Testing Blog
GTAC 2015 Wrap Up
Tuesday, December 8, 2015
by Michael Klepikov and Lesley Katzen on behalf of the GTAC Committee
The ninth
GTAC
(Google Test Automation Conference) was held on November 10-11 at the
Google Cambridge
office, the “Hub” of innovation. The conference was completely packed with presenters and attendees from all over the world, from industry and academia, discussing advances in test automation and the test engineering computer science field, bringing with them a huge diversity of experiences. Speakers from numerous companies and universities (Applitools, Automattic, Bitbar, Georgia Tech, Google, Indian Institute of Science, Intel, LinkedIn, Lockheed Martin, MIT, Nest, Netflix, OptoFidelity, Splunk, Supersonic, Twitter, Uber, University of Waterloo) spoke on a variety of interesting and cutting edge test automation topics.
All presentation videos and slides are posted on the
Video Recordings
and
Presentations
pages. All videos have professionally transcribed closed captions, and the YouTube descriptions have the slides links. Enjoy and share!
We had over 1,300 applicants and over 200 of those for speaking. Over 250 people filled our venue to capacity, and the live stream had a peak of about 400 concurrent viewers, with about 3,300 total viewing hours.
Our goal in hosting GTAC is to make the conference highly relevant and useful for both attendees and the larger test engineering community as a whole. Our post-conference survey shows that we are close to achieving that goal; thanks to everyone who completed the feedback survey!
Our 82 survey respondents were mostly (81%) test focused professionals with a wide range of 1 to 40 years of experience.
Another 76% of respondents rated the conference as a whole as above average, with marked satisfaction for the venue, the food (those Diwali treats!), and the breadth and coverage of the talks themselves.
The top five most popular talks were:
The Uber Challenge of Cross-Application/Cross-Device Testing (Apple Chow and Bian Jiang)
Your Tests Aren't Flaky (Alister Scott)
Statistical Data Sampling (Celal Ziftci and Ben Greenberg)
Coverage is Not Strongly Correlated with Test Suite Effectiveness (Laura Inozemtseva)
Chrome OS Test Automation Lab (Simran Basi and Chris Sosa).
Our social events also proved to be crowd pleasers. The social events were a direct response to feedback from GTAC 2014 for organized opportunities for socialization among the GTAC attendees.
This isn’t to say there isn’t room for improvement. We had 11% of respondents express frustration with event communications and provided some long, thoughtful suggestions for what we could do to improve next year. Also, many of the long form comments asked for a better mix of technologies, noting that mobile had a big presence in the talks this year.
If you have any suggestions on how we can improve, please comment on this post, or better yet – fill out the
survey
, which remains open. Based on feedback from last year urging more transparency in speaker selection, we included an individual outside of Google in the speaker evaluation. Feedback is precious, we take it very seriously, and we will use it to improve next time around.
Thank you to all the speakers, attendees, and online viewers who made this a special event once again. To receive announcements about the next GTAC, currently planned for early 2017, subscribe to the
Google Testing Blog
.
GTAC 2015 is Next Week!
Friday, November 6, 2015
by Anthony Vallone on behalf of the GTAC Committee
The ninth GTAC (Google Test Automation Conference) commences on Tuesday, November 10th, at the Google Cambridge office. You can find the latest details on the
conference site
, including
schedule
,
speaker profiles
, and
travel tips
.
If you have not been invited to attend in person, you can
watch the event live
. And if you miss the livestream, we will post slides and videos later.
We have an outstanding speaker lineup this year, and we look forward to seeing you all there or online!
Announcing the GTAC 2015 Agenda
Tuesday, October 27, 2015
by Anthony Vallone on behalf of the GTAC Committee
We have completed the selection and confirmation of all speakers and attendees for GTAC 2015. You can find the detailed agenda at:
developers.google.com/gtac/2015/schedule
.
Thank you to all who submitted proposals!
There is a lot of interest in GTAC once again this year with about 1400 applicants and about 200 of those for speaking. Unfortunately, our venue only seats 250. We will livestream the event as usual, so fret not if you were not selected to attend. Information about the livestream and other details will be posted on the GTAC site soon and announced here.
The Deadline to Apply for GTAC 2015 is Monday Aug 10
Friday, August 7, 2015
Posted by Anthony Vallone on behalf of the GTAC Committee
The deadline to apply for GTAC 2015 is this Monday, August 10th, 2015. There is a great deal of interest to both attend and speak, and we’ve received many outstanding proposals. However, it’s not too late to submit your proposal for consideration. If you would like to speak or attend, be sure to
complete the form
by Monday.
We will be making regular updates to the GTAC site (
developers.google.com/gtac/2015/
) over the next several weeks, and you can find conference details there.
For those that have already signed up to attend or speak, we will contact you directly by mid-September.
GTAC 2015: Call for Proposals & Attendance
Tuesday, June 30, 2015
Posted by Anthony Vallone on behalf of the GTAC Committee
The GTAC (Google Test Automation Conference) 2015 application process is now open for presentation proposals and attendance. GTAC will be held at the
Google Cambridge office
(near Boston, Massachusetts, USA) on November 10th - 11th, 2015.
GTAC will be streamed live on YouTube again this year, so even if you can’t attend in person, you’ll be able to watch the conference remotely. We will post the live stream information as we get closer to the event, and recordings will be posted afterward.
Speakers
Presentations are targeted at student, academic, and experienced engineers working on test automation. Full presentations are 30 minutes and lightning talks are 10 minutes. Speakers should be prepared for a question and answer session following their presentation.
Application
For presentation proposals and/or attendance,
complete this form
. We will be selecting about 25 talks and 200 attendees for the event. The selection process is not first come first serve (no need to rush your application), and we select a diverse group of engineers from various locations, company sizes, and technical backgrounds (academic, industry expert, junior engineer, etc).
Deadline
The due date for both presentation and attendance applications is August 10th, 2015.
Fees
There are no registration fees, but speakers and attendees must arrange and pay for their own travel and accommodations.
More information
You can find more details at
developers.google.com/gtac
.
GTAC 2015 Coming to Cambridge (Greater Boston) in November
Thursday, May 28, 2015
Posted by Anthony Vallone on behalf of the GTAC Committee
We are pleased to announce that the ninth GTAC (Google Test Automation Conference) will be held in
Cambridge
(Greatah Boston, USA) on November 10th and 11th (
Toozdee and Wenzdee
), 2015. So, tell everyone to save the date for this wicked good event.
GTAC is an annual conference hosted by Google, bringing together engineers from industry and academia to discuss advances in test automation and the test engineering computer science field. It’s a great opportunity to present, learn, and challenge modern testing technologies and strategies.
You can browse presentation abstracts, slides, and videos from previous years on the
GTAC
site.
Stay tuned to this blog and the GTAC website for application information and opportunities to present at GTAC. Subscribing to this blog is the best way to get notified. We're looking forward to seeing you there!
GTAC 2014 Wrap-up
Thursday, December 4, 2014
by Anthony Vallone on behalf of the GTAC Committee
On October 28th and 29th,
GTAC 2014
, the eighth GTAC (Google Test Automation Conference), was held at the beautiful
Google Kirkland office
. The conference was completely packed with presenters and attendees from all over the world (
Argentina, Australia, Canada, China, many European countries, India, Israel, Korea, New Zealand, Puerto Rico, Russia, Taiwan, and many US states
), bringing with them a huge diversity of experiences.
Speakers from numerous companies and universities (
Adobe, American Express, Comcast, Dropbox, Facebook, FINRA, Google, HP, Medidata Solutions, Mozilla, Netflix, Orange, and University of Waterloo
) spoke on a variety of interesting and cutting edge test automation topics.
All of the
slides and video recordings
are now available on the GTAC site. Photos will be available soon as well.
This was our most popular GTAC to date, with over 1,500 applicants and almost 200 of those for speaking. About 250 people filled our venue to capacity, and the live stream had a peak of about 400 concurrent viewers with 4,700 playbacks during the event. And, there was plenty of interesting
Twitter
and
Google+
activity during the event.
Our goal in hosting GTAC is to make the conference highly relevant and useful for, not only attendees, but the larger test engineering community as a whole. Our post-conference survey shows that we are close to achieving that goal:
If you have any suggestions on how we can improve, please comment on this post.
Thank you to all the
speakers
, attendees, and online viewers who made this a special event once again. To receive announcements about the next GTAC, subscribe to the
Google Testing Blog
.
GTAC 2014 is this Week!
Monday, October 27, 2014
by Anthony Vallone on behalf of the GTAC Committee
The eighth GTAC commences on Tuesday at the Google Kirkland office. You can find the latest details on the conference at our site, including
speaker profiles
.
If you are watching remotely, we'll soon be updating the
live stream page
with the stream link and a Google Moderator link for remote Q&A.
If you have been selected to attend or speak, be sure to note the
updated parking information
. Google visitors will use off-site parking and shuttles.
We look forward to connecting with the greater testing community and sharing new advances and ideas.
Announcing the GTAC 2014 Agenda
Tuesday, September 30, 2014
by Anthony Vallone on behalf of the GTAC Committee
We have completed selection and confirmation of all speakers and attendees for GTAC 2014. You can find the detailed agenda at:
developers.google.com/gtac/2014/schedule
Thank you to all who submitted proposals! It was very hard to make selections from so many fantastic submissions.
There was a tremendous amount of interest in GTAC this year with over 1,500 applicants (up from 533 last year) and 194 of those for speaking (up from 88 last year). Unfortunately, our venue only seats 250. However, don’t despair if you did not receive an invitation. Just like last year, anyone can join us via
YouTube live streaming
. We’ll also be setting up Google Moderator, so remote attendees can get involved in Q&A after each talk. Information about live streaming, Moderator, and other details will be posted on the GTAC site soon and announced here.
The Deadline to Sign up for GTAC 2014 is Jul 28
Tuesday, July 22, 2014
Posted by Anthony Vallone on behalf of the GTAC Committee
The deadline to sign up for GTAC 2014 is next Monday, July 28th, 2014. There is a great deal of interest to both attend and speak, and we’ve received many outstanding proposals. However, it’s not too late to add yours for consideration. If you would like to speak or attend, be sure to
complete the form
by Monday.
We will be making regular updates to our site over the next several weeks, and you can find conference details there:
developers.google.com/gtac
For those that have already signed up to attend or speak, we will contact you directly in mid August.
GTAC 2014: Call for Proposals & Attendance
Monday, June 16, 2014
Posted by Anthony Vallone on behalf of the GTAC Committee
The application process is now open for presentation proposals and attendance for GTAC (Google Test Automation Conference) (
see initial announcement
) to be held at the
Google Kirkland office (near Seattle, WA)
on October 28 - 29th, 2014.
GTAC will be streamed live on YouTube again this year, so even if you can’t attend, you’ll be able to watch the conference from your computer.
Speakers
Presentations are targeted at student, academic, and experienced engineers working on test automation. Full presentations and lightning talks are 45 minutes and 15 minutes respectively. Speakers should be prepared for a question and answer session following their presentation.
Application
For presentation proposals and/or attendance,
complete this form
. We will be selecting about 300 applicants for the event.
Deadline
The due date for both presentation and attendance applications is July 28, 2014.
Fees
There are no registration fees, and we will send out detailed registration instructions to each invited applicant. Meals will be provided, but speakers and attendees must arrange and pay for their own travel and accommodations.
Update
:
Our
contact
email was bouncing - this is now fixed.
GTAC 2014 Coming to Seattle/Kirkland in October
Wednesday, June 4, 2014
Posted by Anthony Vallone on behalf of the GTAC Committee
If you're looking for a place to discuss the latest innovations in test automation, then charge your tablets and pack your
gumboots
- the eighth
GTAC
(Google Test Automation Conference) will be held on October 28-29, 2014 at Google Kirkland! The Kirkland office is part of the
Seattle/Kirkland campus
in beautiful Washington state. This campus forms our third largest engineering office in the USA.
GTAC is a periodic conference hosted by Google, bringing together engineers from industry and academia to discuss advances in test automation and the test engineering computer science field. It’s a great opportunity to present, learn, and challenge modern testing technologies and strategies.
You can browse the presentation abstracts, slides, and videos from last year on the
GTAC 2013 page
.
Stay tuned to this blog and the GTAC website for application information and opportunities to present at GTAC. Subscribing to this blog is the best way to get notified. We're looking forward to seeing you there!
GTAC 2013 Wrap-up
Saturday, May 4, 2013
by The GTAC Committee
The Google Test Automation Conference (
GTAC
) was held last week in NYC on April 23rd & 24th. The theme for this year's conference was focused on Mobile and Media. We were fortunate to have a cross section of attendees and presenters from industry and academia. This year’s talks focused on trends we are seeing in industry combined with compelling talks on tools and infrastructure that can have a direct impact on our products. We believe we achieved a conference that was focused for engineers by engineers. GTAC 2013 demonstrated that there is a strong trend toward the emergence of test engineering as a computer science discipline across companies and academia alike.
All of the
slides, video recordings
, and
photos
are now available on the GTAC site. Thank you to all the
speakers
and attendees who made this event spectacular. We are already looking forward to the next GTAC. If you have suggestions for next year’s location or theme, please comment on this post. To receive GTAC updates, subscribe to the
Google Testing Blog
.
Here are some responses to GTAC 2013:
“My first GTAC, and one of the best conferences of any kind I've ever been to. The talks were consistently great and the chance to interact with so many experts from all over the map was priceless.”
- Gareth Bowles,
Netflix
“Adding my own thanks as a speaker (and consumer of the material, I learned a lot from the other speakers) -- this was amazingly well run, and had facilities that I've seen many larger conferences not provide. I got everything I wanted from attending and more!”
- James Waldrop,
Twitter
“This was a wonderful conference. I learned so much in two days and met some great people. Can't wait to get back to Denver and use all this newly acquired knowledge!”
- Crystal Preston-Watson,
Ping Identity
“GTAC is hands down the smoothest conference/event I've attended. Well done to Google and all involved.”
- Alister Scott,
ThoughtWorks
“Thanks and compliments for an amazingly brain activity spurring event. I returned very inspired. First day back at work and the first thing I am doing is looking into improving our build automation and speed (1 min is too long. We are not building that much, groovy is dynamic).”
- Irina Muchnik,
Zynx Health
GTAC is Almost Here!
Saturday, April 13, 2013
by The GTAC Committee
GTAC is just around the corner, and we’re all very busy and excited. I know we say this every year, but this is going to be the best GTAC ever! We have updated the GTAC site with important details:
The Schedule
Speaker Profiles
Committee Profiles
If you are on the attendance list, we’ll see you on April 23rd. If not, check out the
Live Stream
page where you can watch the conference live and can get involved in Q&A after each talk. Perhaps your team can gather in a conference room and attend remotely.
Announcing the GTAC 2013 Agenda
Wednesday, March 6, 2013
by The GTAC Committee
We have completed selection and confirmation of all speakers for GTAC 2013. You can find the detailed agenda at:
developers.google.com/gtac/2013/schedule
Thank you to all who submitted proposals! It was very hard to make selections from so many fantastic submissions.
If you were not extended an invitation, don’t forget that you can join us via YouTube live streaming. We’ll be setting up
Google Moderator
, so remote attendees can get involved in Q&A after each talk. Information about live streaming, Moderator, and other details will be posted on the GTAC site soon and announced here.
The Deadline to Signup for GTAC is Jan 23
Friday, January 18, 2013
By The GTAC Committee
If you would like to attend or speak at GTAC 2013, the deadline to sign-up is January 23rd, 2013.
We are really excited about hosting this event at our fabulous New York City office. We’ve received many interesting presentation proposals so far, and this year’s GTAC will certainly be a fascinating, important event for test automation professionals. We are still accepting proposals, so it’s not too late to add yours for consideration.
You can find details about the conference at our new site:
developers.google.com/gtac
We will be making regular updates to this site over the next several weeks.
For those that have already signed up to attend or speak, we will contact you directly in early February.
GTAC: Call for Proposals & Attendance
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
By The GTAC Committee
We are happy to announce that the application process is now open for presentation proposals and attendance for the seventh
GTAC
(Google Test Automation Conference) to be held at the
Google New York office
on April 23 - 24th, 2013.
GTAC brings together engineers from many organizations to discuss test automation. It is a great opportunity to present, learn, and challenge modern testing technologies and strategies. GTAC will be streamed live on YouTube this year, so even if you can’t attend, you’ll be able to watch the conference from your computer.
Speakers
Presentations are targeted at student, academic, and experienced engineers working on test automation. Full presentations and lightning talks are 45 minutes and 15 minutes respectively. Speakers should be prepared for a question and answer session following their presentation. As mentioned in our
recent post
, the main theme is on testing media and mobile, however, we will consider proposals on other topics.
Application
For presentation proposals and/or attendance, complete
this form
. We will be selecting about 200 applicants for the event.
Deadline
The due date for both presentation and attendance applications is Jan 23rd, 2013.
Fees
There are no registration fees. We will send out detailed registration instructions to each invited applicant. We will provide meals. Attendees must arrange their own travel and accommodations.
GTAC Coming to New York in the Spring
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
By The GTAC Committee
The next and seventh
GTAC
(Google Test Automation Conference) will be held on April 23-24, 2013 at the beautiful
Google New York
office! We had a late start preparing for GTAC, but things are now falling into place. This will be the second time it is hosted at our second largest engineering office. We are also sticking with our tradition of changing the region each year, as the last GTAC was held in California.
The GTAC event brings together engineers from many organizations to discuss test automation. It is a great opportunity to present, learn, and challenge modern testing technologies and strategies. We will soon be recruiting speakers to discuss their innovations.
This year’s theme will be “Testing Media and Mobile“. In the past few years, substantial changes have taken place in both the media and mobile areas. Television is no longer the king of media. Over 27 billion videos are streamed in the U.S. per month. Over 1 billion people now own smartphones. HTML5 includes support for audio, video, and scalable vector graphics, which will liberate many web developers from their dependence on third-party media software. These are incredibly complex technologies to test. We are thrilled to be hosting this event in which many in the industry will share their innovations.
Registration information for speakers and attendees will soon be posted here and on the GTAC site (
https://developers.google.com/gtac
). Even though we will be focusing on “Testing Media and Mobile”, we will be accepting proposals for talks on other topics.
GTAC Videos Now Available
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
By James Whittaker
All the GTAC 2011 talks are now available at
http://www.gtac.biz/talks
and also up on You Tube. A hearty thanks to all the speakers who helped make this the best GTAC ever.
Enjoy!
Announcing the Final GTAC Agenda
Monday, September 12, 2011
By James Whittaker
The GTAC agenda is now finalized and available at:
http://www.gtac.biz/agenda
. Looking forward to seeing everyone there. Stay tuned to this blog for updates to any pre- and post- events.
Labels
Aaron Jacobs
1
Adam Porter
1
Alan Faulkner
1
Alan Myrvold
1
Alberto Savoia
4
Alek Icev
2
Alex Eagle
1
Allen Hutchison
6
Andrew Trenk
8
Android
1
Anthony Vallone
25
Antoine Picard
1
APIs
2
App Engine
1
April Fools
2
Arif Sukoco
1
Bruce Leban
1
C++
11
Chaitali Narla
2
Christopher Semturs
1
Chrome
3
Chrome OS
2
Dave Chen
1
Diego Salas
2
Dmitry Vyukov
1
Dori Reuveni
1
Eduardo Bravo Ortiz
1
Ekaterina Kamenskaya
1
Erik Kuefler
3
Espresso
1
George Pirocanac
2
Google+
1
Goranka Bjedov
1
GTAC
54
Hank Duan
1
Harry Robinson
5
Havard Rast Blok
1
Hongfei Ding
1
James Whittaker
42
Jason Arbon
2
Jason Elbaum
1
Jason Huggins
1
Java
5
JavaScript
7
Jay Han
1
Jessica Tomechak
1
Jim Reardon
1
Jobs
14
Joe Allan Muharsky
1
Joel Hynoski
1
John Penix
1
John Thomas
3
Jonathan Rockway
1
Jonathan Velasquez
1
Julian Harty
5
Julie Ralph
1
Karin Lundberg
1
Kaue Silveira
1
Kevin Graney
1
Kirkland
1
Kurt Alfred Kluever
1
Lesley Katzen
1
Marc Kaplan
3
Mark Ivey
1
Mark Striebeck
1
Marko Ivanković
1
Markus Clermont
3
Michael Bachman
1
Michael Klepikov
1
Mike Wacker
1
Misko Hevery
32
Mobile
2
Mona El Mahdy
1
Noel Yap
1
Patricia Legaspi
1
Patrick Copeland
23
Patrik Höglund
5
Peter Arrenbrecht
1
Phil Rollet
1
Philip Zembrod
4
Pooja Gupta
1
Radoslav Vasilev
1
Rajat Dewan
1
Rajat Jain
1
Rich Martin
1
Richard Bustamante
1
Roshan Sembacuttiaratchy
1
Ruslan Khamitov
1
Sean Jordan
1
Sharon Zhou
1
Shyam Seshadri
4
Simon Stewart
2
Stephen Ng
1
Tejas Shah
1
Test Analytics
1
Tony Voellm
2
TotT
54
Vojta Jína
1
WebRTC
2
Yvette Nameth
2
Zhanyong Wan
6
Zuri Kemp
2
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