.NET Conf 2023
MSDUG Community
South Africa
November 25 in Cape Town
December 2 in Johannesburg
.NET Conf 2023
MSDUG Community
South Africa
November 25 in Cape Town
December 2 in Johannesburg
Welcome to .NET Conf South Africa
Welcome to .NET Conf South Africa – where innovation meets technology in the heart of Africa! We are thrilled to bring together the brightest minds in the .NET ecosystem for a day filled with inspiration, learning, and collaboration.
With 2 tracks in each city and a lineup of 18 expert speakers, this conference is designed to provide a platform for learning, networking, and staying at the forefront of the rapidly evolving .NET landscape.
.NET 8 promises to be a game-changer, bringing cutting-edge technology to the fingertips of developers across South Africa. From enhanced performance and productivity to expanded capabilities in web, mobile, IoT and cloud development, .NET 8 is set to empower developers to create solutions that will shape the future of technology in our region.
We will feature news from the recent .NET Conf event and the release of .NET 8. This will include the new features of .NET 8, .NET MAUI, Blazor and much more!!!
So, get ready to be inspired, learn, and create at .NET Conf South Africa – where the power of .NET meets the heart of South Africa’s tech community!
#DotNETConfSA #dotNET8Innovation
Sponsors
GOLD SPONSOR
For over 15 years, Amazon Web Services has been the world's most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud platform.
GOLD SPONSOR
Accso is an innovative and fast-growing IT service provider that focuses on IT consulting and development
GOLD SPONSOR
DVT is a leading software development company focused on digital transformation technology solutions for clients globally.
GOLD SPONSOR
We’re on a mission to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more
GOLD SPONSOR
UWC Samsung Future Innovation Lab addresses the challenge of youth unemployment through developing the next generation of empowered digital innovators.
GOLD SPONSOR
Our unique blend of experience, accreditation and in-depth business knowledge drive the crafting of integrated and empowering software solutions to medium and large corporate and enterprise clients across the globe.
SILVER SPONSOR
CyberPro Consulting
Cape Town
TIME
Theatre 1
Theatre 2
08:00 - 09:00
Registration
09:00 - 09:45
Theatre 1
Keynote - Welcome to .NET 8
10:00 - 10:45
Roma Gupta & Gomolemo Mohapi
A session where .NET meets Open AI to create a solution and uses Power Apps as front end. A session to show that pro code and low code can work together to create a solution that solves organization challenges.
Wayne Munro & Neil Thompson
Dive into the heart of resilience and scalability as we guide you through the process of crafting a robust and scalable .NET application on Azure. This talk centers on the Well-Architected Framework,
emphasizing event-driven architecture as the cornerstone for mission-critical success.
Explore the intricacies of designing, building, and deploying a mission-critical .NET application, leveraging the power of Azure’s Well-Architected Framework. Learn how event-driven architecture
enhances reliability, scalability, and responsiveness in critical scenarios.
11:00 - 11:45
Carike Botha
Do you want to embark on a journey to the magical world of Disney while exploring the power of .NET and the realm of low-code development? Join me for a whimsical adventure where I’ll demonstrate how to create a real-world solution with a Disney twist, uniting the capabilities of C# and .NET with the simplicity of Power Apps.
Warren du Toit
Retrofit existing applications with the power of a Large Language Model using Microsoft’s Open Source SDK, Semantic Kernel. NACP, Not Another Co-Pilot.
How we can make the medical claims process faster with AI recommendations.
Bring Your Own Data to the Azure OpenAI Playground and start chatting securely and efficiently with your data.
How we can use Cognitive Search and Forms Recogniser to prevent prompt stuffing and prompt injection and create more efficient prompts.
11:45 - 12:00
Allan Pead
Join this session for a captivating journey into the realm of Internet of Things (IoT) as we explore the revolutionary possibilities of running .NET on microcontrollers.
In this lightning talk, we will delve into the convergence of powerful .NET capabilities with the constrained environments of microcontrollers, showcasing how this synergy is reshaping the landscape of edge computing.
Dustyn Lightfoot
The recent .NET 8 release was massive, with features and innovations affecting all areas of development from IoT to mobile, desktop, web, cloud and AI. I’ll be scouring the dizzying array of sessions from .NET Conf to bring you my favourite new features (and perhaps least favourite, depending on what I find 😊). Come and join me for a fun and informative lightning talk, armed with your own favourites and “not so favourites”.
12:00 - 13:00
Lunch
13:00 - 13:45
Wouter Grove
The Covid-19 pandemic highlighted not only the increasing dependance of South African society on digital technologies, but also the significant barriers our youth still face in accessing learning
opportunities, skills development (StatsSA, 2020) and meaningful employment with record high youth unemployment rates.
Education level and access to educational opportunities play a significant role in unemployment. Of the 7,9 million unemployed persons in the first quarter of 2022, as many as 50,1% had education levels below matric, followed by those with matric at 40,0%. Only 2,8% of unemployed persons were graduates, while 6,7% had other tertiary qualifications as their highest level of education (StatsSA, 2022).
Massive national upskilling and reskilling is thus required to build capacity amongst current workers and to facilitate youth entrants into the labour market- and the software development field in particular. It is critical that South African businesses assume responsibility in this endeavor.
The UWC Samsung Future-Innovation Lab was established in terms of a 10-year Memorandum of Agreement signed in July 2019 between UWC and Samsung with the aim of hosting at UWC the Samsung EEIP Research and Development Programme (R&D Academy) at UWC in view of developing/supporting/enhancing its ICT scarce skills development programmes. We reflect on lessons learnt during the first three years of this innovative and impactful programme.
Niels Berglund
In today’s world, it has become increasingly important that you can act on things happening in real-time and also process those events. Kafka is, in many cases, the tool of choice for real-time
stream processing. And, as we know, .NET is the tool of choice in many organisations.
In this session, we will dive into the exciting world of stream processing and Kafka from the perspective of a .NET developer. We will start with a brief overview of Kafka and continue with exploring
how .NET and Kafka can work together seamlessly. We discuss best practices and tips for creating high-performing .NET Kafka applications.
Finally, we will delve into the realm of stream processing with Kafka and .NET, uncovering the power of real-time data processing and analytics. Join us as we unlock the potential of Kafka for .NET
developers and discover new horizons in stream processing.
Oh, this session is mostly code – very few slides.
14:00 - 14:45
Hennie Francis
In today’s fast-paced world of software development, agility and efficiency are paramount. Developers are constantly seeking tools and practices that can help them deliver high-quality software quickly and reliably. Introducing Infrastructure as Code: The Developer’s Secret Weapon. In this engaging presentation, we’ll delve into the world of IaC and explore how it empowers developers to supercharge their productivity, streamline workflows, and elevate their impact on the development process.
Trent Richardson
Real-time apps are all over the web, and have proved to have many modern business applications.
This crash course addresses the do’s and don’ts for real-time applications, and introduces SignalR – the one stop shop for all your real-time application needs.
Lastly, we cover how you can leverage the power of the cloud and SignalR to scale your real-time application to thousands of users all over the world.
Matthew Leibowitz
All the cool people and companies are building mobile and desktop apps with .NET MAUI! .NET 8 brings greater stability, memory management, and new desktop features to everyone. In this session I’ll introduce you to what’s new in .NET 8 and show off some of the cool things you can do today.
15:00 - 15:45
Xivutiso Makhubela
Event-driven architectures can solve many difficult problems in modern enterprise workloads. Teams building microservices architecture often find that integration with other applications and external services can make their workloads more monolithic and tightly coupled. In this session, learn why you need event driven applications, what are the different components of these applications and how to use event-based architecture to decouple and decentralize application components. You will also learn about the AWS messaging services that can be used to build event driven applications.
Gomolemo Mohapi
Are you ready to embark on a journey into the exciting world of conversational apps powered by GPT models from OpenAI? Prompt-based models have revolutionized the way we communicate with AI systems. With these models, users simply enter a text prompt, and the AI responds with a meaningful and contextually relevant completion. But how can you make the most of this technology in your projects?
Look no further cause in this session, you’ll learn how to harness the capabilities of these AI models through the Azure OpenAI .NET SDK to create engaging natural language powered applications.
We’ll cover:
– What is generative AI?
– Understanding OpenAI’s natural language capabilities
– Working with text completions in Azure OpenAI
– Provisioning an Azure OpenAI resource and using it to deploy and explore generative AI models
– Building an app that uses text completions from the ground up
Whether you’re a seasoned developer looking to add conversational AI to your toolkit or someone curious about the potential of generative AI, this session will equip you with the skills and knowledge you need to create engaging, AI-powered user experiences.
16:00 - 16:45
Matthew Leibowitz
In .NET 8, you can build web apps entirely in Blazor without writing JavaScript or mixing web frameworks. You’ll learn how to use Blazor’s new server-side rendering support to power your web apps for maximum performance and scalability. You’ll also learn how to add advanced capabilities like streaming rendering and enhanced navigation & form handling to optimize the user experience. Finally, you’ll see how to use Blazor on mobile or in desktop apps to build full-featured native apps for Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android within a single codebase that can take advantage of your web skills.
16:45 - 17:00
Theatre 1
Close & Networking
Johannesburg
TIME
Auditorium 2
AUDITORIUM 1
08:00 - 09:00
Registration
09:00 - 09:45
Auditorium
Keynote - Welcome to .NET 8
10:00 - 10:45
Werner Rall
Join us for an exciting presentation as we dive deep into the journey of an unlikely team of amateur developers and infrastructure engineers who crafted a million-dollar app using .NET and PowerShell. Starting with nothing more than a simple idea and their combined skills, this team harnessed the power of .NET to develop a robust and scalable application that not only caught the eye of industry veterans but also generated over $1 million in revenue for Microsoft. In this talk, we will walk through the challenges, breakthroughs, and technical details of the app development process. We will showcase how PowerShell was utilized to automate the creation and management of Azure resources, and how this contributed to the team’s ability to rapidly iterate and scale the app. With valuable insights and key takeaways, we are hoping this session will inspire developers of all levels to explore the possibilities of .NET, PowerShell, and Azure, and demonstrate that with the right tools and a dedicated team, even amateur developers can achieve extraordinary success
Matthew Leibowitz
In this very short session, we will have a look at the very few steps needed to build your first .NET MAUI app. I will also look at some of the new tools that are now available: VS Code C# Dev Kit and .NET MAUI Dev Kit
Felicia Sephodi
The sessions is going to focus on tips, tricks and techniques for optimization in .NET applications that I have grown to utilize in my career as a Software Developer and now Developer Advocate.
11:00 - 11:45
Roma Gupta
A session where .NET meets Open AI to create a solution and uses Power Apps as front end. A session to show that pro code and low code can work together to create a solution that solves organization challenges.
Neil Thompson
11:45 - 12:00
Allan Pead
Join this session for a captivating journey into the realm of Internet of Things (IoT) as we explore the revolutionary possibilities of running .NET on microcontrollers.
In this lightning talk, we will delve into the convergence of powerful .NET capabilities with the constrained environments of microcontrollers, showcasing how this synergy is reshaping the landscape of edge computing.
Dustyn Lightfoot
The recent .NET 8 release was massive, with features and innovations affecting all areas of development from IoT to mobile, desktop, web, cloud and AI. I’ll be scouring the dizzying array of sessions from .NET Conf to bring you my favourite new features (and perhaps least favourite, depending on what I find 😊). Come and join me for a fun and informative lightning talk, armed with your own favourites and “not so favourites”.
12:00 - 13:00
Lunch
13:00 - 13:45
Wouter Grove
The Covid-19 pandemic highlighted not only the increasing dependance of South African society on digital technologies, but also the significant barriers our youth still face in accessing learning opportunities, skills development (StatsSA, 2020) and meaningful employment with record high youth unemployment rates.
Education level and access to educational opportunities play a significant role in unemployment. Of the 7,9 million unemployed persons in the first quarter of 2022, as many as 50,1% had education levels below matric, followed by those with matric at 40,0%. Only 2,8% of unemployed persons were graduates, while 6,7% had other tertiary qualifications as their highest level of education (StatsSA, 2022).
Massive national upskilling and reskilling is thus required to build capacity amongst current workers and to facilitate youth entrants into the labour market- and the software development field in particular. It is critical that South African businesses assume responsibility in this endeavor.
The UWC Samsung Future-Innovation Lab was established in terms of a 10-year Memorandum of Agreement signed in July 2019 between UWC and Samsung with the aim of hosting at UWC the Samsung EEIP Research and Development Programme (R&D Academy) at UWC in view of developing/supporting/enhancing its ICT scarce skills development programmes. We reflect on lessons learnt during the first three years of this innovative and impactful programme.
Jacques Swart
Join us on a journey through the realm of MediatR in .NET as we unravel the layers of its power and potential. MediatR, a popular library, offers a myriad of benefits by enabling the implementation of the Mediator Pattern in your .NET applications. In this session, we’ll explore the advantages of using MediatR, such as its ability to streamline communication between application components, promote reusability, and enhance maintainability in large-scale projects.
However, as with any tool, there are nuances and potential drawbacks to consider. We’ll delve into scenarios where the overuse or misuse of MediatR might lead to overly decoupled systems, potentially complicating code readability and introducing unnecessary abstraction.
This discussion won’t stop at the surface level. We’ll also dive into best practices, guiding you on when and how to employ MediatR effectively, balancing the advantages against the drawbacks. Uncover strategies to optimize its usage, identify scenarios where it shines, and learn to avoid pitfalls that could hinder your development process.
Whether you’re a seasoned developer or just stepping into the .NET landscape, this session aims to provide actionable insights, empowering you to make informed decisions about integrating MediatR into your projects. Come explore the nuances, the power, and the potential of MediatR, and leave equipped to leverage its strengths while mitigating its challenges in your .NET development journey.
14:00 - 14:45
Hennie Francis
In today’s fast-paced world of software development, agility and efficiency are paramount. Developers are constantly seeking tools and practices that can help them deliver high-quality software quickly and reliably. Introducing Infrastructure as Code: The Developer’s Secret Weapon. In this engaging presentation, we’ll delve into the world of IaC and explore how it empowers developers to supercharge their productivity, streamline workflows, and elevate their impact on the development process.
Niels Berglund
In today’s world, it has become increasingly important that you can act on things happening in real-time and also process those events. Kafka is, in many cases, the tool of choice for real-time
stream processing. And, as we know, .NET is the tool of choice in many organisations.
In this session, we will dive into the exciting world of stream processing and Kafka from the perspective of a .NET developer. We will start with a brief overview of Kafka and continue with exploring
how .NET and Kafka can work together seamlessly. We discuss best practices and tips for creating high-performing .NET Kafka applications.
Finally, we will delve into the realm of stream processing with Kafka and .NET, uncovering the power of real-time data processing and analytics. Join us as we unlock the potential of Kafka for .NET
developers and discover new horizons in stream processing.
Oh, this session is mostly code – very few slides.
15:00 - 15:45
Rennay Dorasamy
We exist in an agile, hyperspeed world of technology startups worth billions. DevOps and Continuous Deployment is all the rage as Financial Institutions want to be more like Netflix. Microservices, micro-frontends, containers with a healthy sprinkling of APIs are the secret ingredients to revolutionise organisations to propel them into the 22nd century.
And amidst this storm of frenetic activity, Architecture has the massive responsibility to channel the rising tide of radical technology adoption to meet the needs of an organisation, for short-term gain without long-term pain.
In this session, we review approaches for migrating and modernising pragmatically – both from a people and technology perspective.
Carike Botha
Do you want to embark on a journey to the magical world of Disney while exploring the power of .NET and the realm of low-code development? Join me for a whimsical adventure where I’ll demonstrate how to create a real-world solution with a Disney twist, uniting the capabilities of C# and .NET with the simplicity of Power Apps.
16:00 - 16:45
Khanimamba Ndhambi
The integration of AI within the latest .Net 8 framework has unlocked unprecedented opportunities for innovation. Join us in exploring a groundbreaking AI-driven application designed to revolutionize car maintenance. Discover how this application, powered by .Net 8, acts as a personal mechanic in your pocket, utilizing advanced image recognition and contextual AI to provide comprehensive assistance for your vehicle’s upkeep.
Matthew Leibowitz
In this session learn why you would choose a hybrid web approach to building native apps with .NET MAUI in .NET 8. Learn about Blazor hybrid and how you can build full-featured native apps for Windows, Mac, iOS and Android within a single codebase that can take advantage of your web skills. Take a tour of some of the new capabilities and see how you can reuse UI and build solutions that target the web at the same time. Also get a peek at how you can leverage other web frameworks in .NET MAUI.
16:45 - 17:00
Auditorium
Close & Networking
Speakers
Allan Pead
CTO, developer, lecturer, Microsoft Internet of Things MVP, Microsoft Dev Technologies MVP, Microsoft Azure MVP
Carike Botha
Development Consultant at iSolve Business Solutions an IQbusiness Company
Dustyn Lightfoot
Brightwire, Architect and Developer
Felicia Sephodi
Developer Advocate| Technical Writer
Gomolemo Mohapi
Cloud Advocate at Microsoft
Hennie Francis
Senior Full Stack Engineer | AWS Certified | Microsoft Certified | Microsoft Certified Trainer | Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist
Jacques Swart
.NET Developer
Khanimamba Ndhambi
Khanimamba Ndhambi, a Software Engineer at Agile Bridge, specializes in innovative .Net solutions. With a liking for Microsoft technologies.
Matthew Leibowitz
I write code. .NET code.
Neil Thompson
I see myself as a full-stack developer. I enjoy both front and back end work. in my free time I always play with game development and other small applications.
Niels Berglund
Software Architect at Derivco, Microsoft Data Platform MVP, SQL Server, Streaming Data and Kafka nerd.
Rennay Dorasamy
AWS, Professional Services, Cloud Architect
Roma Gupta
Account Technology Strategist @Microsoft
Trent Richardson
DVT
Warren du Toit
Azure Ninja (Senior Cloud Solution Architect - Microsoft)
Wayne Munro
I am a trusted advisor in the field of software engineering and cloud strategies.
Werner Rall
Microsoft CSA, Azure, DevOps, PowerShell, C#
Wouter Grove
UWC Future-Innovation Lab
Proudly Organised By
© 2023 All Rights Reserved.