Ajay Balamurugadas

Senior Director – GSPANN Technologies, India

Ajay Balamurugadas goes by the handle ‘ajay184f’ in the testing community, and is continuously re-inventing his testing methodology. He co-founded Weekend Testing – a worldwide movement for skilled testing, and authored multiple books available at bit.ly/booksaj and bit.ly/ajleanpub. His friends associate the terms – ‘Change Agent, Idea Man, Motivational’ with him. He tweets and loves to have long conversations on software testing, and life in general. He is currently working at GSPANN Technologies, Inc. as Senior Director – QE. When not testing, he spends time with his wife and two children.

Ezanne Grobler

QA Advisor – iOCO Pty, South Africa

Ezanne is a highly experienced professional who effectively combines strong technical, problem-solving, and planning capabilities, whilst assisting in finding solutions to client’s quality assurance challenges and/or in delivering testing projects on time and on budget. She has more than 20 years’ experience in Quality Assurance and Testing and possesses excellent business acumen and interpersonal skills. She is passionate to share her knowledge and experience and use her ability to communicate professionally across all levels, not just in consulting but also being a vivid testing lecturer and mentor.

Kristoffer Nordström

Senior Test Developer – Northern Test Consulting, Sweden

Kristoffer Nordström is a test developer who has worked with telecommunications systems, distributed compilers, cloud technology, smartphone OS development, embedded systems, and much more. As a testing devotee and a member of the context-driven test community, with his own company, Kristoffer consults and teaches the course Python for Testers because he believes in tools-assisted sapient testing. Over the years he has seen the immense value of testers learning how to distill large amounts of information into the so-called “big picture,” and he advocates for learning the soft skills necessary to collaborate with the people making up the organization. Apart from being an avid software tester, Kristoffer is also a sci-fi reader, lamp maker, and craftsman.

Karin Thorvaldsson

Specialist – Saab, Sweden

I have worked as a tester, test leader, project leader, manager, discipline driver, business developer, researcher, educator and specialist in 6 different companies during the last 25 years. I have worked in big companies including Ericsson, Volvo, and Saab. I’ve also worked in small companies, and always with testing. I have been a permanent employee, consultant, and self-employed, so I have met many people, seen several different organizations and leaders, and gathered a lot of experience. I have a great interest in leadership and coaching. I like to see people grow, support them in their challenges, and create the right conditions so that we can all do good work. Leaders who can inspire their employees, make them feel comfortable, feel that they are doing important work, and strive towards the same goal – they can lift an entire company.

I am also the mother of a son with high-functioning autism. I get to see the benefits of thinking differently – every day. I know it takes understanding and adaptation from other people, but with the right approach, employing these nerds is good business.

Bryan Jones

QAT Architect – 2i, UK

Having graduated from Staffordshire University (1988) with one of the first IT degrees in the country, I have been in IT and particularly the testing arena for 34 years, including 18 years as a freelance test consultant and 13 years for Sopra Steria, as Test Practice Director. I am now very happy to say that I am QAT Architect for 2i.

In that time I have worked in most industry sectors, on a wide variety of projects for many different clients including Jaguar Land Rover, Rolls Royce Jet Engines, Boeing, PowerGen, Barclays Bank, BarclayCard, Britannia Building Society, Yorkshire Water, Tesco, Vodafone, various government departments, a challenger bank, and many others.

In summary, I am a career testing professional with a lifetime obsession with testing and quality, not to mention an insatiable curiosity and learning addiction. I have presented at UKSTAR, Scottish Testing Group, and many internal company conferences. I will be presenting at EuroSTAR in 2024.

I am a certified psychotherapist and hypnotherapist. I have also done impromptu street hypnosis. I used to play bass in several bands, including an Irish folk band and a trash metal band. I take part in off-road motorcycle rallies on my 1200cc BMW that weighs 250kg – not a practical rally bike! I also used to train and ride horses (a lot!), but my horse is now retired.

Abigail Cauchi

Domain Architect – Kindred Group, Malta

I joined Kindred in 2018 as a software tester, and in 2020 I progressed into a domain architect role in the area of testing. I have focused on getting a rigorous understanding of what Kindred needs, and helped with tailoring our test automation solution to our tech stack. During my time in Kindred I have, together with my team, evolved and developed the test automation strategy that we use in the organisation today.

I have been fascinated by software quality for the last 15 years. I come from an academic background, where I spent the best part of my academic life working on improving safety critical software. I have a PhD in Computer Science, and I have published over 20 scientific papers in the area of software quality. I take pride in applying the scientific techniques that I used during my academic days to add value to Kindred.

Robert Sabourin

Consultant – AmiBug.Com, Canada

Robert Sabourin has more than forty years of management experience, leading teams of software development professionals. A well-respected member of the software engineering community, Robert has managed, trained, mentored, and coached thousands of top professionals in the field. He frequently speaks at conferences and writes on software engineering, SQA, testing, management, and internationalization. The author of ‘I am a Bug!’, the popular software testing children’s book, Robert is an adjunct professor of Software Engineering at McGill University. Robert is the principal consultant (& president/janitor) of AmiBug.Com, Inc.

You’ll find several sample presentations on YouTube at Robert Sabourin on Testing, @robertsabourinontesting9478.

More Sessions from this Speaker

Keynote: Lost Test Automation Fundamentals

11:45-12:45 Friday 14th June

Ben Simo

Product Manager – Tricentis, USA

Ben Simo is a context-driven software quality leader who has been helping make software better for over 30 years. Ben has applied his skills as an analyst, software tester, designer of testing tools, and quality coach, in a variety of industries including: healthcare, finance, defense, education, marketing, ecommerce, and cloud services. Ben’s approach to software testing transcends the common notion of merely verifying explicit expectations. He believes good testing includes observational and experimental investigation, that enables people to make better decisions that lead to delivering better software — software that positively impacts people’s lives. While he believes testing is a fundamentally human activity that cannot be fully automated, automation plays an essential role in his testing work.

Ben is perhaps best known as the “sort of skilled hacker” who uncovered and reported numerous problems with the initial release of the US Government’s health insurance marketplace: Healthcare.gov. Ben is currently exploring and creating the testing tools of the future as a researcher and product manager at Tricentis.

Claudiu Stoianof

Independent, Austria

With over 12 years of experience in software testing roles, Claudiu defines himself as a storyteller and a context-driven tester. His career is shaped by a deep appreciation for understanding people and a passion for technology and its relationship to communication and psychology. He firmly believes in the power of clear and empathetic communication to enhance teamwork and productivity.

Claudiu’s technical expertise and educational background are complemented by his genuine interest in the well-being of both software and its users. This people-oriented perspective highlights his commitment to quality. What distinguishes him is not just his technical skill, but also his interest in communication and psychology. He considers the humans involved in building the software as well as the end users while preparing testing strategies.