QCon is a renowned international conference series presented by InfoQ, a group of computer professionals and educators. QCon, which began in Beijing in 2008, currently hosts yearly conferences in key technological hubs across the world, such as San Francisco, New York City, London, Tokyo, and Shanghai. QCon events bring together developers and software architects to discuss issues such as artificial intelligence, microservices, web development, continuous delivery, blockchain, and DevOps.

QCon 2020 San Francisco, held March 3-5, 2020, offered guests insights, methods, and strategies from software engineering thought leaders and practitioners. Tracy Chou, a software engineer and diversity champion, was a keynote speaker, as was Sam Ramji, CEO of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation, and Katelyn Bourgoin, co-founder of Bergen Hamilton. There were 55 sessions in total, including 28 instructor-led seminars, 4 keynote speakers, 2 panel discussions, and 21 speaker speeches.

The majority of QCon conferences and events are geared toward software architects and senior-level software engineers. Tutorials & seminars, keynotes, and other special sessions and deep dives are all part of each event. Along with the main conferences, several related activities, such as evening receptions, sponsor expos, and polyglot programming unconferences, are usually held.

QCon intends to organize virtual events all over the world in 2021. For example, QCon Africa 2021 pledges to continue the tradition of their 2019 and 2020 physical events by hosting a three-day virtual event on June 10-12, 2021. Asha Kirana, Founder and Chief Architect of MuleSoft, Ninola Opere, Executive Director of Lew Perfect Tech Ventures, and Patrick McArdle, CTO of Gravitest are among the speakers.

QCon also offers one-day events called ‘Threads’ and ‘Tracks’. QCon Threads provides specific technical topics and allows attendees to delve further into the subject matter, whereas Tracks covers the whole software architecture and development process. QCon, for example, hosted the QCon AI Track in 2020, which focused on machine learning, natural language processing, computer vision, and AIOps. In 2021, QCon plans to include Tracks on software architecture, software engineering, security, and scalability, as well as possibly other new Tracks based on interest.

QCon London 2019, for example, featured keynotes from Adrienne Porter-Felt, Director of Privacy at Google; Dan North, CTO of NearForm; and Pat Helland, Principal Architect on the Azure Cosmos DB team. QCon London featured 62 sessions, including keynote lectures, panel discussions, 34 talks, and 22 workshops.

QCon conferences bring experienced software engineers, architects, and developers from the world’s leading technology businesses together to talk and learn about developing technologies and strategies. Attendees at all QCon events, regardless of company or team size, can expect to get useful insights from experienced specialists on topics ranging from microservices to artificial intelligence.