Member News

Are you ready for the coming revolution?Russel Winder

UK school curriculum underwent a revolution as of 2014-09: ITC was replaced with programming (aka computer science). Whilst the change itself was campaigned for, and widely wanted, the way government handled the change left a lot to be desired. Some, but not all, universities and colleges have joined in realising the change and preparing for the consequent revolution in university computer science curriculum, c.2018 onward. Are businesses ready for the knock-on change?

This presentation will delve into some of the most important and/or obvious issues surrounding this world leading experiment in child education.

Ex-academic, Analyst & consultant Russel talks about the important issues surrounding the government’s push for programming in UK schools, and how the way it’s been handled has left a lot to be desired.

From 2015 ICT in UK schools is to be replaced with programming, but the way the government handled the change left a lot to be desired. Russel talks about some of the most important and obvious issues surrounding this world leading experiment in child education.

About Russel Ex-theoretical physicist, ex-UNIX system programmer, ex-academic. Now an independent consultant, analyst, author, expert witness and trainer. Also doing startups. Interested in all things parallel and concurrent. And build.

Actively involved with Groovy, GPars, GroovyFX, SCons, Me TV, and GStreamer. Also Gradle, Ceylon, Kotlin, D, Go, and bit of Rust. And lots of Python, especially Python-CSP.

Full agenda: https://www.nordevcon.com/agenda-2017/

RSVP: https://www.nordevcon.com

Nor(DEV):con keynote speaker, Saturday 25th Feb

From Coda to Code: The SupaPass JourneyJuliana Meyer

Join Norfolk Developers to discover the tech startup story, that began from a bedroom in Norwich with a vision for a more efficient rewarding future for creatives, and has led to a globally recognised tech platform working with artists from major record labels.

About Juliana Juliana Meyer is Founder and CEO of SupaPass, the fair-trade music streaming app. SupaPass gives anyone with a fanbase their own subscription streaming service. Fans subscribe to a specific creator’s channel from £1 per month and creators earn up to 100% net revenue share of their fan subscriptions.

Juliana founded SupaPass to give efficient, fair, transparent revenue from streaming for artists, labels and publishers. Working with global artists like Grammy Award-winning Imogen Heap, SupaPass is exploring cutting edge technology including Blockchain.

Prior to founding SupaPass, Juliana Meyer ran her own label and was an award-winning singer-songwriter, including writing Norfolk’s Official Olympic Song for the 2012 Olympics. She also has a Masters Engineering Degree from Oxford University. One of the first steps in founding SupaPass was co-founding SyncNorwich in order to find and build the team.

Juliana also won the overall award at the 2016 DevelopHER awards.

RSVP: https://nordevcon2017.eventbrite.co.uk

Norfolk Developers are excited to announce their programme for Nor(DEV):con‘s schools day, put together by Paul Foster, Microsoft in consultation with many members of faculty from different schools across Norfolk & Norfolk Developers themselves.

09:00 Arrival/Opening keynote segment (20 Minutes allowing for arrivals)

09.20 Paul Grenyer & Paul Foster Open event

09.25 Keynote- “Whoops”, and other classic programming phases by Dom Davis, (@Idomdavis).

Schools now teach algorithms and programming from the age of 5, so it’s hardly rocket science. Except when it is. And even when it isn’t it goes wrong a lot. I should know, I’ve been responsible for some of that wrongness. The trick is to learn from your mistakes, and to make sure that when it goes wrong, it does so in a way that no one will notice, and definitely not in the ways I’m going to spend this session talking about.

10:00 break

10:25 Guided technology task (2 hour activity)

In this activity students will learn how to blend software and hardware to build a modern digital device. Working in pairs, students will learn how the internet of things uses sensors and actuators to build intelligent feedback systems that can interact with the real world.

12:30 Lunch. (Allocated 1 hour)

Lunch is not provided.

A loop of inspirational technology videos will run during the lunch break to give students further ideas.

13:30 STEM student challenge (3 hour activity)

The STEM Student Challenge aims to help students connect the dots between the STEM subjects they study today and the impact those subjects could have on their ability to be part of the next generation of technology heroes. We invite students to use their knowledge of STEM subjects and marry it with research and creativity to imagine and depict their vision of technology in 2027.

The challenge is open to teams of 4-6 students in years 10 to 13. The challenge is to select one of the following categories and come up with an original technology idea that could exist in that field in 10 years’ time.

• Artificial intelligence and virtual reality
• Data Security
• Healthcare

Students must depict or “pitch” their idea in the form of a two-minute video.

1. Form a team. Teams should be made up of 4-6 students.

2. Choose a category and start imagining! We’re surrounded by technology, whether it’s in our pockets, our homes or our schools, and it’s only going to become more central to our daily lives. Microsoft is working in areas that will change the way we work, play and look after ourselves and we want you to think about how these might look 10 years from now. So choose from one of the categories below, and get to work – come up with an original idea for a future technology. Challenge entries should reflect your team’s creativity and your knowledge of your chosen category.

You are part of the generation that will help bring the technologies of 2027 to fruition, so in doing this challenge, we hope you’ll think more about how you can be part of driving the exciting world of tomorrow’s technology. Each team should choose one category and submit one idea only.

3. Create a video. Create a video that depicts your idea. The tech doesn’t exist yet, so you’ll have to get creative! Make a science show, do a skit, demo a mock up prototype using available materials – just keep it under two minutes. Please make sure that your team is familiar with the judging criteria which you can find in this document.

4. Submit your entry. Upload your video to OneDrive by 16:20

Video Entry Judging Criteria

1. Originality of idea Does the technology idea show creative thinking? Does it stand out from the crowd? Is the idea unique and original?

2. Quality of research methods Have the team shown the research that they have undertaken to lead them to their technology idea? Does the video demonstrate that the team has researched and understood the category they have chosen?

3. Understanding of STEM subjects How well does the video entry demonstrate a sound knowledge in one or more STEM subjects?

4. Quality of presentation and clarity of idea Is the video well presented, clearly describing the future technology idea? Have the team presented their idea in a creative, interesting and entertaining way?

5. Is it feasible? Have the students demonstrated how their technology idea could be possible in the year 2027?

6. Evaluation of the process Have the team demonstrated what they’ve learned from the experience of coming up with their technology idea?

7. Judging will occur after the event with schools being notified of results by the end of February

16:30 Close (dependent on lunch break length and required school departure time)

Pre-Conference Special: Machine Learning & Take the risk out of Digital Marketing

Warm up for the main conference day with the pre-conference special.

Date: Thursday, 23rd February 2017

Time: 5.30pm – 7pm

Location: The King’s Centre, Norwich City Centre

R.S.V.P: https://www.meetup.com/Norfolk-Developers-NorDev/events/233466379/

Take the risk out of Digital MarketingMarcus Hemsley Fountain Partnership

In this talk Marcus Hemsley will outline how the most successful Digital Marketing Campaigns minimise risk through accurate forecasting and testing. He will outline the three most important numbers to consider before you take a product or service to market, and discuss the most common mistake businesses make when launching a new marketing campaign. He will conclude the talk by running through the most effective strategies for business growth in 2017.

Machine Learning Darren Cook,QQ Trend

Darren will be speaking about machine learning, specifically with H2O, a fast, scalable, open source machine learning system with APIs in R, Python, CoffeeScript (and quite a few others). After an introduction there will be a live coding session to show using deep learning on a hard machine learning problem. There might even be time for Q&A and to give away a couple of copies of my book: Practical Machine Learning with H2O, published by O’Reilly. All in 30 minutes.

Pre-Conference Dinner

Location: The Library Restaurant, Norwich City Centre

Time: 7.30pm – late

Price: £30 pp

An intimate dinner at a lovely local restaurant, limited to 25 places. Attended by speakers and organisers and affiliated sponsors and guests.

Find the menu here

R.S.V.P: https://www.meetup.com/Norfolk-Developers-NorDev/events/233466479/

New Affiliation, New Opportunities

TVC can announce our membership totheNuclear Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (NAMRC). Consquently, the opportunity to collaboratewith such experienced and innovative organisations is an exciting way to start our New Year.

Expertise and Innovation

The NAMRC works to bring together the pioneering ingenuity of academics with industrial wisdom and capabilities. Owned by theUniversity of Sheffield, they workclosely with The University of Manchester’sDalton Nuclear Institute.NAMRC apply their manufacturing research and knowledge to projectswith Dalton’s nuclear and materials innovation thus formingimpressive partnership.

The Dalton Nuclear Institute is a dominant force in the study of nuclear science and engineering. Commanding the UK’smost advanced academic nuclear research facility, their work is integral toadvancing towards a low-carbon future.

NAMRC also collaborate withHigh Value Manufacturing (HVM) Catapult. HVM Catapultwork with AMRC with companies such as Boeing, Castings Technology International and AMRC Training Centre. This gives them access to a network of resources of areas of expertise across manufacturing technologies. Furthermore, outstanding research and development facilities connect businesses and academia, enabling opportunities normally unavailable tomany UK companies. Ten Catapult networks operate currently, with plans for 30 more by 2030, ensuring UK manufacturing will grow further still.

HVM Catapult is backed byInnovate UK, an executive non-departmental public body. Sponsored by the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, Innovate UK work to drive science and technology. Accordingly, they grow the UK economy by working with companies to ‘de-risk, enable and support innovation’. With over 55,000 new jobs created already, UK manufacturing remains strong.

We will be welcoming the NAMRC to our premises next year,

Our latestWomen’s Leadership Programme graduation, run in conjunction with People & Performance, included an extremely inspiring talk from guest speaker Jane Cooke, who shared her top tips on how to propel your career while staying true to your natural style and unique strengths.

Up until recently, Jane was Director People & Organisational Development at Abcam in Cambridge. Having seen the organisation grow from around 40 to 1,000 staff globally, Jane talked passionately about building confidence as a key step to progress into more senior roles. Here’s five of the top tips she shared with the graduates.

1. Always say yes

Saying yes to new challenges will take you out of your comfort zone, but it will also provide new experiences which will help you to develop new skills and to build the confidence needed to develop professionally. The research study ‘Career Playbook Women in Leadership’ found that far more men than women are likely to seek out and say yes to different experiences which stretch their skills and help them to progress.

2. Put yourself forward

As well as saying yes to opportunities, look for opportunities to put yourself out there. Women tend to be more modest than men and are not as confident in speaking up about their ideas, shouting about their successes, networking to raise their profile or putting themselves forward for projects or promotions.

3. Be kind to yourself

Women often set incredibly high standards for themselves and strive for perfection. Allow yourself to make some mistakes and don’t feel guilty about trying to determine a work life balance which works for you. Focus on building your own sense of self-worth and look to learn from others in your industry without unfavourably comparing yourself against them.

4. Remain authentic

Find out what is unique about yourself and work that difference. Don’t be afraid to display the qualities you naturally possess as women often feel under pressure, whether real or imagined, to become something they are not in order to advance their career. An authentic leadership approach inspires loyalty and trust, and will also show others that they can progress without having to become something they are not.

5. Find external mentors and coaches

Finding an external mentor or coach is something women should do sooner rather than later in their careers. As well as providing advice and guidance, a mentor or coach can act as a cheerleader for you. They can remind you of your successes and strengths, help you to break down any doubts and mental limitations and encourage you to venture out of your comfort zone in order to progress.

First established in 2014, Pure runs the Women’s Leadership Programme twice a year in conjunction with strategic HR consultancy People & Performance. The programme includes four days of facilitated learning and two individual coaching sessions, focused on building confidence and a plan, increasing strategic awareness and influence, and being effective and authentic leaders. The first Women’s Leadership Programme of 2017 will take place in January and March. For more information email Lucy Plumb atlucy.plumb@prs.uk.com.

Big hearted staff at Great Yarmouth railway station have raised hundreds of pounds for a local charity by holding a Christmas extravaganza.

Laura Engelstone and Ann Kirkham, who work in the ticket office, organised a fun day with live music by ‘Knotted’, stalls, games, a cake sale and a huge raffle which featured over £700 worth of prizes.

Santa and his elf even made an appearance to give out presents, complete with a sleigh and gingerbread house which were created for him by the students of Great Yarmouth college, who also sold bunches of mistletoe to rail passengers on the day.

The event supported The Beach FM’s charity appeal “Help an East Coast Child”, which is close to the hearts of the station staff and many passengers who pass through the station.

The event raised £418.59 for the appeal which aims to make life better for less privileged children and their families on the East coast through grants and by working with schools, youthgroups, disabled childrenand more.

Greater Anglia’s Area Customer Service Manager, James Reeve, commented, “Ann and Laura pulled out all the stops to put on a fantastic Christmas event which was very popular with customers, but also brought the whole community together in getting behind the ‘Help an East Coast Child’ appeal. I’m amazed by what they have achieved and would like to congratulate them on their fundraising success and thank all the businesses who supported the raffle, as well as the students of Great Yarmouth college, who gave us so much help in the run up to the event and on the day.”

Attleborough-based renewable heating expert Finn Geotherm, is celebrating 10 successful years of installing ground and air source heat pumps across the region.

Established in 2006 by David Alston, Finn Geotherm is the UK’s only approved installer of Lampoassa heat pumps, which are made in Finland. David, who is half Finnish himself, spotted the opportunity to bring this technology to the UK and set up Finn Geotherm to do just that, utilising his degree in Engineering. David ran the business part-time while he worked shifts in an engineering role in the food industry. It quickly became clear that the skills needed from subcontractors to install heat pumps weren’t available in the UK so David took everything in-house to start building a reputation for Finn Geotherm as the renewable heating experts. The business quickly grew and soon became a full-time job.

David was joined in 2009 by commercial director Guy Ransom. The pair met over an air source installation at Guy’s home. Guy quickly recognised the great potential of Finn Geotherm and, with a background in corporate finance, was well placed to help drive the business forward to where it is today. The company has not missed a single sales target in the past seven years and has achieved just under 40% growth annually since then.

In the past 10 years, the company has gone from a team of three installing 10kW heat pumps to 20 staff installing 350kW systems. Other key milestones from the past 10 years include:

• 600+ projects installed to date for all types of building, from churches and cottages to offices and even the zoo.
• A total of around 600km of ground loop installed – enough to reach from Finn Geotherm’s offices in Attleborough to Edinburgh!
• Secured £10m in Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) payments for customers
• 12MW of heating has been installed for customers
• By switching to ground and air source, in the past year alone, Finn Geotherm has saved 24MWh of heating energy and around 16,000 metric tonnes of C02.

David Alston, technical director at Finn Geotherm, said: “Although heat pump technology has been around for more than 150 years (the first large scale ground source heat pump was installed in 1945 for Norwich City Council’s electrical department), it’s still relatively new in the UK. When I set up Finn Geotherm ten years ago, I could see the great potential of renewable energy and felt passionately that this was the best, most sustainable technology for heating and hot water. Finn Geotherm has continued to grow as more and more consumers and businesses recognise the fantastic benefits delivered by heat pumps.”

Guy Ransom, commercial director at Finn Geotherm, said: “We are delighted to be celebrating our 10th anniversary in 2016 and what a year it’s been. We’ve been shortlisted for more than 10 awards and have scooped the titles of Rural Enterprise of the Year in the EDP Business Awards and Small Business of the Year in the Chamber of Commerce Awards eastern heats and been made a member of Future50. We have a great team on board here at Finn Geotherm who have completed a hundreds of innovative, highly efficient and money-saving heat pump systems for customers across the region. It is an exciting time to be in this industry and we’re certainly looking forward to the next 10 years!”

For more information on Finn Geotherm, see www.finn-geotherm.co.uk.

Chartered accountant and business adviser Price Bailey has appointed Martin Simons as Business Development Manager for Norfolk.

Previously Corporate Relationship Director with HSBC Bank, Martin has more than 37 years banking experience, with the last 10 years working with corporate businesses across Norfolk and Waveney Valley.

This experience involved working with business leaders to obtain a good understanding of their business, their challenges and strategies, advising on appropriate financial and funding solutions and providing introductions to relevant external skill providers to help achieve their business and personal goals.

“I am delighted to be joining the Price Bailey team,” said Martin. “I look forward to working with everyone and to putting my experience to good use to help the firm achieve its growth plans,”

“Martin brings a huge amount of local knowledge and technical expertise to the firm,” said Daren Moore, Price Bailey Partner. “He joins Price Bailey at an exciting time. We have grown considerably over the last few years and are poised to grow and develop even further, Martin will be instrumental in achieving our strategic aims.”

Would you like to improve your health in 2017 but find lack of time a barrier to making changes?

Take part in the Active Lunch 8-Week Challenge by adding some bite size activity into your day and you could win some great prizes this January and February!

Every week you log activity during the challenge – online or using the Workplace Challenge Mobile App – you will be entered into a prize draw to win some great prizes including cinema tickets, shopping vouchers, annual gym memberships and a helicopter flight!

Every minute counts in Active Norfolk’s Active Lunch 8-Week Challenge running from Wednesday 4 January – Tuesday 28 February.

Not currently active? Why not begin by making small changes and building in 10 minutes of physical activity into your day. You could swap a desk-based lunch to an active lunch by taking a quick walk with your colleagues – making the most of the lightest, brightest, part of the day.

Are you the competitive type? If so, you can challenge your colleagues and other workplaces through the Workplace Challenge leaderboards or create your very own leaderboard to compete with friends, family and colleagues.

Visit www.activenorfolk.org/challenge for more bite size activity ideas or to download posters and content to promote the Active Lunch Workplace Challenge in your workplace.

Sign up to Workplace Challenge for FREE at www.workplacechallenge.org.uk/activenorfolk

Sign up to Workplace Challenge for FREE at www.workplacechallenge.org.uk/activenorfolk

Venkat Subramaniam ISBN-13: 978-1680501742

I wanted to start this review simply with “Wow! Just wow!”, but that’s not really going to cut it. It’s true to say that when I first learned that there was going to be a book published called “Test-Driving JavaScript Applications” I was sure it was going to be the book I had been waiting for since at least late 2007 when I was forced to write JavaScript in production for the first time. It’s publication date was pushed back and back, so it really felt like I was being made to wait. However, I wasn’t disappointed and this book was everything I hoped it would be and more.

We all know JavaScript is evil, right? Why is it evil? It’s the lack of a decent type system, the forgiving nature of the compilers and an inability to write meaningful unit tests, especially for the UI (User Interface). It’s difficult to do a huge amount about the first two points, but now JavaScript can be meaningfully unit tested, even in the UI context, with Karma, Mocha and Chai. Test coverage can be measured with Istanbul and System Tests (referred to by Subramanian as Integration Tests – this is my one bugbear with the book) written with Protractor. All of this is described in Test-Driving Java Applications.

I think it’s important to read all of part 1, Creating Automated Tests. The chapters cover everything you need to know to get started writing unit tests for both server side code and UI code, how to test asynchronous code (very important in JavaScript) and how to replace dependencies with test doubles such as fakes, stubs and spies. It’s all demonstrated with a completely test first approach with excellent commentary about how this leads to good design.

I cherry picked from part 2, Real-World Automation Testing. I was only really interested in how to write automated tests for the DOM and JQuery and how to write ‘Integration’ tests. Other chapters included how to write tests for Node.js, Express and two versions of AngularJS. The DOM and JQuery chapter was excellent showing me exactly how to take advantage of test doubles to write fully tested JavaScript without having to fire up a browser, resulting in something I can make immediate use of.

The Integrate and Test End-to-End chapter, which describes how to use Protractor, was almost enough to encourage me to abandon Java (Selenium) for System Tests and move to JavaScript. However, while looking at the latest version of Selenium, there are some other things I want to investigate first.

The final chapter, Test-Drive Your Apps is the equivalent of Pink Floyd playing Run Like Hell at the end after Comfortably Numb. It’s still good, but is really there to help you wind down from the climax and could just as easily have been omitted, but it would feel a bit odd if it was.

If there was one more thing I could get from this book it would be how to send test and coverage results to SonarQube.

If you want to use JavaScript, intend to use JavaScript or are forced to use JavaScript, get this book and automated the testing of your JavaScript.

Following on from Jeremy Corbyn’s speech to CBI Annual Conference 2016, Naked Element explains that Industry 4.0 is a revolution individuals and organisations must be aware of in order to prepare themselves for the big changes that lie ahead.

When people hear the words ‘Industrial Revolution’ images of brick built factories come to mind, plumes of black smoke billowing from their chimney stacks, the working men with their faces stained with grease and grime. An image of a bygone age, where the combustion engine and manual labour transformed our world.

Compared to this smog-filled revolution that most ordinary people will be familiar with, the fourth industrial revolution will seem like a work of futuristic science fiction, conjuring up images of Skynet and robots that can think for themselves. Aptly named ‘Industry 4.0’ this forthcoming revolution, like the ones before it, promises to dramatically change how industry works. There is some debate about what the previous three revolutions where, with some focussing on IT related changes only from the 1970s onwards, but most include all major upheavals to manufacturing processes from the end of the 18th century.

The rise of two things in particular can be attributed to powering the tech revolution – cloud computing and the Internet of Things. In simple terms cloud computing enables individuals or companies to work anywhere there is connectivity, to access and share their data by accessing ‘the cloud’ of information, rather than relying on files stored on a work server only. The Internet of Things is exactly what it sounds like. ‘Things’ (your car, your fridge, your central heating system) are connected to the internet and can be controlled remotely through that connection. The combination of these two could mean great things for manufacturers. In fact companies in Germany are already leading the way.

Production machines that can connect to the internet can be monitored remotely. They can also connect to the other machines on the production line. Give that machine access to the cloud and it can access data gathered from the rest of the factory. A connected ‘workforce’ that has real-time production data available to it can monitor itself, has the potential to self-diagnose and adjust its actions accordingly. This may all sound a little far-fetched but it’s more of a reality than one might think.

There are companies already taking advantage of the advance in data collection brought about by the Internet of Things. Identifying where improvements can be made to processes to increase yield, or using 3D printing to reduce production time and increase profit margins, or simply analysing data to pinpoint exactly what customers desires are, and how much they’re willing to pay to have them met, to increase turnover. These are all real world examples of how Industry 4.0 is already changing how industry works.

How should businesses prepare for these big changes though? For many the biggest obstacle is cost. Updating technology, replacing machines and employing developers is expensive and the investment may just be too much for some. For those that can afford to make changes, it is essential that there is a strategy in place. It’s all well and good collecting lots of data, but how is it to be used? What advantages can it give and how are changes to be implemented once improvements have been identified? The way companies do business is also something to be considered, as the manufacturing process is changing so does the market place and business must be prepared for competitors to emerge. The other point to take into consideration is once data has been collected, and used to its potential, how will that data be managed? Is the cybersecurity up to scratch? And, just as importantly, is the tech and development team? One thing that is agreed upon is that there is no stopping Industry 4.0. It will have a revolutionary impact on the way we manufacture and business needs to be prepared. Let’s just hope we don’t need John Connor’s help in our futuristic landscape.