2025

Samer Naqvi

Global Logic UK

With over 16 years of comprehensive experience as a Test Architect, I specialize in refining QA practices and empowering teams to achieve excellence through cutting-edge tools and methodologies.

My core objective is elevating testing standards across organizations by instilling best practices and adhering to industry standards, positioning testing as a value-added asset.

Beyond my professional pursuits, I am deeply passionate about advocating for women in tech. Through speaking engagements at colleges, organizations, and prominent conferences, I actively raise awareness and motivate the next generation of young women to embrace and excel in the dynamic technology field.

Jarsto van Santen

DUO, Netherlands

Jarsto has been playing with code for over 30 years. Despite studying law he eventually saw sense and turned his hobby into a career. He now works as a Specialist Test Engineer at DUO (part of the Netherlands’ ministry of Education).  

In his free time Jarsto is mildly obsessed with world history, science fiction and fantasy, and all sorts of technology he doesn’t get to play around with at work (yet). He never has quite enough time for all the books and games he’d like to get around to.

Elissa Tahech

Murex, Lebanon

I graduated in July 2023 with a bachelor’s in mechanical engineering and have been working at Murex in the Market Analytics team since then.

With limited coding experience, I quickly learned Python to automate manual testing processes and developed a tool that significantly improved our team’s efficiency.

My journey from novice to automation advocate taught me the importance of fully understanding each process, thinking creatively, and looking at problems from new perspectives. I aim to inspire others to embrace AI and automation, showing that if you can think of an idea, you can create it.

Jonathon Wright

Eggplant, USA

Jonathon Wright is a strategic thought leader and distinguished technology evangelist. He specializes in emerging technologies, innovation, and automation, and has more than 25 years of international commercial experience within global organizations.

Jonathon combines his extensive practical experience and leadership with insights into real-world adoption of Cognitive Engineering (Generative AI).  In his spare time he is a member of Harvard Business Council, A.I. Alliance for the European Commission and British Computer Society.

Jonathon also hosts the QA lead (based in Canada) and the author of several award-winning books (2010 – 2022) the latest with Rex Black on ‘Artificial Intelligence for Testing’.

Tugba Karakaya

Accenture, Germany

Tugba has a technical background focused on test automation and SDET. She embarked on her journey with Accenture in 2018. She has taken on various roles as agile tester, test automation engineer and architect.

Viviane Hennecke

Accenture, Germany

Viviane’s passion lies in improving quality processes. Since 2018, she has been combining her experience in testing, coaching, and training at Accenture with her background in communications management.

Elmar Jürgens

CQSE, Germany

Elmar works both as a researcher and a founder. Elmar wrote his award-winning PhD thesis on static code analysis and is still active as a researcher in software quality analysis.

In 2009, he co-founded CQSE GmbH. He (and his 60 colleagues) since help international teams in using software intelligence analyses to write better software in less time.

Elmar frequently gives keynotes and talks at research conferences (e.g. ICSE, ICPC, SANER) and industry events (e.g. Software Quality Days, Agile Testing Days, AutomationSTAR, EuroSTAR). He was elected best speaker 10+ times. His research was cited 3600+ times.

René van Veldhuijzen

Testimist, Netherlands

With 25+ years of rich experience in Testing, René brings a wealth of knowledge and passion to the table. Navigating politically sensitive projects as a Test Manager or crafting intricate testscripts using various tools, his journey in testing has been anything but dull.

Calling himself the Test Positivo, he is the propagator of the Fun Driven Testing methodology, which is reflected in his work and presentations. As organizer of the conference TestMass, René found a positive way to spread knowledge about testing and provides another modest contribution to a healthy testing climate.

Bart Knaack

Professional Testing B.V, Netherlands

Bart Knaack is an IT consultant at at Professional Testing B.V. Bart has more than twenty years of experience in testing and test management. He’s contributed to testing projects and processes in roles of test manager, test data management team lead, and process improvement agent. Bart has coached testers, built up test teams and developed processes in test, test support and overall quality management and improvement. Bart is a frequent speaker at conferences, universities, and colleges. At EuroSTAR 2009, Bart co-founded the TestLab with James Lydnsay.