledyne LeCroy

Patrick Martin

Senior Software Developer

SingleStone

Evan Scott

Senior Software Developer

Kinsale

Brian Childress

Principal Technical Advisor

Summit Labs

John Athayde

Owner

Meticulous, LLC

Christoffer Hallas

Drew Lytle

Jitendrudu Lacaraju

Senior Software Engineer

Timmons Group

Shahruk Khan

Senior Engineer

SK Tech Consulting

Jerel Miller

Principal Software Engineer

Apollo GraphQL