Name: NDC Sydney 2026
Start: 2026-04-22
End: 2026-04-24
Location: NDC Sydney

Aaron is a Developer Advocate at Microsoft, focusing on .NET and Azure. Having spent 20 years doing web development he's seen it all, from browser wars, the rise of AJAX and the fall of 20 JavaScript frameworks (and that was just yesterday!). Always tinkering with something new he explores crazy ideas like writing your own implementation of numbers in .NET, creating IoC in JavaScript or implementing tic-tac-toe using git commits.

Adam is the AI Practice Lead at Agile Insights. He works with customers to help them understand where AI can empower their organisations, and then makes that vision come to life. Adam loves adopting emerging technologies early, and then sharing best practices and lessons learned with the broader development community. In his downtime, you can find him outdoors camping, kayaking, cycling, 4WDing, or at the beach.

Adam is part of the Open-Source Program Office (OSPO) at DT where he works as a DevRel focusing on observability and security. SCUBA diving is his passion. Outside work you can find him on, in or under the sea.

After almost two decades of leading digital transformation and building technology solutions at scale, I've embarked on a new mission: making AI a force for good by making it accessible to anyone ready to build, learn, and grow.

Amy is a business owner,  senior developer, mentor and international conference speaker. She has a passion for sharing knowledge with the community with a focus on nurturing the next generation of developers. This has led to her organising and volunteering at events, running technical workshops, and writing and producing her own video content. She also regularly presents and keynotes at events all over the world, informing and entertaining audiences from a variety of industries and backgrounds.

A familiar face in the developer community Amy volunteers her time with several groups, including DDD Perth as Vice Chair and Director of Conference Content, Perth Azure User Group as one of the organising team and She Codes as a regular mentor. These contributions are not unnoticed, as she’s been recognised as a Microsoft MVP and a Twilio Champion since 2019 for her contributions to the tech community and ongoing commitment to helping those around her.

Andrew is a respected cloud and AI expert with over 15 years of experience at Microsoft , where he most recently served as Azure CTO for Microsoft Australia. He architected and championed Azure's adoption across large enterprises and government, playing a pivotal role in internal readiness, partner enablement, and go-to-market launch of Microsoft's cloud and AI stack

Anthony is from Sydney, Australia and is a contributor to many open-source communities. Running and contributing to several popular open-source tools for DevOps, Security, Automation and Code Quality. He has been recognized for his contribution to open source, including as Fellow of the Python Software Foundation and member of the Apache Software Foundation. Anthony runs a Python blog and YouTube channel and has recently published a book on the Python compiler.

Arafat Tehsin is a founder of Fedorai and Microsoft MVP (AI) based in Sydney, Australia. He has a passion for solving complex business problems using innovative technologies and delivering high-quality solutions. He has more than a decade of software development experience with a specialization on digital transformation and business automation. He has worked with Global System Integrators and developed some next-gen solutions using Generative AI and Business Application frameworks. 

Arafat co-founded Global AI - The Podcast, which talks about everything around Microsoft AI with guests from different backgrounds and domains. He is also an official evaluator for SXSW and a speaker at various developer conferences, such as NDC Sydney, Global AI Bootcamp and THAT Conference, where he shares his insights on building next-gen solutions using cutting-edge technologies. Arafat is always keen to learn new things and explore new possibilities in the field of Applied AI.

Ashley is an engineer at Datalust building Seq: a database for application diagnostics written in Rust and C#. He has over 10 years of experience in Rust (since before it was 1.0), most of them spent writing it professionally. He's worked on its standard library and maintains several fundamental open source libraries in it. 

Ben Dechrai is a technologist with a strong focus on security and privacy, recognised as an MVP for his exceptional contributions to the community. Known for his ability to distil complex technical concepts into engaging, digestible portions, Ben empowers developers through a deep understanding of design principles, security considerations, and coding practices. With over two decades of experience in software engineering, security, and architecture, Ben is a published author and has consulted for companies and investors across numerous industries. He is deeply involved in the tech community, running technology conferences and workshops to share his expertise.

Bron has been developing code since the turn of the century, and loves learning new tech. Her motto is "if you're not learning, you're not moving". Yes she just made that up, she is a programmer not a wordsmith. Bron is the CTO at YouLive to Travel.

Callum Whyte is a x6 Microsoft MVP and x8 Umbraco MVP specialising in building robust scalable solutions on Azure and the .NET stack, as well as websites with the open-source Umbraco CMS. By day he heads up the award-winning team at Bump, across the UK and Australia.

Away from his desk you can find him organising community events; from local meetups and hackathons, to global conferences and roadshows. He’s an active contributor to open source projects, a regular speaker at events all over the world, as well as co-host of a weekly YouTube series “UmbraCoffee”!

Chris Ayers is a Senior Software Engineer at Microsoft, where he builds AI-driven tooling to analyze outages and incidents across Azure. His work focuses on improving the way engineers understand failures, uncover risks, and strengthen reliability at cloud scale.

With a background spanning DevOps, cloud architecture, and modern application design, Chris brings both engineering depth and practical experience to the challenge of making large systems more resilient. He’s also a frequent international speaker who loves sharing real-world lessons about developer productivity, reliability, containers, and automation.

Outside of work, Chris is a proud dad, lifelong gamer, avid reader, and unapologetic nerd.

David is the Director of Architecture for NewDay, and the founder of Electric Head Software. Focusing on iterative software delivery, developer mentoring and cultural change - mostly working with London-based organisations.

He speaks about software design, culture, and ethics in technology - rounded out by an assortment of talks about software that probably doesn't need to exist but makes the world a little more fun. David has previously served as the chief coding technical architect for JustGiving and helped market-leading organisations including JUST-EAT, Trainline and Vodafone improve their technical capabilities.

David is a Microsoft MVP, has been part of the OpenUK Honours list for open-source advocacy, and is a twice bestselling author of children's books about programming.

You can find his open-source projects on NuGet, npm and GitHub, follow him on Twitter @david_whitney, or check out his technical blog at http://www.davidwhitney.co.uk/Blog.

http://www.electricheadsoftware.com 
http://www.davidwhitney.co.uk 

Hi, my name is Dylan McCarthy, I am a Microsoft MVP for Developer Tools and work as a Principal Engineer at Versent. I have been in IT since 2015 and worked across many roles from Software Development through to DevOps and now Platform Engineering. I am passionate about sharing knowledge about how we can improve the developer experience for all engineers.

George Coldham is a Cloud Solution Architect @ Microsoft, and an expert in Microsoft Security. 
 
An experienced, international public speaker he loves to share his experience and stories with a global audience.  Focused on the intersection of people with technology, whether it's his home ground of Security or emerging technologies such as Generative AI, he speaks with enthusiasm.

A lifelong learner and teacher, George spends his days solving problems at scale for his customers, building community locally through hosting meetups, and mentoring those who wish to learn with him.  George is a Microsoft Certified Trainer and maintains 15 Microsoft certifications across the Microsoft Security and Azure space.

George loves food, travel and music. His ideal holiday is either exploring somewhere remote, or a place with delicious food and drink to devour, live music to enjoy, and good friends to celebrate it with.

Gian Wild is the CEO of AccessibilityOz, with offices in the United States, Europe and Australia. She has worked in accessibility industry since 1998, when she worked on the very first Australian accessible web site. Her major achievements include: six years’ active membership in the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Working Group contributing to WCAG2; her speech on the importance of web accessibility at the United Nations Conference of State Parties in 2015; and the release of the ICT Mobile Site Accessibility Testing Guidelines as the Mobile Sub-Committee Chair of the ICT Accessibility Testing Symposium. In 2019 Gian won the inaugural Accessibility Person of the Year. Gian speaks at conferences in Australia, US, Canada, South America and Europe.

Climbing the technology mountain and halfway up the side. Experience in .NET, mobile applications and more recently voice interface development. Dabbles in iOT & databases. Focusing on coding for humans and choosing the right tool for the job.

Heather is a passionate coder and entrepreneur. She has experience working with Fortune 500 companies building enterprise level mobile and .NET applications. She spends her spare time at tech conferences supporting the growth of new developers of all genders, ages and backgrounds. When not coding, Heather spends her time as a competitive equestrian and learning the art of mounted archery.

Software Architect @Particular Software, Microsoft MVP for Developer Technologies, Microsoft Certified Trainer, always in a quest for the latest trends and best practices in architecture, .NET, and the world around it.

Irina has more than 1000 hours of delivered training, workshops, and presentations, is passionate about .NET and the world around it.

She is the founder of DotNet Iasi User Group where she tries to gather people who are willing to share their knowledge with others, and from time to time publishes articles on her blog: http://irina.codes


Isaac Levin is a .NET Developer Advocate as well as a Microsoft MVP. He has over 10 years of experience working as a developer for the web, mostly in the Microsoft Ecosystem. Outside of work, he hosts a podcast called Coffee and Open Source where he interviews folks from across the tech industry as well as builds open-source projects like PresenceLight and GitHub Stat Tracker. He lives outside of Seattle Washington and likes to wind down from work with his wife Ariana and his 2 children Isaac and Avery.

Jason Taylor is a Solutions Architect, Software Engineer, Trainer, and Mentor with over 25 years of experience. He specializes in designing, building, and deploying cloud-based solutions with .NET and Azure. Jason works at Particular Software, where he contributes to the Particular Platform, including NServiceBus. As a Microsoft MVP and international speaker, he is passionate about sharing knowledge, mentoring developers, and helping teams build maintainable, reliable, and scalable applications.

Jerry Nixon is a Microsoft SQL Server Principal Product Manager on the Developer Experiences team, championing Data API builder. With more than two decades of experience, Jerry is an engineer at heart. He teaches Computer Science at university and speaks at events worldwide. Over the years, he has trained thousands of developers, but today, he focuses on software simplicity, intuitive tooling, and excellence in data-driven apps. You'll find him talking about quantum computing, design patterns, machine learning, and—on occasion—SQL Server, the finest of them all. He lives in Colorado, and while most of his days revolve around Outlook, Visual Studio, and online Docs, what he enjoys most is teaching his three daughters Star Trek character backstories and episode plots.

Jimmy is the creator and maintainer of the popular OSS libraries AutoMapper and MediatR, and the originator of Vertical Slice Architecture. Jimmy is an independent software consultant based in Austin, TX. Jimmy has received the "Microsoft Most Valuable Professional" (MVP) award every year since 2009.

John Bristowe helps engineering teams deliver reliably as a developer advocate at Octopus Deploy. He leads community engagement, creates educational content, and appears regularly on Octopus streams and webinars. Before Octopus, John spent years in developer relations at Microsoft and Telerik/Progress, speaking at industry events and building programs for web and .NET developers. He contributes to Octopus open source, including the Octopus CLI, the Terraform provider for Octopus, and several GitHub Actions that connect build pipelines to deployment workflows. John is based in Robina, Australia, and has been active in the developer community for over two decades.

Jonathan, or J. as he's known to friends, is a husband, father, and founding partner of Trailhead Technology Partners, a custom software consulting company with employees across the U.S., Europe, and South America. He is a 11-time recipient of the Microsoft MVP award for his work with .NET and is a frequent speaker at software conferences around the world. He doesn’t mind the travel, though, as it allows him to share what he's been learning and also gives him the chance to visit beautiful places like national parks—one of his passions. So far, he's visited 58 of the 63 U.S. national parks.

J. is also passionate about building the software community. Over the years, he has served on several non-profit boards, including more than a decade as president of the board for Beer City Code, Western Michigan's largest professional software conference. Outside of work, J. enjoys hiking, reading, photography, and watching all the Best Picture nominees before the Oscars ceremony each year.

Senior Developer from Germany with over 15 years of experience building web apps and leading frontend teams, currently living and working down under in Australia. Pragmatic perfectionist, always looking for opportunities to learn and grow.

Lars is a Principal Developer Advocate at Atlassian, an author, trainer, Microsoft Azure MVP, community leader, aspiring YouTube host and part time classic car collector. He is heavily involved in the space of cloud computing services, especially Azure, and is a published author, solution architect and writer for numerous publications. He has been a part of the software development community for the past 20 years and co-organises the DDD Melbourne community conference, organises developer events with Microsoft, and also runs a part time car restoration business. He has spoken at numerous technical events around the world and is an expert in Australian Outback Internet.

Senior digital product and transformation specialist with eight years’ experience spanning SaaS, consulting, not-for-profit, and complex solutions in the mining industry. I combine a strong grounding in Entrepreneurship, product design and content strategy with hands-on delivery of digital and hardware solutions since 2020. At Bradken, I’ve led cross-functional teams developing IoT-enabled products, software integrations, and connected data systems that drive operational efficiency and environmental impact. My focus is on building digital ecosystems — from smart devices and data lakes to machine learning and simulation — that connect people, assets, and insight for better decisions.

With a lifelong passion for the weirdness of the internet and a day job as a development lead for whoever hired him, Lemon spends his professional time making websites for money and his free time making websites for no money.

He's created a number of stupid things for the internet, like all the games on kinda.fun, the wikiHow guessing game damn.dog, the Google Autocomplete game idiots.win, and a bunch of other things of questionable use. He also hosts a podcast that looks at some of the internet's weirder subcultures. It is not safe for your work, unless you work somewhere really cool.

Liam is a developer working on Seq - the best structured logging observability tool. Previously, he was Chief Technology Officer of an online media and travel company with 300,000 members. 

Mark is an experienced technologist whose journey began in application development, spanning web and client-server applications to sophisticated distributed systems and microservices. Along this path, he developed deep expertise in automation and DevOps, leading diverse project teams and guiding cloud practice organizations through strategic, operational, and pre-sales leadership roles. Currently, Mark holds a hands-on engineering position at Microsoft, contributing directly to the Microsoft Azure platform. 

Beyond his professional work, Mark shares his passion for cloud computing through his YouTube channel, "The Azure Terraformer." He is also the author of "Mastering Terraform," a practical, multi-cloud guide to Infrastructure-as-Code covering AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud, and has created the Udemy course "Terraform 101."

Markus Mäkelä is a platform engineer specializing in generative AI applications. Over the past 2 years, he has focused primarily on integrating agentic capabilities into various parts of the platform engineering stack. He especially enjoys developing scalable and portable foundations that enables his team to keep pace with the fast moving cutting edge of the field of generative AI.

Matt is a technologist and content creator with over 15 years of experience across infrastructure, development, and operations.

With a passion for education and content creation, he has authored courses at Pluralsight and presented at conferences across Australia and America, sharing his expertise in DevOps, Platform Engineering, and cloud technologies.

Among other roles, he has worked as a Developer Advocate, Technical Success Manager, and DevOps Engineer, helping customers realize value from modern deployment automation and cloud-native technology.

I live at the heart of the coding community and help drive awareness and engagement as a developer advocate and technology evangelist. I present at around 50 Conferences and Events around the world each year on AI, Azure, GitHub, Open Source, GameDev and LinkedIn (Including NDC Oslo, London, Copenhagen, Porto, Melbourne; Techorama BE & NL; DDDPerth; GCAP; Google Dev Fest, MS TechReady, MS GeekReady, MS Ignite etc). I judge hackathons and encourage the next generation into technology careers. In 2023 I became the host of the Microsoft ANZ web show - New Breakpoint, which is a show for developers by developers. I am also a co-organiser for the Rust Perth Community Group. I was the #1 Microsoft Social Seller (highest engagement) on LinkedIn for several years and remain #1 SSI rank in team, top 1% in industry and top 1% in network. I run the Microsoft Student Accelerator Program for ANZ encouraging emerging developers to build on Azure.

Mish is a multi-talented personality in the tech and gaming communities. Mish has worked in the technology space for the last decade and has a tonne of experience in developer advocacy, community management, marketing, and content creation. Mish has spoken at over 380 events on topics like AI, the future of work, communication, teamwork, and has given technical demos. She's a respected leader in the hackathon community, having won, organised, and mentored over 100 hackathons.
 
Mish is a successful entrepreneur and founder, having co-founded several companies – including an artificial intelligence company, and as a result, sits at the forefront of Melbourne’s science, tech, esports, and startup scenes. In her 'spare' time she’s a streamer, journalist, loves playing sports, and is always working on something exciting.

Lucky is an Executive and the Head of Specialised Consulting, Research and Development at BBD - a global bespoke software solutions firm. As a software engineer, he has experience in building and maintaining enterprise software in the banking, insurance, telecommunications and education sectors with varying tech-stacks; from VB6 and .Net to web and cloud technologies.
Lucky is an educator, teaching Game Design and Computer Science at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg and is the co-organiser of the Johannesburg-based JavaScript-focused meetup: Jozi.JS.

Nick currently runs Built to Roam which focuses on building rich mobile applications. Nick has been identified as a Microsoft MVP in recognition of his work and expertise with the Windows platform. He is still an active contributor in the device application development space via his blog at http://nicksnettravels.builttoroam.com. 

Microsoft Certified x6, MVP for Azure & IoT, Senior Cloud Architect and tech enthusiast. Passionate about software architecture and solution design.

During my 10+ years of hands-on experience in Software Engineering, I have primarily focused on .NET-based solutions and Azure as a cloud-services provider. I have worked with pretty much all kinds of applications, from small Windows Forms tools to large-scale enterprise web-based solutions. The more I code, the more I realize that my true passion is solution design and software architecture, regardless of tech-stack and platform.

Sharing knowledge and insights is the finest thing I know and the one thing I love the most in the IT community.

Dr Pedram Hayati is the founder and CEO of SecDim, where he helps developers to balance engineering velocity with application security rigor. As a researcher across both offensive security and application security, Pedram has:

* Published 25 + zero-day advisories since 2005
* Reported thousands of vulnerabilities to Fortune 500 companies
* Led the global penetration-testing unit at the world’s second-largest defence contractor

Holding a PhD in Information Security & Machine Learning, Pedram lectures postgraduate cyber-security at the University of New South Wales – Australian Defence Force Academy (UNSW ADFA) and founded SecTalks.org, a multinational non-profit security community with more than 25,000 members. His research regularly features on the global stage at Black Hat, DEF CON, FIRSTCon, NDC, and OWASP AppSec.

Phil is a developer relations engineer for IBM and Google Developer Expert living in Melbourne, Australia. He loves working with JavaScript, TypeScript or Ruby to build web applications and tools to help developers. He once helped build a website that captured the world's favourite sandwich fillings. He has too many GitHub repositories.

Away from the keyboard, Phil listens to ska punk, hangs out with his miniature dachshund (also called Ruby), and is on a mission to discover the world's best beers.

Phil tweets at @philnash and you can find him elsewhere online at https://philna.sh. 

I am an AI enthusiast who loves exploring the latest and greatest tech from Microsoft to design smart, intelligent solutions. I am passionate about making AI practical, powerful, and easy to use.

Richard Campbell wrote his first line of code in 1977. His career has spanned the computing industry both on the hardware and software sides, development, and operations. He was a co-founder of Strangeloop Networks, acquired by Radware in 2013, and was on the board of directors of Telerik, which was acquired by Progress Software in 2014. Today, he is a consultant and advisor to a number of successful technology firms and is the founder and chairman of Humanitarian Toolbox (www.htbox.org), a public charity that builds open-source software for disaster relief. Richard also hosts three podcasts: .NET Rocks! (www.dotnetrocks.com) for .NET developers, RunAs Radio (www.runasradio.com) for IT Professionals, and Windows Weekly (https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly).

Robert Koch is a Melbourne-based engineer and the Forward Deployment Engineering lead at Quarterzip, where he helps customers integrate products seamlessly into their environments. He draws on a background in cloud infrastructure, web development, and strategic content development to deliver tailored solutions that drive adoption and impact.

With a degree in Electrical Engineering, Robert previously worked as a Cloud Architect at AWS, where he built secure, scalable platforms for public sector clients.

Actively engaged in the engineering community, he contributes to Young Engineers Australia and continues to explore innovation through personal projects. Outside of work, he enjoys bouldering, gaming, and experimenting with electronics.

Software Engineer who has lived on multiple sides of the world, in startups and tech giants, and all the while focused on building safe and efficient deployment processes.

Ron Dagdag brings 25 years of experience as a software artisan to his role as R&D Manager at 7-Eleven, where he leads teams to develop innovative solutions in AI, IoT, and Cloud. In addition to his professional responsibilities, Ron is an active member of the tech community, recognized as a Microsoft MVP in AI, Mixed Reality, and IoT. Ron is an international speaker, sharing his knowledge at industry events, and remains an active maker and tinkerer with a passion for Augmented Intelligence.
🚀 Code > Create > Coach > Repeat.

Shivay Lamba is a software developer specializing in DevOps, Machine Learning and Full Stack Development. 

He is an Open Source Enthusiast and has been part of various programs like Google Code In and Google Summer of Code as a Mentor and is currently a MLH Fellow. He has also worked at organizations like Amazon, EY, Genpact. He is a Tensorflow.JS SIG member and community lead from India. 

Stefán Jökull has been a professional programmer for over 20 years, although he wrote his first BASIC program on an old Amstrad CPC 464 way back in 1986. He works at Have I Been Pwned remotely from Iceland where he focuses on improving Have I Been Pwned. He has a lot of experience with systems that require attention to details and have high customer impact.

Stefán is also a Microsoft MVP, a member of the .NET Foundation, and specializes in all things .NET with a focus on performance, security, and analytics/telemetry.

When he's not working, he enjoys time with the family, working on OSS software, building Lego sets and having the occasional beer when meeting fellow developers.

Todd is a passionate consultant, architect and application developer with a focus on AI applications, Cloud Native Architecture, Integration and developer productivity.  Combining these solid foundations with an unhealthy number of late night "good ideas" he loves putting tech to the test in unusual ways that are quite likely to void more than one warranty.


Tom van den Berg is a lead developer at Info Support.
As a developer he is part of a team that realizes new and innovative solutions.
Tom likes to think outside of the box and he gets a lot of energy from sharing knowledge and encourage other people to think outside of the box.

Creator of Have I Been Pwned. Microsoft Regional Director. Pluralsight author. Online security, technology and “The Cloud”. Australian.

Vaishnavi Gudur is a Senior Software Engineer at Microsoft and AI Frontier Ambassador who transforms bleeding-edge AI research into production systems that serve millions. At Microsoft, she architects security and compliance solutions for Teams, safeguarding 145M+ users worldwide while navigating the complex intersection of scalability, security, and user experience.What sets Vaishnavi apart is her unique position at the intersection of industry and academia. She's published research in IEEE conferences, contributed book chapters to Springer Nature and Wiley on AI-driven compliance and security, and serves as Lead Editor for an upcoming Springer volume on trustworthy AI systems. Her work spans autonomous cybersecurity systems, AI-powered defect detection, and ethical frameworks for responsible AI—always with an eye toward real-world implementation.As a sought-after speaker, she's delivered keynotes and technical sessions at SecurityWeek's AI Security Summit, IEEE Cloud Summit, and ODSC. She serves on program committees for AIES and ICAIC, and judges competitions including the Globee Awards. Her talks are known for combining rigorous technical depth with honest war stories from production—no hype, just practical patterns that survive contact with real users.Nominated for AI & Data Science Leader of the Year at the Women in Tech Global Awards 2025, Vaishnavi is passionate about building the next generation of ethical, scalable AI systems and mentoring engineers navigating the rapidly evolving AI landscape.

Will is a Senior Software Engineer at Microsoft, working in the Industry Solutions Engineering team. 

Will has extensive experience in software development, building solutions in the financial, health and agricultural industries. Will has also previously been a Microsoft MVP for Kubernetes and Open Source before joining Microsoft.

Will regularly speaks at conferences, user groups and developer events around the world, such as Microsoft Ignite, NDC Conferences, and Techorama. When he is away from his keyboard, you'll find him hiking around the countryside.



A professional geek, William works for Particular Software writing amazing software like NServiceBus. Passionate about the web, he is engaged in a sordid love affair with JavaScript, and spends most of his free time trying to convince others of it’s beauty and elegance.

When not behind his laptop hacking away, this amateur beer enthusiast can often be found playing boardgames or drinking cold-brew coffee.

NDC { Sydney }

Speakers