Arrival & Light Breakfast

Constellation 2024 is GitHub's in-person developer conference celebrating the best of the Indian developer community

Opening Remarks

Sitting on GitHub’s Executive Leadership team, Demetris Cheatham is currently the Chief of Staff for the CEO of GitHub, where she acts as the CEO’s trusted partner to move all of software development forward. Demetris is particularly passionate about the evolving nature of open source in the age of AI. Before her time as COS to the CEO, Demetris was Senior Director for Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging Strategy at GitHub, the Global Diversity and Inclusion at Lead at Red Hat, and was formerly the first woman and youngest Executive Director to lead the National Bar Association, the United States’ oldest and largest international network of over 65,000 predominantly African-American attorneys and judges.

Demetris Cheatham

Event Start & Opening Remarks

Constellation 2024 is GitHub's in-person developer conference celebrating the best of the South African developer community

Keynote: The Future of Software Development

Thomas Dohmke is CEO of GitHub and drives the company’s mission of making GitHub the home for all developers. Fascinated by software development since his childhood, Thomas is passionate about building tools developers love and creating products that drive software development forward. He previously co-founded HockeyApp and led the company as CEO through its acquisition by Microsoft in 2014. Thomas holds a PhD in mechanical engineering from University of Glasgow, UK. He lives in the Seattle area, is a LEGO enthusiast, and enjoys coding and making his GitHub contribution graph green in his spare time.

Thomas Dohmke

Interactive CEO Q&A

Driving Meaningful Change Through Technology

Ruth is an open source program manager, community manager, GitHub Star, technical writer, and lead of All In Africa. She is sparked about onboarding beginners into the tech system, especially into the open source space. Aside from being actively involved in tech, she is a social volunteer and a voluntary blood donor. Ruth loves making new friends over a slice of cake.

Ruth Ikegah

Samson Goddy is the Open Source Program Manager at Hedera Hashgraph, where he leads community development around OSS initiatives, including the launch of Hiero, an open source distributed ledger technology under LF Decentralized Trust. With a background in advocating for open source software, he co-founded the Open Source Community Africa, a vibrant initiative dedicated to growing the open source ecosystem across the African continent. He is the Board Member for Sugar Labs, Inc., and Open Source Collective. A Leader and OSS advocate passionate about Developer Relations (DevRel) and dedicated to sustaining open-source projects while building inclusive communities and a GitHub Star.

Samson Goddy

Tiyani is a Computer Engineer by background and a social development activist. In 2019, he was named as the 41st IT Personality of the Year by the Institute for Information Technology Professionals of South Africa (IITPSA). In his career, he has developed over 300 tech solutions, used by thousands of people including for presidential and internationational programmes. He has led and facilitated a number of hackathons in South Africa, Lesotho and other countries. As an IT professional, he has given a number talks at conferences and a TEDx Talk, earlier in his career.
As a leader of the Geekulcha internship programme, he has mentored over 120 young starting IT professionals and helped them kickstart their careers. Mr Nghonyama sits on advisory boards of various institutions including the University of Johannesburg, Vaal University of Technology, Tshwane University of Technology, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and others.

Tiyani Nghonyama

Panel: Driving Meaningful Change Through Technology

How Generative AI can Help Scale Education

Riaz is a UK and South African citizen and the founder and CEO of HyperionDev, a company that specialises in bringing programming skills, jobs, and code review services to hundreds of students and upskilling professionals in the UK, South Africa, and across the world. Riaz previously worked as an Associate Product Manager Intern in the Google Search team, where he contributed to the development of Google Voice Search and the latest version of Android. Riaz became a Gates Cambridge scholar in 2014 and holds an MPhil in Advanced Computer Science with Distinction from King's College at the University of Cambridge. It was during this time that he conducted research in Machine Learning under the supervision of Zoubin Ghahramani.
Riaz also holds an MPhil in Technology Policy from the University of Cambridge Judge Business School, which he read for as a Global Leaders Canon Collins Scholar.Riaz completed his undergraduate degree in Artificial Intelligence and Computer Science at the University of Edinburgh in 2014. During that time, he was an exchange student at the University of Pennsylvania and a research student at the University of Oxford. In 2018, Riaz was recognised in Forbes Africa’s Top 30 under 30 in Tech.

Riaz Moola

Coffee Break & Networking

Panel: Leveraging Technology for Inclusive Innovation

Lebogang is a Account Technology Strategist at Microsoft, focused on accelerating developer productivity. She was named an Inspiring50 South Africa winner in 2020 and is a member of IEEE Region 8 (EMEA). Lebogang is also the Founder of Difela Hymns Podcast and Difela Hymns online community that digitizes African hymns. Through these initiatives, Lebogang provides accessibility to African hymns and promotes their cultural significance.

Lebogang Madise

Lloyd has a strong background in IT management and business development, having served as CIO for Barrows for over 7 years. Lloyd has extensive experience in infrastructure upgrades, implementing Scrum in development teams, and delivering system improvements and new applications. He also has project management experience, having successfully implemented Sage X3 across 8 group companies during his time as ERP Project Manager. Lloyd is a certified professional in Blitzscaling and Measure What Matters.

Lloyd Vassard

Prof. Vukosi Marivate holds the ABSA UP Chair of Data Science and is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at the University of Pretoria. He focuses on AI &#x26; Natural Language Processing (NLP), particularly for local and low-resource languages, as well as Data Science for Society, leading the Data Science for Social Impact (DSFSI) research group. He co-founded Lelapa AI, a socially-grounded Africa-centric AI research &#x26; product lab. Vukosi also co-founded the Masakhane NLP research foundation and is a co-founder of the Deep Learning Indaba, the largest annual Artificial Intelligence R&#x26;D gathering on the continent.

Prof Vukosi Marivate

Software Explosion

Phillip is Co-founder of Offer Zen a platform that connects developers with awesome tech opportunities. He’s spent more than a decade building and scaling startups across South Africa, the USA and Europe. He’s currently working on an upcoming book about assembling high-performing startup teams.

Philip Joubert

Constellation Swag Quest

From Code to Culture - Nedbank's Developer-Led Copilot Transformation

Louis Werth is a Senior Technical Consultant at Nedbank, with an impressive tenure of 19 years. Before joining Nedbank, Louis worked in Local Government financial systems and later in software management systems within the health industry. Throughout his career, he has led numerous development teams and held various roles, including Support, Business Analysis, Software Development, Software Design, Software Architecture, Senior Management &#x26; Technical Consulting.
Louis has a passion for operational excellence and is dedicated to continuously modernizing technologies. Recently, he has taken on the exciting task of rolling out GitHub Copilot to the development community at Nedbank, aiming to enhance productivity and streamline coding processes for developers.
Outside of work, Louis enjoys even more software development, traveling, exploring the world, being a handyman, and indulging his passion for gadgets. He lives by the motto: “Never give up,” which reflects his determination and resilience in both his professional and personal life.
Louis is actively involved in working with a fantastic team and organization, continuously pushing the boundaries of technological innovation leveraging modern technologies including AI.

Louis Werth

From Code to Culture: Nedbank's Developer-Led Copilot Transformation

Panel: All In for Open Source Africa

Kudzayi is an entrepreneur and software engineer looking to get his start in the tech space. He enjoys innovation in business and leveraging the power of technology to create memorable experiences. He is also experienced in marketing, research, and client relations, particularly in the renewable energy space.

Kudzayi Bamhare

Gamuchirai is a dedicated Cybersecurity Analyst (SOC L1) with hands-on experience in monitoring, detecting, and responding to a wide range of security threats. Her expertise lies in leveraging SIEM tools like Splunk for real-time threat analysis, complemented by a strong foundation in vulnerability management and network security. She is committed to safeguarding critical information systems and ensuring their resilience against evolving cyber threats.
Driven by a passion for protecting the digital landscape, she thrives in collaborative environments that value analytical thinking and technical expertise. From conducting vulnerability assessments and penetration testing to automating security processes, she continuously seeks to enhance the security posture of the organizations she works with. Her certifications, including CompTIA Security+, CySA+, and Microsoft Certified: Security Operations Analyst Associate, underscore her commitment to staying at the forefront of cybersecurity.

Gamuchirai Blessing Muchafa

CHAOSS GitHub Copilot Training

Adeyinka Oresanya is a software developer and open-source maintainer dedicated to fostering inclusivity in open-source communities. She serves as the Badging Lead for the DEI Event Badging Program at CHAOSS, actively contributing to efforts that promote diversity, equity, and inclusion in open-source projects and events. Adeyinka also leads the CHAOSS Africa Developers’ Focus Group, driving initiatives that promote the growth of open-source developer communities in Africa. Her contributions to the badging project have significantly empowered individuals and organizations to enhance their DEI practices.

Adeyinka Oresanya

GitHub Copilot Training

Lunch

Hackathon

Demo & Lightning Talks

April is a senior cloud developer advocate and the DevOps practice lead at GitHub, specializing in application transformation and DevOps ways of working. Her focus is working on Microsoft Azure to take customers of a journey from legacy technology, to serverless and containers, where code comes first, while enabling them to take full advantage of DevOps. April was previously a cloud consultant and solution architect for various partners in the UK and brings her years of experience in helping customers plan their journey.
In April’s spare time she spends time outdoors hiking, skiing or scuba diving. She is also a triathlete competing in Ironman and Half Ironman triathlons.

Schedule

Arrival & Light Breakfast

Event Start & Opening Remarks

Demetris Cheatham

Keynote: The Future of Software Development

Thomas Dohmke

Interactive CEO Q&A

Demetris Cheatham

Thomas Dohmke

Panel: Driving Meaningful Change Through Technology

Demetris Cheatham

Ruth Ikegah

Samson Goddy

Tiyani Nghonyama

How Generative AI can Help Scale Education

Riaz Moola

Coffee Break & Networking

Panel: Leveraging Technology for Inclusive Innovation

Lebogang Madise

Lloyd Vassard

Prof Vukosi Marivate

Software Explosion

Philip Joubert

Constellation Swag Quest

From Code to Culture: Nedbank's Developer-Led Copilot Transformation

Louis Werth

Panel: All In for Open Source Africa

Ruth Ikegah

Kudzayi Bamhare

Gamuchirai Blessing Muchafa

Constellation Swag Quest

GitHub Copilot Training

Adeyinka Oresanya

Lunch

Hackathon

Tiyani Nghonyama

Demo & Lightning Talks

April Yoho

Closing Remarks

Thomas Dohmke