Emre Erturk (r) invited IT experts Laurence Chapman, Ant Boobier, Shane Hastie, Sandy Mamoli and Leisa Epplett (from left) to speak at EIT.

The EIT school of computing was thrilled to host the New Zealand Agile Alliance conference. The Agile Alliance is a volunteer-run non-profit international community of software developers and project managers. Their guiding principle is to keep the discussion and exploration of all things agile a true community activity, rather than being led by commercial interests. 

The lecture theatre was brimming with students, staff and IT professionals from Hawke’s Bay. Bringing a lot of international experience, event speakers gave a great insight into their projects and expertise. Sandy Mamoli for instance spoke about what she learned from her professional sports career while Leisa Epplett and Laurence Chapman traced Spark’s Journey “to agile” and how agile thinking improved their business.

“Events like the Agile Alliance conference brings like-minded people to explore, examine and expand on what it means to ‘be agile’ in all aspects of the New Zealand software industry,” said EIT information technology lecturer, Emre Erturk who organised the conference. “Working together in a group like the Agile Alliance benefits the whole New Zealand software community, with the event proving to be a great opportunity for students and professionals likewise.”