Speakers


  • Scott Guthrie

    Scott Guthrie is a General Manager within Microsoft's Developer Division. He runs the development teams that build: CLR, ASP.NET, WPF, WPF/e, Windows Forms, IIS 7.0, Commerce Server, .NET Compact Framework, and the Visual Studio Web and Client Development Tools.

  • Dave Verwer

    Dave Verwer has over 11 years in the IT industry with experience in everything from real time data gathering software to enterprise scale web applications which have been deployed to almost every country in the world. Dave now runs a small independent software development and consultancy company called Shiny Development. He has left various pieces of himself around the web but can usually be found at Shiny Development.

  • Hristo Deshev

    Hristo Deshev is a group product manager for telerik, a leading vendor of ASP.NET controls Telerik. He has been working on component development for the past several years, focusing on creating rich, highly interactive AJAX solutions. A major goal of his and his team is "taming web development" - applying agile software engineering practices to create robust solutions targeting all modern web browsers and supporting multiple ASP.NET and Visual Studio.NET versions. You can reach Hristo via email at hristo.deshev at telerik.com and on his blog at http://blogs.telerik.com/blogs/twisted_asp_net.

  • Zhivko Dimitrov

    Zhivko is the web designer behind the telerik web-sites and product skins. Throughout the years, he has specialized in interface & web design, but his interests spill over to print & interactive as well. His current work is a focused on making web experiences usable, pleasant, and memorable.

  • Glenn Jones

    Glenn Jones is one of Madgex’s founders and is also the company’s Creative Director. Heading up Madgex’s R&D, Glenn has created and developed some of the company’s next generation applications such as Backnetwork, the online social networking tool for conferences, and Mapsurface, the real time analytics package.

    Prior to working at Madgex, Glenn was a leading designer and developer at Virgin Atlantic. Here he was responsible for developing the airline's global Intranet project, taking the project from paper concept to core business system.

    Glenn has been working in interactive design since the early 90s. Initially working in the audiovisual industry, he progressed into interactive CD-ROM and non-linear digital video production. His work as a Senior Interactive Designer has seen him focus on Internet and Intranet development for major brands such as GlaxoWellcome, the leading pharmaceuticals company, and research company Bayer.

  • Patrick Lauke

    Patrick currently works as Web Editor for the University of Salford, where he heads a small central web team. In 2003 he implemented one of the first web standards based XHTML/CSS driven UK university sites.

    He has been engaged in the discourse on accessibility since early 2001, regularly contributing to a variety of web development and accessibility related mailing lists and forums, taking an active role in the running of Accessify.com, moderating the Accessify forum, and joining the Web Standards Project Accessibility Task Force (WaSP ATF) in June 2005.

    Published works include a chapter in Web Accessibility: Web Standards and Regulatory Compliance., released by Friends of Ed in 2006.

    In his spare time, Patrick pursues his passion for photography and runs a small web/design consultancy.

    An outspoken accessibility and standards advocate, Patrick favours a pragmatic hands-on approach to web accessibility over purely theoretical, high-level discussions.

    "I’m an idealist by nature, but a pragmatist by trade. I’d never class myself as an expert and I certainly don’t have all the answers...I’m just an opinionated guy eager to find real world solutions 'where the rubber meets the road'."

  • Bruce Lawson

    Bruce is a member of the Web Standards Project’s Accessibility Task Force, and was one of the reviewers of the British Standards Institution’s PAS 78 “Guide to good practice in commissioning accessible websites”. He was recently editorial consultant, technical reviewer and co-author of Web Accessibility: Web Standards and Regulatory Compliance.

    His interest in web standards is both philosophical (a good artisan uses the right tools,, in the right way) and practical (I can get smaller pages that Google likes). His interest in accessibility is thinly disguised self-interest, having been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1999.

    Previously, he worked as an actor and theatre director, and a programmer with AT&T, before becoming a singer, guitarist, and tarot card reader in Istanbul, a volunteer pharmacist in Calcutta, a movie extra in Bombay, and tutor to a princess's daughter in Thailand.

    He blogs at www.brucelawson.co.uk, is a yellow belt in Karate, and he drinks Guinness.

  • Barry Dorrans

    Barry Dorrans of idunno.org has spent 15 years cutting code, starting with mainframes, through DOS, Visual C and MFC before finally ending up on the .NET platform. His experience has ranged from banking systems to Europe's largest streaming network. He now mentors developers through .NET migrations and Expert Witness services with Charteris plc.

  • Jon Harris

    Jon spent the early part of his career working alongside Macromedia as their creative arm in the UK, or rather arms, legs body and head, he does miss those 24 hour days... NOT! Well he does a little bit...

    It made sense after designing for Macromedia to work for Macromedia and he joined as Technical Sales Manager for Northern Europe and spent the next 4 years travelling the length and breadth of the UK and Scandinavia. Anybody that stood still long enough would find themselves learning about the wonder of the web, the importance of usability and accessibility for all.

    After a 12 month dabble with Breeze (that’s the product not some fascination with part open windows) he moved into the Macromedia mobile team and spent 2 years making sure Flash was taken seriously by the mobile operators throughout Europe.

    In more recent times Jon has hung up his travelling boots and has now been resident at Microsoft for the last 4 months, and what a 4 months. New technologies to test, new products to use new boundaries to break, new people to excite, a new rollercoaster to ride... and Jon loves rollercoasters.

    He also has one of the coolest job titles in the world ‘User Experience Evangelist’

  • Brandon Schauer

    Brandon Schauer is a Design Strategist for Adaptive Path. He speaks on, writes about, and practices design as a means to create value. He has a decade of experience developing new user experiences on the Web, desktops, and products. His passion for finding and understanding the unmet needs of customers has led him to diverse environments, from the homes of cancer patients to tunnels beneath Walt Disney World.

    Brandon holds two master-level degrees from schools with the Illinois Institute of Technology, a Master of Design from the Institute of Design in Chicago and an MBA from the Stuart School of Business. Brandon also has a love of Excel that is unnatural for a designer.