Fusion is a meetup for the Tech-passionate, with a focus on engaging, thought provoking talks in an informal and sociable space. We hold them in the well-connected city centre of Birmingham and since 2015 our events have proudly showcased local talent alongside industry specialists from further afield, all sharing knowledge and innovation with our Fusion family.

Our focus is to bring the local Tech community together over insightful talks, good food, and conversation; a networking event 

About Fusion Meetup

If you're interested in either supporting Fusion meetup in 2024, or interested in offering a talk...please contact us here: 

Fusion Meetup – Contact the Fusion Team (thefusionhub.co.uk)

Jadu is a provider of Web Experience Management software, specialising in Web CMS, Forms, Portal and Customer Case Management tools for the enterprise.

Jadu

Bluetel is engineering-led technical agency, expert at delivering business value through cloud technology.

Bluetel

A talk about the care we put into tooling and a deep drive on how we scaled that to build a new system for handling cron jobs

Joe Rowe

Making Monzo Magic

We take browsers for granted; they’re ubiquitous and they’ve been around for ages…But have you ever stopped to think about what they do? 

They execute arbitrary code, from untrusted sources on the Internet…by design. And we’re supposed to be OK with that? Unsurprisingly, how they do this provides some useful lessons in how we can design and build secure systems. This talk, from a security engineer (and a recovering browser engineer) takes you through some of those lessons

Mark Goodwin

What your browser can teach you about building secure software

I've always been interested in the composition of Open Source and internal dependencies that my projects use, and after years of wanting some way to query the data, I went ahead and built it!

Having access to this data has allowed me and my team to get a view of what our most popular languages or frameworks are, which packages we didn't realise we so heavily rely on, determine how many dependencies are using end-of-life software, or just understand the way that internally-built libraries are used across the organisation.

This data has given my company's developers, leadership and the security team a better view of the landscape of our ever growing dependencies on Open Source, so we can appropriately upgrade, migrate, and support projects.

In this talk, you'll learn that it's straightforward to do this yourself with Free and Open Source Software, as well as looking at some examples of the data that you can get out of this tooling for your own purposes.


Jamie Tanna

Quantifying your reliance on Open Source software

Kirsty Thomas-Brown

Magic Notes: transforming Casework

. There is a muse called the Lady of Shalott. They’re both believers in opening the web. And both of them need your help. If you’ve ever wondered (while you’re looking angrily at 

, or why the web is cracked from side to side… your loyal knight and true is here.

Stuart is a consultant CTO, software architect, and developer to startups and small firms on strategy, custom development, and how to best work with the dev team, and a founder member of 

; Stuart himself is mostly to be found playing D&D or trying to find the best sandwich in town.

Stuart Langridge

The mazy web she whirls: starting Open Web Advocacy

Fusion is back for the final event of 2024! You should expect incredible speakers, tasty food from our fellow brummie foodies, and those delicious cupcakes!

Join us at Studio Venues, Cannon Street, Birmingham on Thursday 21st November at 6pm for another evening of Fusion goodness.

We have a strict Code of Conduct at Fusion and we ask that you read it before purchasing a ticket to attend 

Fusion Meetup – About (thefusionhub.co.uk)

Bluetel is an engineering-led technical agency, expert at delivering business value through cloud technology.

You’re probably tired of the existential doom and/or utopian marketing speak dominating the conversation on AI. What's the real situation? Where are the current ethical problems for society? And what can we as individuals do to make the future of AI one that's more trustworthy? Hopefully by the end of this talk, you'll be able to start thinking about answers to those questions, and what you can do next.

Beckett LeClair - Head of Compliance at 5Rights

Why responsible AI is everyone's responsibility (even yours!):

I have experience with the extensibility of a software being its strength coming from Rails and Ruby. Many language communities have their package managers, plugins, gems, JVM, npm, and architectures these days are typically modular.

All these ecosystems have similar challenges too. Dependencies maintained by the proverbial single individual in Nebraska, lack of documentation, infrequent security patches, malicious actors...

Joining Tembo in July this year, I have ramped up my knowledge of the larger ecosystem, in no small part thanks to David Wheeler's "State of the Postgres Extensions Ecosystem" / "Extension Ecosystem Mini-Summits" work. Now I want to look at Postgres' challenges from that broader perspective again.

Before we can tackle challenges we need to truly understand what's preventing maturity, and we need to measure the work we do to make the stuff we rely on more robust. What would an annual State of the Extensions look like? I have asked different stakeholders and can't wait to share my recommendations.

Floor Dees - Head of Education at Tembo

Supporting extensions, but really now

In today's fast paced technological world, organisations are striving to deliver value to their customers faster and faster to stay ahead of their competitors. Finding the right balance between speed and quality isn't easy however, and quality is not something that can be simply "tested in" at the end of a development cycle. To be successful, quality needs to be built in continuously throughout, and that starts with firstly understanding what quality really means. To help kick start things, in this talk, Stuart will describe how through people, process, tools and culture you can start building the foundations to achieving continuous quality and really understand what quality means to your organisation and customers, along with how you can start to measure it.

Stuart Day - Head of Quality at Capital One

Achieving Continuous Quality Through People, Process, Tools & Culture

Fusion is back... be prepared for incredible speakers, tasty food from our fellow brummie foodies, and those oh so moreish cupcakes!

Join us at Studio Venues, Cannon Street, Birmingham on Thursday 19th September at 6pm for another evening of Fusion goodness.

 at Fusion and we ask that you read it before purchasing a ticket to attend. In short - 

So who will be joining us for the third Fusion of 2024?...

We're the company behind GitLab, the most comprehensive DevSecOps platform.

What started in 2011 as an open source project to help one team of programmers collaborate is now the platform millions of people use to deliver software faster, more efficiently, while strengthening security and compliance.

Since the beginning, we've been firm believers in remote work, open source, DevSecOps, and iteration. We get up and log on in the morning (or whenever we choose to start our days) to work alongside the GitLab community to deliver new innovations every month that help teams focus on shipping great code faster, not their toolchain.

GitLab

Infobip is a global leader in omnichannel engagement. We help our clients and partners overcome the complexity of consumer communications & grow their businesses.

Infobip

Coding is the easy part, but now you're in your first role you are the captain of your own career. We'll talk about the skills, techniques and mindset required to grow your software engineering career; either as a technical specialist or as a people manager. I'll talk about how GitLab and other similar companies grow their engineers, what to look out for and how you can avoid making some of the same mistakes I have.

Max Woolf

Junior to Senior and beyond!

In this talk, we will dive deeper into AI engineering, what it is, and how developers—particularly with a web focus—can get involved building with AI. We'll explore modern technologies like vector stores and techniques like retrieval augmented generation (or RAG) to create truly intelligent AI-native applications.

Tejas Kumar

You Are an AI Engineer!

From being thrown into GO bootcamp, sent to the frontlines of development, realising we were surrounded by feeds of messages on all sides and how we dealt with that to create defensive lines to keep it performant and reliable.

Reiss Jarvis

From 0 knowledge to 10k Messages a Second

The Cloud can be an amazing - and expensive - place. In a world of tightening budgets and optimising costs, how do we stay in control?

This talk gives a vendor-agnostic view on taking control of your Kubernetes cloud spend, with the best practices and open source tools to get you there.

We’ll talk about:
- Visibility - understanding your cloud (and Kubernetes) spend
- Right-sizing all the things
- Everyone loves a discount!
- Gotchas to avoid - and how to save yourself from future pain

Becky Pauley & David Collom

Cost Confessions: Tales of Overspending and Redemption

Join us at Studio Venues, Cannon Street, Birmingham on Wednesday 12th June at 6pm for another evening of Fusion goodness.

So who will be joining us for the second Fusion of 2024?......

Joining us on the 23rd we will have our awesome 2023 Headline sponsors, Infobip. They have been an incredible support this year and we have loved working with them. The team have achieved so many awesome things, we can't wait to see what next year holds for them!

Sir Uncle Timbo (Tim Berners-Lee to you) famously designed the web for all people, whatever their hardware, software, language, location, or ability. As mobile devices become ubiquitous, yet controlled by a de facto duopoly, how can we ensure that the web remains open, affordable, and accessible for our 3 billion neighbours who are as yet unconnected?

Bruce Lawson

Whose web is it anyway?

Why are only 26% of people working in technology women? And why do 50% of those women leave the industry by the age of 35? This talk aims to dig deeper into the problems and barriers women face in the tech industry.

From a lack of education and gender bias to periods and menopause. I’ll be taking you through how I got into tech and managed to stay there. And finally finishing up with some actionable strategies and insights to actively contribute to reducing the gender gap in the tech industry, going beyond statistics to address practical ways individuals and organisations can support and promote women in tech.

Jen Beattie

Code Queens: Strategies for Empowering Women in Tech

Building a learning culture at work from the ground up.

Dave Megins-Nicholas

What we can learn from Real* Engineers

Fusion is back for another year of awesome events, incredible speakers, tasty food from our fellow brummie foodies, and those oh so moreish cupcakes!

Join us at Studio Venues, Cannon Street, Birmingham on Thursday 29th of February at 6pm for another evening of Fusion goodness.

The meetup will fall on 'Leap Day' and the Fusion team love any excuse to celeberate, so we welcome any frog themed attire but ask that you refrain from any 'leap frog' practice whilst inside of the venue 🐸

So who will be joining us for the first Fusion of 2024?......

This month we want to put a some of our tech community friends in the spot light at Fusion and invite them to tell us all about their groups and what their mission is, and how they are working towards achieving it.

This talk is a survival guide on how to cope when we feel intimidated by those around us and/or online who seem to have it all figured out. Imposter syndrome is a buzzword that is commonly misunderstood, we'll be delving into the 6 different ways it shows up, how it affects us, and building a toolkit to help us recognise and celebrate our wins.

Amber Shand

Dealing with imposter syndrome, perfectionism & procrastination

There’s a very good reason that the organisers of the Black Hat security conferences don’t use their host venues’ own infrastructure. In fact there are many: ethical hackers learning and testing their skills, not-so-ethical hackers looking for targets, and a lot of legal implications too. In this talk I’ll take you behind the scenes at the network and security operations centres for the conferences worldwide, to share more details, stories and plain-text credentials.

James Holland

Behind the curtains at "one of the most hostile networks in the world"

We've all seen the job title but what does a Staff Software Engineer do? In this talk I will reflect on how I became a Staff Software Engineer and the first 12 months in the role. I'll cover my own growth in the role as well as the organization's growth of the role around me.

Andrew Fitzpatrick

12 months as a Staff Software Engineer

Its time for the final Fusion of 2023 and what a year its been!

Huge thanks to our headline sponsors for this year, Infobip. What a brilliant team! We've loved every minute of working with them, and hopefully they'll be joining the Fusion fun in 2024! 😉

The next Fusion event will be held at Studio Venues, Cannon Street, Birmingham on Thursday November 23rd at 6pm.

This article was first published by Meetup group, Women in Tech Birmingham, as part of their 

 series. Check out their upcoming events 

Meet Hannah Mitchell, Founder of Birmingham tech group, Fusion, who shares her thoughts on the tech community in Birmingham, her advice for anyone looking to start their career in tech, and much more!

Hi Hannah and thanks for chatting to us! To quick off, what do you do and what does a typical working day look like for you?

I am one of the Co-Founders of the Fusion Group. We are a community focused company with the sole aim of creating opportunities for self improvement and growth. I do this by finding people new roles that match their goals and aims, as well as organising Fusion Meetup and specific workshops to create new learning opportunities. So day to day for me can be really varied, but I’m lucky enough to feel so passionately about what I do.

I get a lot of joy from educating and coaching people on how to create a positive work culture and environment. We spend so much of our lives at work, we should be prioritising making that as rewarding and as enjoyable as we can. There are so many stats out there to show the impact of having a happy, supportive, collaborative work culture on both employee and business productivity, and growth and retention. It’s a no brainer, and I’ll continue to shout about it from the rooftops! 😊

What is your favourite thing about working in the tech sector?

I find technology fascinating, it’s hard not to!

The rate at which technology is moving is incredible, and the amazing things that have been achieved and created using technology have changed and shaped the world we live in today. It is so rewarding to be working with people whose work is having a positive effect on peoples’ lives daily, whether that be in medical advances through technology, access to education and even making day to day tasks easier.

Over the years I’ve been fortunate enough to meet some super talented people who I have learnt so much from and have supported me so much with Fusion Meetup. We have a great tech community here in Birmingham, it is something I’m so proud to be a part of.

You mentioned you’re passionate about creating a positive work environment. What would be your advice to either employees or employers on how to make changes towards this? a positive work culture?

First of all, and probably one of the easiest things to implement is recognition. Make recognition a priority, as employees, as employers, and business owners. This doesn’t need to be a grand gesture or gold trophy presentation ceremony, just a quick email or shout out to say ‘Thanks for your input today, you’ve made a positive impact and the work you’ve done has been great.’ A little goes a long way. Try to think how you felt when someone said you’d done a job, and when the last time someone said it to you!

Make the most of 1:1’s! This shouldn’t be a box ticking exercise! If you’re a team member then make sure to set your own agenda. And if you’re a team leader, encourage the team to decide on what areas they would like to discuss before the 1:1 happens. They may all have different topics of importance, but allow this to happen, rather than a ‘one size fits all’ approach.

Finally I feel we need to educate ourselves better on how we can support neurodiverse individuals in the workplace. There’s a huge pool of super talented people out there and we as a society need to improve our awareness and understanding to create more inclusive work environments. I personally plan on taking a course in this topic because I think it’s a really important step to creating more positive workplaces.

What would 12 year old you think about your career today?

I wanted to be a paramedic for so long, as long as I can remember, so I’ve taken a very different path! I’ve always loved working with people and in my role I get to work with people in different capacities, whether that’s helping someone write their first CV or prepare for an interview, to supporting businesses on how to build happy, productive teams, all the way to working closely with the tech community and other meetup organisers to create something awesome here in Birmingham.

I think 12 year old me wouldn’t have expected to take this path, but would love the variety and meeting so many incredible, inspiring people.

As another Meetup organiser and someone who is well ingrained in the Birmingham tech community - how would you describe it to someone who has never dipped their toe in before?

It’s a really exciting time for the Birmingham Tech Community, because we are starting to see the tech meetups work closely together and the creation of TechMids has really helped facilitate that.

The Birmingham Tech community is inclusive and vibrant. There are so many amazing like minded individuals to meet. I get that going to these events can sometimes feel daunting, so look at the smaller group first and start from there.

You will make new friends as well as having access to support and advice for all things tech related. People have found new opportunities through the tech community and with the amount of incredible speakers we have joining these events, you are sure to learn something new that could spark a new found interest in your own personal journey with tech.

The Tech Community and Meetups strive to create a safe space for minority groups and encourage and welcome diversity! Let’s face it, diversity is a superpower and the more people we have from different walks of life the better our community will be.

We have seen a positive shift in the demographic of our meetups over the last five years and it’s been so nice to see.

What would your top tips be for someone looking to start a career in tech?

Attend local technology meetups and chat to the meetup organisers! They will introduce you to some great people who may soon become mentors, peers and give you some real tips on what to do to get started. One of your first stops should absolutely be Codebar Birmingham – it’s really relaxed, super friendly and a great place to get started. What I love about this meetup is that it’s inclusive with a focus on bridging the diversity gap in tech – although everyone is welcome!

More generally, for anyone looking at any career - be authentic! Recruiters tend not to be well liked (we’re not all bad!), so sometimes it’s hard to get people to take advice without feeling like they are being sold too! I think the only thing I’ve managed to do to combat that, is to be as authentic as possible. I wear my heart on my sleeve, and I’ve always been an honest, open person. I think showing vulnerability is a good thing, and we should all do more of it. It’s what makes us human.

Women in Tech interview Hannah from Fusion

In this blog post we hear from DWP Digital's Yanju, who tells us all about settling into her new role as a Product Manager and what life is like at DWP Digital. She also talks about her journey into tech and her experience so far of the local tech scene in Birmingham.

DWP Digital is focused on digital transformation at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), we build and maintain user-friendly digital services that enable millions of people to access the help, advice, and financial support they need. We have millions of users, from people who need to claim benefit, get help finding a job, or understand their State Pension, we’re the team designing, developing, and delivering the services they need.

I work with the cross-cutting service design team in the service orchestration space.We are responsible for cross-cutting assumptions attached to the Health Transformation Programme (HTP). The Health Transformation Programme is one of the largest programmes in government, impacting an estimated 5.8 million people in 2025/26. The aim is to make the process for Personal Independent Payments (PIP) and the Health Assessment Service simpler, more user-friendly, easier to navigate and more joined-up for claimants. While delivering better value for money for taxpayers.

As a product manager I work with various stakeholders across strategic and operational areas to ensure alignment towards the HTP service vision. It is really motivating and fulfilling working on a programme of this size and scale. What I enjoy most is knowing that millions of people will be positively impacted by the work I’m doing.

I started my career as a relationship manager in a leading financial services company where I was able transition into digital roles including product marketing, user experience and product management. I have since worked in several other organisations across various industries, before recently joining DWP Digital.

In my career journey so far, I’ve been able to do some amazing work in the tech industry and as a result I was endorsed as a UK global exceptional talent; one of the reasons I moved to the UK. I plan to continue driving digital transformation and making positive impact in my role at DWP Digital as it provides the opportunity to apply learnings and skills from my previous experiences over the years.

As an impact and purpose driven individual, I always want to do more and be more. So, when I was considering my next career move, I was looking for an organisation that had clear ambitions. I wanted a place where I could do my best work, be myself and make an impact. I also wanted somewhere that truly appreciates the power of diversity and the value that offers.

DWP Digital’s ‘Digital With Purpose’ message and what this meant resonated with me. I looked at DWP Digital’s LinkedIn and 

 and found that every interaction supported this message. I read blog posts and interviews from colleagues working on impactful initiatives and I was impressed by their personal experiences and thrilled by the opportunity to proffer solutions that make a positive difference to millions of citizens.

When I saw the role of product manager advertised within the health function located in the new Birmingham hub, I was happy to apply because my tech experience and health academic background was a perfect match for the job description.

Now, here I am a few months into the role. So far it has been interesting, and I feel like I’ve already started making significant difference with my involvement in such an important transformation programme. I can’t wait to see how things unfold in the near future.

I moved to Birmingham a little over a year ago because it has an exciting blend of everything. It’s a great place to live and work for young people, especially if you have a family. There’s a fine blend of buzz and serenity. It’s a diverse place with easy access to other cities, good schools, shopping, sports, fun activities and of course the tech scene.

The Birmingham tech scene is one of the fastest growing in the UK and is becoming more established every day. It’s the best place to be. I’m part of the UK global talent community, Female Techpreneur and other tech communities, and I often attend meet ups with other techies.

As part of DWP Digital’s partnership with Fusion, I recently attended their quarterly meetup on 13 July. This was a great opportunity for me to get involved more with the community. I love meeting people, learning from others, and building relationships, so I really enjoyed connecting to friendly likeminded people in a sociable and relaxed environment. A talk from Monzo on how they prepare for huge spikes in traffic and keeping operations running smoothly was particularly interesting.

DWP Digital opened the Birmingham Hub just over a year ago. It’s exciting to be one of the pioneer members of the digital team in the Hub. When I saw the workspace, I was pleasantly surprised, the collaborative spaces, the level of detail, and accessibility considerations. It’s a perfect example of a modern digital workspace.

I’d call it a 5-star office, it even has a lovely view of the Birmingham library and environs. It is located at the new Arena Central development, a central location which is easy to get to with good transport links.

We have a hybrid working pattern, which means you can blend office working with working from home, I typically go into the Hub twice a week. I enjoy working in person with colleagues and building personal relationships.

The flexible working is helpful for a great work life balance.

In my 13 years of experience working in several organisations, of a range of different sizes, I can say that I am very impressed with the development opportunities on offer at DWP Digital.

There is a deliberate intent to ensure that employees are constantly learning. Training opportunities are promoted well, with open communication on what is available.All you need to do is indicate interest, its up to you but if you are interested there is lots available.

My line manager is amazing and very supportive. We’re encouraged and given time away from the day job to learn. I’ve attended multiple workshops and conferences already, including leadership trainings. I’m a strong believer in continuous learning so I can improve my skills and stay up to date with trends in the industry.

I have an amazing multidisciplinary team that is very collaborative. There is a great sense of purpose and motivation in the team, we all share the same vision and desire to do the best for the citizens and DWP. Colleagues are open to new ideas and change; we want to keep making things better and improving.

I’m part of the DWP Women’s Network and the Product Profession Practice network.

The practice has a Microsoft Teams group and ‘lunch and learn’ sessions where we talk about different topics.

DWP Digital is such a diverse working environment where it’s not just your work that’s valued but you are valued too. DWP Digital is truly ‘Digital With Purpose’.

'Settling into a new role, new city and a new tech scene' - Yanju from DWP Digital

Pretty good, much more relaxed than I was middle of October time! We’ve survived 2020 and here we are!

It was an experience, which I think is the diplomatic way of putting it. The last five/six years of my life have been spent around running events, chatting to people, and making connections, and then all of that got turned on its head. I have never spent so much time in my house that’s for sure!

So what has got you through the last year?

I set up an office in the living room rather than in my bedroom. It meant I had a separation between working and relaxing. Keeping a routine was so important as its really easy to fall into the trap of not going to bed early and waking up late. Also having the kitchen next door meant I wasn’t taking breaks, so I started actually having breakfast and lunch away from my screen and not taking breaks at my desk.

Lots of lights too!! I’ve brought a light therapy lamp actually which has been great!

We saw you and the HTM team take on the challenge of running the hackathon virtually!! First of all congratulations, it was a huge success. The collaboration between teams was amazing, the submissions were so strong and so well thought out. How did you find it all?

Absolutely knackering!! The week before was the hardest because we were working 14/15 hours days, to get set up, make sure the stream was running. The last day was also really intense as we had to do all the judging and film the closing ceremony and stitch the sponsor videos together – all things you don’t need to think about when you are doing it person.

Rightly so, we don’t trust tech, so it was easier to have recordings rather than live streaming. With there being so many people involved there was lots of different elements to juggle doing it virtually.

What was the biggest challenge running HTM5?

Trying to transition the skills we have as a team to running in person events, which is a completely different beast to running it online. The second challenge was maintaining the same community feel. Something that’s key to HTM is this welcoming community that makes people feel like they are a part of something during the event, because it wouldn’t be hack the midlands without that. Trying the keep that community feel existing within the online context was definitely one of the biggest challenges.

We started planning HTM5 in October 2019 and by the following March we had to switch things up due to lockdown and had to start thinking about ways we can make it delightful for everyone, and make everyone feel like they are a part of it all. How do we maintain the community feel? How can we go above and beyond to make sure people have a good time and feel included? It’s really hard to emulate the in person events, where you have a really cohesive community.

There is such a huge emphasis on community at HTM, as well as collaboration, skills transfer, learning from peers etc. What sort of solutions did you come up with to keep that going?

We kept all engagement within the Discord server rather than having separate chats on MS teams, Zoom etc. Charlie and the team built a great bot, where you can create channels so can interact with your team in the server. That obviously came with its own challenges!! We accidently made 100 channels and spammed the discord with them!!

We also took an idea from Hack Quarantine where we created check points so people could chat about what they’ve done each day. Another thing I encouraged people to do was to drop into chats to see what everyone is doing and offer help. I think having that extra communication really helps, and it encourages people to talk in Discord community channels.

Discord was great shout Tom, it worked so well!

Its such a flexible platform, being able to write a bot allows you to get creative. Having the mix of text and voice chat too was great, and the ability to have multiple meetings going on at once.

Are you getting paid by Discord for Advertising?

I would shill for Discord purely based on how useful it’s been…I say wearing a discord t-shirt!

Something you want to tell us Tom? Are you starting work with them next year?

I wish! Discord if you’re reading this interview, feel free to chuck us some money or some nice clothes! Is this how product placement works?

Over the HTM years, what would be your favourite submission of all time?

That is one of the hardest questions you could have asked, there has been so many amazing submissions. There was one called Dance Auth – where you danced the password. You would train it a dance move and by the user completing the dance move correctly would gain authorisation.

We could have a lot of fun with something like that!!

So any Tom Goodman plans or HTM plans for 2021?

Well, we’re coming towards the end of my PHD which is terrifying!

HTM wise it’s not clear whether by October will we be able to run in person events, but we might start planning to run one online again. By the time that we know that we can run events in person, will we have enough time to work that out. Its hard to judge. The main thing for us was protecting our attendees, our community, and the wider society. It can be really easy to think online is easier as you don’t have physical logistics, but then actually when we got into the meat of it there was a lot more work putting HTM on line that any of us had anticipated. However, now we have that knowledge, we not only have the infrastructure to do it again, but we also know what we can improve on.

Ages! We tend to start planning the next HTM straight after the one we’d just done, which is not exactly healthy, but it gives us the most time. We had everything sorted for last years to physically go ahead by March, and then we had to start all over again. So, we started online planning in March, it was bit slow as we had a lot of deep discussions about how we can preserve the feeling of HTM online. It took a lot of discussion, lots of brain storming, we had to work out how can we carry on the same way, how will out reach work? How will we get sponsors? We got a lot done last year considering – new website, the Discord server, a high number of attendees etc.

Whilst its not the same as running an in person event, and once we get the chance to go back in person, of course we will, given the curveball we were thrown in March it went really well.

There’s an element of HTM that we really love, which is encouraging people who don’t have experience to come along and get involved

What’s the best tip you have for a tech newbie, for someone who wants to get involved in tech?

That’s exactly the position that was in in 2015. I was in the very fortunate position that I had gone to University and there was a really great society president Jack Weardon who took me under his wing and took us to hackathons. The biggest thing for me was chatting to people, and the more people you get to know the more part of the community you feel.

The best advice would be to go to events like HTM, or check out SoC, Hackference (note to self, bully Mike Elsmore to run this again). Chat to people and ask for help or direction. You do not need to have prior experience, it’s not about building the most polished incredible project and winning, but you can equally win by coming and showing that you learnt lots of great stuff. The most important thing is learning, and now everything is online, sign up to events and there’s lots of free ones too! Have confidence in the fact that people do not expect and huge amount from you when you are new and if they do, they are dicks.

My advice to people who are already in the community and have experience – be patient, be the person that is encouraging those people to be in tech, take them under your wing, point them to events! They are at the start of their journey, help them along because you were once in their position. If we are not those people, then people won’t want to get involved, especially people from underrepresented groups and disadvantaged backgrounds who currently don’t have as bigger place in tech, and that is a real shame.

That’s great advice to finish on Tom, and some really key points there that people of all ability levels can take on board.

Once again congratulations on the success of HTM5 and thank you for all the work you put into the Birmingham Tech community.

We’re looking forward to hopefully seeing you this year for a coffee, IN PERSON!!

Next Event

November 2024

Making Monzo Magic

What your browser can teach you about building secure software

Quantifying your reliance on Open Source software

Magic Notes: transforming Casework

The mazy web she whirls: starting Open Web Advocacy

About Fusion Meetup

Fusion Blog

Women in Tech interview Hannah from Fusion

'Settling into a new role, new city and a new tech scene' - Yanju from DWP Digital

Fusion chats with HackTheMidland’s Tom Goodman

Past Events

September 2024

June 2024

February 2024

November 2023