Open Source North 2023
Minneapolis, MN
On May 24th, Justin Dale attended Open Source North located at the University of St. Thomas campus in St. Paul, Minnesota. Open Source North is one of the largest software development conferences in the Twin Cities where over 1,200 local leaders and professionals come to learn, share, and network.
The conference was filled with panels throughout the day talking about everything from AI, development process flow, and ways to better write code. There was time between panels to mingle with peers, talk with the panel presenters, and enjoy the sponsors’ booths.
The panel discussions that Justin attended primarily focused on emerging AI and the uses of it. From the basics of how AI functions, to using it for content creation, and how it’s currently being utilized in the healthcare space. Many of these discussions included ethical uses and biases innate in AI as it sits now, how to be aware, and best practices to work around those situations.
He also attended a panel on writing code for humans called, “Write Boring Code”. This discussion had great takeaways about how shortcuts can save you time in the now but can make things more complicated in the long run (for instance – coming back to fix issues later you might not understand how the shortcut worked and onboarding new people they will also have to become familiar with your unique coding styles).
The last panel of the day was from a UX designer on problem solving and not taking “no” for an answer. The presenter worked for Riot Games and had a feature that was deemed “technically not feasible”, but the customer base was continuing to ask for it. Looking into the why, she was able to solve the problem instead of just accepting the limitation. Her feature was released to great user reception on May 3rd.
Some of the vendors that sponsored the event:
- Best Buy
- Cargill
- Chewy
- Infinite Campus
- Target
- US Bank
Learn more about Open Source North:
Learn about Trexin’s Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning Practice Area and Technology Capability:
