Aaron isa senior consultant at Assurity Consulting Ltd. He is an advocate for agile and lean ways of working, with software testing being my primary area of expertise. Aaron has a particular interest in mental diversity, and is a contributor and mobiliser in the Inclusive Collaboration Campaign which aims to celebrate and nurture neurodiversity in the workplace. His latest professional interests are in ethics, and the human and societal impact of technology and how teams can be more conscious of ways their products may inadvertently cause harm and distress.
'Silicon Valley is run by people who want to be in the tech business, but they are in the people business. They are way, way in over their heads' - Zeynep Tufekci
Tech's obsession with technical expertise, tools, and rapid development has some troubling consequences. In
this presentation, Aaron will present some case studies demonstrating algorithmic cruelty, unethical practices, and harmful software behaviour - all largely unintentional - and offer some practices and models for how to introduce more humanity into our development practices in order to make our products more humane.
Personality quirks, character traits, mental diversity.
Technology thrives on innovation and creativity, and therefore, our industry relies upon a wide variety of people who think, react, work, communicate, interact, and socialise differently. Most modern workplaces value
collaboration, teamwork, interaction, and change, but for many people, some of the ways we work and the working environments that result present unique challenges on top of the day-to-day technical challenges of software development. In some cases, they can stifle the very creativity and innovative thinking we are trying to foster.
In this talk, we'll explore how having a neurodiverse workforce can give you a competitive edge, and how the workplace can respect diverse needs and different requirements for interaction and collaboration to bring out the best in everyone's differences.
