TADSummit EMEA 2019 Summary

TADSummit

TADSummit began in 2013, focused on Programmable Telecoms (Telecom APIs back then). We get a diverse mix of people, with telcos, CPaaS/UCaaS/CCaaS providers, developers, and enterprises. The diversity and the small size (about 70 in total this year) create an insightful and fun event.

A big thank you to our sponsors WazoVoIP Innovations (now Sangoma), TeleSignAutomat BerlinSiPalto for making TADSummit EMEA possible; IdeaLondon for the location; our many partners for promoting TADSummit EMEA; and everyone taking part.

Here are summaries of TADSummit EMEA:

Day 1 Morning

The opening keynote was provided by Jonathan Grant, CEO Babl.biz and CEO Speakserve on “A Perspective on the Past, Present and Future of Programmable Telecoms.” The alternative title was, “How not to build a Unicorn – a Beginners Guide.”

The Sponsor Keynote was provided by Jérôme Pascal, CEO, Wazo. Reviewing the thinking behind Wazo, using their commoditization matrix across control, usability, programmability, and open source to explain the balance Wazo aims to achieve. This point was raised by Marten from Automat Berlin later in the morning.

We wrapped up the first session of the morning with an active panel discussion the current status and possible future states of CXTech, with:

  • Jérôme Pascal, CEO, Wazo
  • Roland Selmer, VP Product at Nexmo, the Vonage API Platform
  • Abhijeet Singh, Senior Product Manager, Telesign
  • Jonathan Grant, CEO Babl.biz and CEO Speakserve, previously CEO NewVoiceMedia

After the break we had a session led by Automat Berlin on “Closing the Gap on Twilio.”

Sebastian Schumann, Technology & Innovation at Deutsche Telekom, presented on “Challenges Consuming Programmable Telecoms from the Developer’s Perspective.” There’s some great quantification in this presentation on the market-up CPaaS achieves compared to telco rates.

Marten Schoenherr, CEO/Founder at Automat Berlin GmbH presented on “Improving the Experience of Realizing CXTech Use Cases.” Marten shared a vision I think is a critical necessary condition, an aggregated Telecom API that just works without all the complexity we have today. This will be reflected in comments Steve Goodwin makes at the end of Day One panel.

We wrapped up this session with a very active panel, so active I didn’t even get a chance to ask any questions on the agenda!

Panelists:

  • Steve Goodwin, Marquis de Geek;
  • Rob Pickering, Founder and CEO Aplisay;
  • Sebastian Schumann, Technology & Innovation at Deutsche Telekom;
  • Marten Schoenherr, CEO/Founder at Automat Berlin GmbH.

Day 1 Afternoon

The afternoon of Day One was split in two sessions: one focused on Open Source Telecom Software; and the other focused on Industry Innovation, that is, examining innovation from other industries and and how they apply it to the problems they face.

In-between we squeezed in a presentation from David Curran from OpenJaw Technologies who could not make his scheduled Day 2 slot, David gave an excellent chat bot primer with loads of practical advice.

I kicked off the open source session with a presentation summarizing the results from an anonymous survey of open source telecom software. Comparing the different projects, the preferred application areas of the projects, common issues and solutions, sharing where the industry sees these projects in 5 years’ time.

João Camarate, Chief Development Officer, GoContact presented on “Experiences with Open Source Telecom Software in the Contact Center Industry.”

We wrapped up this session with a Panel Discussion: The Future of Open Source Telecom Software.

Chair: Sebastian Schumann, Technology & Innovation at Deutsche Telekom

Panelists:

  • João Camarate, Chief Development Officer, GoContact
  • Alan Quayle, Independent
  • Werner Eriksen, CTO WorkingGroupTwo
  • Jérôme Pascal, CEO, Wazo

David Curran, Machine Learning Engineer at OpenJaw Technologies presented on “Designing and Deploying Chatbots.” I consider this presentation to be the best summary of the state of the art in chatbot technology available.

Solving Harry Potter Problems by Maarten Ectors, Chief Innovation Officer at Legal & General. An inspirational presentation from someone shaking-up the insurance industry.

Maarten has created a highly successful innovation process in Legal and General delivering award winning innovations. Keep an eye on what Maarten is doing at Legal and General its a great example of how in a mature highly regulated industry, change can happen fast.

Open Banking by Miles Cheetham, Head of Propositions at OPEN BANKING. A review of the challenges and opportunities facing the banking industry. Open Banking puts customers in control of their data: it’s an easier way to move, manage, and make more of their money.

Panel Session: Tell me about your problems…

  • Maarten Ectors, Chief Innovation Officer at Legal & General
  • Steve Goodwin, Marquis de Geek
  • Matt Millar, serial entrepreneur, Founder Uplift
  • Miles Cheetham, Head of Propositions at OPEN BANKING (entity set up by the UK Competition and Markets Authority)

Purely by luck we had Matt Millar, serial entrepreneur, Founder Uplift on the panel with Miles. Updraft is a finalist of Open Up 2020 is run by Nesta Challenges and backed by the Open Banking Implementation Entity as part of the UK’s world-leading open banking agenda.

It was great to have such a diverse panel. Most of the discussion focused on understanding Open Banking. I did ask Steve a question on where he saw the gaps in CPaaS. He provided some excellent advice to the CPaaS providers in the room based on his extensive experience in using APIs, code samples, code samples, and more code samples.

We wrapped up Day 1 with an evening Reception sponsored by Sipalto.

sipalto

Day 2 Morning

The morning of Day Two TADSummit EMEA focused on deployment experiences. TADSummit is unique in bringing implementors together that frankly share their experiences for the betterment of everyone in the ecosystem.

Thibaut Prud’homme, Strategic Business Developer, Wazo presented “Programmable communications help build incredible products for productivity & customer experience but what about enabling new business models and facilitating your business workflows?”

Cloud-native apps. Do you still need a Middleware for a real-time service? by Grzegorz Sikora, Business Development at OVOO.

Identity, Authentication, and Programmable Telecoms by Abhijeet Singh, Senior Product Manager, Telesign

Building the SureVoIP Notify App by Gavin Henry, SureVoIP.

Empower Call Agents with a simple Chrome extension by Luis Borges Quina, CEO ottspott.

The Trials and Tribulations of Building Calljoy before it even Existed by Karel Bourgois, Founder and CEO Voxist.

Day 2 Afternoon

The afternoon of Day Two TADSummit EMEA was one long intense session focused on innovation, and a closing keynote from Simon Woodhead of Simwood focused on privacy.

I kicked off the afternoon with “By The Numbers: CPaaS, UCaaS, CCaaS Landscapes and Market Sizing.”

Will machines ever converse authentically? by Rob Pickering, Founder and CEO Aplisay.

Le Voice Lab by Karel Bourgois, Voice Chapter Pilot, Hub FranceIA.

Some (Surprising) Discoveries in Applying the as-a-service model in Running a Mobile Core Network, by Werner Eriksen, CTO Working Group Two (WG2).

Edge IoT and 5G – can WebRTC help? by Tim Panton is CTO at |pipe|.

Updraft by Matt Millar, serial entrepreneur, Founder Updraft (solving expensive consumer debt).

Cloud Control Access: From Hack to Reality by Laura Chirca – NEURER BUSINESS SOLUTIONS.

Closing Keynote: Securing my Space Genitalia by Simon Woodhead, CEO at Simwood Group PLC.

Simon explained how you have no privacy and how, hypothetically of course, he could use that to identify and track you in the name of security. He also ranted about why the cloud must die and how the coming edge compute revolution should be rejoiced by makers and open source developers everywhere. Strap on!

A highly entertaining and insightful presentation, I couldn’t agree more. A great way to wrap-up 2 long intense days focused on programmable telecoms innovation.

See you at TADSummit Asia, Americas, EMEA 2020