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SKILLS FOR LIFE CAMPAIGN LAUNCH

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As part of the Skills for Life Campaign run by the Department for Education in the UK Government, I was invited to the launch event at the Google offices in St Pancras, London. The event was 10.30am on a Monday morning, and I was excited to meet apprentices and employers from every industry that I could think of. I’d arrived and put my bags down, there were banners everywhere with many of the apprentice participants on the banners, the advert rolling around TV screens, breakfast, and photo opportunities with banners to advertise the campaign. I quickly settled in and met many people from the Department for Education, various employers including the IT and Rail industry, and two of the apprentices that I went to the advert shoot with back in October 2023.   After around an hour of networking, the event started by a speech from the VP of Marketing for Google UK, she spoke about apprenticeships, how upskilling is important and valued at Google, and their support of the Skills for Life cam
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FIRST SIX MONTHS AS A TSC CHAIR FOR GALASA

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  It’s coming to the end of 2023, and it has been a whirlwind year. I joined the Galasa team back in January to look at how we can gain adoption by the Linux Foundation and more specifically, the Open Mainframe Project (part of the LF) to gain better governance and, most importantly, find the right home for Galasa. Through research and some team conversations, we felt the Open Mainframe Project was the right place , as their mission is to e nhanc e the quality, reliability and availability of Mainframe systems , and the adoption of modern development methodologies , which Galasa supports. The process to gaining adoption by the Open Mainframe Project was to gain a sponsor from the Technical Advisory Committee (TAC), and present at one of their monthly meetings to gain approval from the voting members. With Joe Bostian as our sponsor, in April, Will Yates and I presented to the committee and got an overwhelming vote of approval – we had finally made the crucial step towards adopt
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SKILLS FOR LIFE CAMPAIGN ADVERT

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It all started in July 2023, when I sent off a video of myself speaking for 30 seconds and some information about my apprenticeship, company, and background. In September, I was contacted by the casting agency working on behalf of the Department for Education to be part of a filming shoot in mid-October. I was understandably really excited, what could this mean – they gave me an idea that it could be billboards, adverts, posters, and banners, but I didn’t know which part of that I’d be involved in.   They sent me all the information running up to the event where I’d be off to shoot for a TV advert in Manchester in mid-October 2023. I took the 5 hour train up to Manchester one Wednesday afternoon, and stayed in a hotel overnight anxiously awaiting the call sheet they would send me later. The taxi call was 6am, and I went down to find 3 other apprentices and an actress waiting for the same mini-bus, and we were off to the set outside Manchester. We arrived at some trucks stationed outsid
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NAVIGATING SUSTAINABLE SOFTWARE ENGINEERING

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Below is an excerpt from my university dissertation, a chapter on sustainable software engineering: Sustainable software engineering, defined as meeting user needs while minimizing environmental impacts (Amsel, et al., 2011), is a concept that hasn't gained universal acceptance within the software engineering community. Conflicting definitions persist across the industry (Manotas, et al., 2016; Kasurinen, et al., 2017; Groher & Weinreich, 2017). In contrast, Green IT, a well-studied area, focuses on the efficient design of data centers and IT architecture to reduce energy consumption and costs (Molla, et al., 2008). Defining Sustainable Software Engineering Internally encouraging green software development involves the practice of sustainable software engineering, where software is developed with a low environmental impact throughout its lifecycle, constantly evaluated, and improved for sustainability (Dick & Naumann, 2010). Berkhout and Hertin’s (2001) literature on first-
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GSE UK 2023

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In November, I spent time at the GSE UK conference in Whittlebury Hall, near Silverstone in the UK. It was my second conference, so I was full of anticipation and unsure what I was going into. My first thought was – how on earth am I going to navigate the mammoth agenda with an exceptional amount of content, and the second – are there going to be people I know? I spent time before the conference going through the agenda and selecting one or two sessions for each slot to make sure that I had a few things lined up to go to. On the Monday, they had put on a half-day set of sessions that were particularly interesting, I went to a session on Cyber Resiliency specifically looking at how customers can use a Cyber Vault to be particularly resilient against potential cyber-attacks. The vendor area with stands wasn’t open until the following day, so I wanted to make sure that I had acclimatised. Many friends from the previous conference (IBM TechXchange) were there, including Steven, Emma, Joe,
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THE COMPLEX LANDSCAPE OF PRODUCT MANAGEMENT

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Below is an excerpt from my university dissertation, a chapter on software product management: The term "product management" may have originated in the 1930s, courtesy of Proctor and Gamble, but its widespread adoption by software organizations only occurred in the 1990s (Kittlaus & Fricker, 2017; Fricker, 2012). Fast forward to today, and product management has become a ubiquitous role in companies like Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft (Cagan, 2017). So, what exactly is software product management (SPM)? SPM is a multifaceted business process that oversees a product's journey from inception to delivery. It's a blend of release planning, strategy, and development (Ebert, 2014). However, there's no shortage of varying definitions. Steinhardt (2010) sees it as grounded in general management techniques, with a focus on product planning and marketing, while Haines (2008) defines it as a business organization concentrating on strategizing, introducing, devel
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THE OPEN MAINFRAME SUMMIT - TECHXCHANGE 2023

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The Open Mainframe Summit, held on the 11th September, was an excellent showcase of the breadth and depth of the people, community, and technology that is key to the future of the Mainframe platform. The morning sessions included keynotes on topics such as mentorship, a welcoming note from John Mertic and Jason Gartner, Zowe, and the diverse community the Mainframe draws together. Plus, the excitement around announcing Galasa formally had started the day well – with a whole bunch of new stickers to hand out. The particular highlight for me, was hosting the diversity panel alongside Donna Hudi, Len Santalucia, and Sudharsana Srinivasan. I started meeting with people from the Open Mainframe Project earlier in the year, and over the last 9 months, I’ve felt nothing but warmth, kindness, and a sense of common language between those that are part of the OMP community. Therefore, the panel was designed to bring out the highlights of working around the Mainframe, such as the ability to walk u
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