MiniConf is a series of Lightning Talks that explore current topics in tech. We are excited to have 4 amazing speakers joining us with 4 x 15 min talks -- check the content below!

AGENDA

19:00 - Doors Open
19:30 - Intro (Sharp start!)

19:35 - 21:00 Lightning Talks (4 x 15 min) & Q&As

1) Scaling PostgreSQL on AWS
2) Getting Navigation Right on iOS and Android with React Native
3) How To Launch an App and Save The World
4) Learning to Think in Lisp

21:00 - Networking
21:30 - END

LIGHTNING TALKS:

1) Scaling PostgreSQL on AWS
Melvin Koh

Data is empowering businesses. While businesses are continuously growing, our applications and database have to keep up to pace. I will be sharing my experience on scaling relational database, specifically PostgreSQL on AWS. I will also be addressing some of the concerns when scaling our databases including potential changes to the application layer, database request load balancing, connection pooling, as well as handling replication lag.

Melvin is an Educational Software Engineer at Code Chrysalis and an AWS Certified Solution Architect. He is experienced with various databases such as InfluxDB, MongoDB, Redis, and relational databases.

Twitter/Medium/Hackernoon: @melvinkcx2
Linkedin: melvin-koh
Website: https://melvinkoh.me

2) Getting Navigation Right on iOS and Android with React Native
Mark McFarlane

Choosing how to manage navigation is one of the first decisions to be made for any React Native project. It’s important to make the right decision in order to provide a native-feeling UX for both iOS and Android users, ensure UI performance, and keep apps up to date with minimum effort as operating system UI styles evolve. This talk provides an introduction to the available navigation solutions for React Native and how they interact with the native UI frameworks on iOS and Android.

Mark McFarlane has over a decade of experience of cross-platform mobile development and design for clients, from the early days of iOS, the rise of Android, the growth of UX in Japan, to modern multi-platform development. Having a growing agency to run he spends less time on production nowadays, but ensuring effective technology and UX for mobile are still a strong passion of his. He also loves his cat, Cleo, and mountain biking.

3) How To Launch an App and Save The World
Lawrie Cate

This talk tells the story of how MyMizu (app that makes it easy to find free water refills, and raises awareness of single use plastic) was launched in a month, the challenges of balancing a fulltime job and developing the project, and some of the difficulties the team faced along the way. Furthermore, what helped them succeed, and MyMizu expansion plans.

Lawrie wants to inspire people to try start their own social entrepreneurship projects. It could help solve pressing problems such as climate change, social inequality and disaster response. He wants to explore how projects like MyMizu can be meaningful to work on and the benefits of not just trying to make something which will make money.

From the UK, Lawrie moved to Japan about a year ago to work for Mercari US. He is passionate about working on innovative projects that span countries and cultures.

LinkedIn: lawriecate
Twitter: @lawriecate

4) Learning to Think in Lisp
Jill Hackney

LISP is a topic with a lot of academic depth, and this talk mostly just scratches the surface of why those who don't know LISP or another functional programming language might be interested in learning it. Learning to think in a different paradigm opens up a lot of avenues to different types of problem solving!

After working in film and television and traveling the world, I came to the Code Chrysalis bootcamp to study software engineering. I now work as the engineer in residence there and help students going through the same program I did.

Github: @jahackney
Instagram: @incaseofcamels

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Code Chrysalis is a 12-week, full-time software engineering bootcamp located in the heart of Tokyo.