Check Out Our 2025 agenda
Find out more details of each of the speaker sessions as our 2025 agenda begins to take shape.
PLAN YOUR DAY, YOUR Way
Thursday, September 25th, 2025
08:30 - 09:00
registration
Tea, coffee and breakfast rolls on arrival.
09:00 - 09:05
Welcome
Karen Meechan, CEO, ScotlandIS
09:05 - 09:55
Ministerial Address
09:55 - 10:55
Keynote - Adventures in Scottish IT
Peter Palmer, Tech Entrepreneur
Peter Palmer (MBE, MA, MSc, DPhil, MBCS) was a founder of Spider Systems in 1983 and AXON Networks in 1992. Both were successfully sold in the mid-1990s.
In the late 1980s, he was a founder of ScotlandIS (then the Scottish Software House Federation) and was its first Chairman.
In his keynote, Peter will talk about the background to the founding and success of Spider Systems, and how those experiences led to the founding of SSHF. Peter will also relate the history of AXON, which, based on the experience of Spider, was founded as an American company with product development in Scotland. Spider and AXON together offer an interesting case study in the differences between two markets.
Peter has lived in the USA for the last thirty years, initially working for AXON, and subsequently as a business angel in the Boston area.
11:00 - 11:20
coffee break
Tea, coffee and biscuits will be provided, with the chance to network and browse the exhibition hall.
11:30 - 12:10
Attacks and Defences for lLMs
Daniel Llewellyn, Director of Technology, CreateFuture
With the incredible speed that developers have been integrating AI into their applications, the tools we have to prevent attackers from abusing AI has not kept up, and in fact unlike other vulnerabilities in web applications (like XSS) there is no easy or clear way of stopping prompt injection attacks.
In this talk, Daniel will cover some of the top threats, including prompt injection, jailbreaking and data poisoning, the impact it can have on an application, and attacks and defences at three levels: before a prompt hits the LLM, defences on the LLM and defences after the LLM.
While there is no silver bullet, he will finish by pointing the attendees to a few tools they can use to protect their own applications, and why you need to care, plus more on AI legislation and the growing call for 'responsible AI' practices.
11:30 - 12:10
Designing Your Ideal Agentic Employee: From Rapid Prototyping to Responsible Integration
Pete Gordon, Principal Consultant, Waracle
In today's AI-powered workplace, sophisticated Large Language Models (LLMs) are transforming from tools to teammates. This session reveals a proven methodology for creating "Agentic Employees" – AI systems that autonomously execute complex tasks alongside your human workforce.
We'll demonstrate how combining Design Thinking principles with LLM-based prototyping creates a powerful iterative framework that dramatically accelerates agent development. Through real-world case studies, you'll see how organisations have moved from concept to functional agentic systems in weeks rather than months.
Beyond technical implementation, we'll focus on the strategic questions determining success: How do you define an agent's purpose, scope, and behavioural guardrails? What communication style aligns with your organisational culture? How do you measure an agent's effectiveness?
The final segment tackles the governance challenges determining whether agentic AI becomes an asset or liability. We'll provide actionable frameworks for establishing clear lines of accountability, implementing effective oversight mechanisms, and creating sustainable maintenance protocols.
Key Takeaways: A practical, step-by-step methodology for rapidly prototyping and iterating agentic AI systems; strategic frameworks for defining agent roles that align with organisational objectives and culture; governance best practices that enable responsible AI integration while mitigating operational and ethical risks.
11:30 - 12:10
How Hackers are Using AI (and What We Can Do About It)
Charlie Maclean-Bristol, Director, PlanB Consulting
Imagine getting a phone call from your CEO, urgently asking you to transfer £100,000 to a new supplier. You recognise their voice immediately — it has to be them, right? Except…it isn’t. It’s a hacker, using AI to mimic your CEO’s voice perfectly. This isn’t science fiction anymore — it’s happening today.
In this talk, Charlie will explore the many different ways hackers are using AI to enhance and accelerate their attacks. From deepfakes tricking staff into sending money, to phishing emails and ransom notes crafted in perfect English, AI is changing the cyber threat landscape at incredible speed. He’ll also look at how AI is making malware smarter and stealthier, slipping past traditional security tools with ease.
Along the way, Charlie will share real-world examples of AI-driven threats and explain what these developments mean for businesses and individuals alike. Importantly, we’ll also discuss the critical role of Cyber Incident Management in an AI world — and why having a prepared, well-practised human team remains essential when facing fast-moving, AI-powered attacks. Finally, the audience will leave with practical steps you can take to protect yourself and your organisation, and how you can even harness AI as a powerful tool for defence.
11:30 - 12:10
Key Trends Shaping Cloud Native and AI Ecosystem
Cheryl Hung, Senior Director, Head of Infrastructure Ecosystem at Arm
11:30 - 12:10
Beyond Compliance: Leading the industry and transforming developer experience with bold automation
John Ockenden, Senior Full-Stack Engineering Consultant, Accenture
12:20 - 13:00
From Theory to Practice: Lessons from the AI Integration Frontier
Jamie Graves, Managing Director, L-Point Ltd
Drawing from his career building AI-powered products, this talk distills key principles that separate successful AI integrations from failures.
Jamie will share practical frameworks for determining when AI truly adds value versus when it's simply trendy, examine the often-overlooked organisational challenges of implementation, and demonstrate how to maintain human-centered design throughout the development process.
12:20 - 13:00
Scaling Without Losing Momentum & Planning for Exits
Keith O'Donnell, Managing Director, Feynic Technology
This session is designed for post-seed to Series-funded tech companies, where Keith will break down the key frameworks and decision points that drive sustainable scaling. This talk will equip you with practical insights, actionable strategies, and expert guidance on maintaining momentum through rapid growth, navigating key funding stages and investor expectations, understanding the road to IPO or M&A (and how to prepare), and making informed decisions to future-proof your company.
13:00 - 13:50
Lunch
14:00 - 14:40
Coping with constant change: the realities of embedding AI
Richard Marshall, Principal, Concept Gap Ltd
Software environments have always been evolving, but the rate of change in the last couple of years has grown exponentially. This creates a massive problem for developers looking to create a stable, reliable enterprise operating environment, yet want to add new AI-based features. This is particularly important for many highly regulated industries where AI can bring measurable benefits, yet the churn in approaches, APIs, models, and capabilities makes adoption particularly challenging.
In this session, Richard will present techniques that will enable developers and architects to plan for an increasingly fluid future.
14:00 - 14:40
Code Meets Creds: Navigating the Identity Collision Course
Chris Owen, Managing Director, dotnext Europe
As software eats the world, identity is quietly becoming its favorite snack. In today’s DevOps-fueled, API-saturated world, the line between development and security has not just blurred—it’s buckling under the weight of machine identities, hardcoded secrets, over-permissioned service accounts, and a "ship it now, patch it later" mindset.
This talk explores where security and development collide—often unintentionally—and how developers are unknowingly holding the keys to the kingdom. We'll spotlight the growing risks around both human and non-human identities, including the rise of shadow tokens, identity sprawl in CI/CD pipelines, and privilege escalation hiding in plain sight.
But this isn’t a blame game. We’re here to show how developers can become identity champions without slowing down innovation. From least privilege by design to secrets hygiene that doesn’t suck, we’ll share practical strategies that work with your flow, not against it.
Let’s rethink identity security as a team sport—because the best code in the world means nothing if it ships with the wrong permissions.
14:00 - 14:40
Gamifying the Future: Transforming Digital Engagement in Scottish Widows
Rose Ulldemolins, Engineer Lead, and Derek Shanks, Director of Digital Technology, Lloyds Banking Group
Join Derek Shanks and Rose Ulldemolins as they explore how Scottish Widows is reimagining the digital experience through the lens of gamification and next-gen app design.
Derek will share the strategic vision behind our transformation - why we’re investing in digital engagement, how it aligns with our business goals, and what it means for our customers and engineers. Rose will then bring the strategy to life, showcasing the technology, design thinking, and execution behind our gamification approach and the Scottish Widows App. Together, they’ll offer a compelling look at how business and tech are partnering to shape the future of Insurance, Pensions & Investments.
14:00 - 14:40
Pushing the Limits: Exploring 1-Bit Large Language Models for Efficient AI
Marcin Wawryszczuk, Principal AI/ML Architect, Andersen
14:00 - 14:40
The Quantum Computing Advancements Set to Unlock the Promise of AI
Ilyas Khan, Vice Chairman of Board of Directors and Chief Product Officer, Quantinuum
14:50 - 15:30
Agentic AI: Software Steps into the Labour Market
Gary Crawford, Founder and Chief Advisor, Owendale Advisory
In 2011, Marc Andreessen famously declared, "Software is eating the world." But Andreessen wasn't entirely correct: software merely ate the tasks of storing and retrieving information—until now.
Agentic AI marks a seismic shift. We're now entering an era where AI-enabled software steps into skilled roles, performing activities once exclusive to humans. As AI enters the labour market, we stand on the brink of the most profound transformation in work, society, and economics since the Industrial Revolution.
In this talk, Gary Crawford outlines the strategic, operational, and cultural challenges leaders must overcome to succeed in the Intelligence Era. Combining sharp insights with practical guidance, this lively and entertaining session is a must-see for forward-thinking leaders shaping the future of work.
14:50 - 15:30
Patching the Pipeline: Aligning Python Engineers and SQL Analysts
Ceri Shaw, Fractional CTO
Technical leaders often find themselves managing teams where Python engineers and SQL analysts operate in silos with misaligned goals and workflows leading to data teams struggling to untangle the data, broken pipelines and dashboards and blame games all around.
This talk explores why that gap exists, what it costs in terms of productivity and trust, and how to close it.
Ceri will look at real-world examples of tension between engineering and data teams, the root causes behind data handoff issues, and why shared context, collaboration and communication are the key to better outcomes. You'll leave with actionable strategies to align your engineering and analytics teams, from setting joint data contracts to embedding analysts in feature teams. Ceri will also share tips and techniques that have worked in her experience as a technical leader and discuss some of the well-intentioned misses and why they failed.
Whether you're leading a data-driven org or feeling frustrated with data work always lagging the product teams, this talk will give you actionable insights you can apply in your teams tomorrow.
15:35 - 15:55
coffee break
Tea, coffee and biscuits will be provided, with the chance to network and browse the exhibition hall.
16:00 - 17:00
keynote - Pivot Point: Back to the future
K D Adamson, Futurist and Ecocentrist
The age of technology optimisation is over, and the age of resilience has begun.
In a future shaped by moralism, meta-mercantilism, and meatspace global business was a great start-up, but it isn’t going to scale. Like all good start-ups it has to pivot, which means challenging some basic assumptions. Because the greatest handicap that leaders face is not uncertainty about tomorrow, it’s overconfidence in their beliefs about today.
