STeP-IN SUMMIT 2016: the 13th International Conference on Software Testing – July-August, 2016 @ Bangalore, Pune & Hyderabad

STeP-IN is all about QA, Software Testing and Quality Engineering. We talk, discuss and chat about agile, DevOps, mobility, IoT, quality, and a bunch of other stuff, as long as it has got something to do about software testing. For more than 12 years, STeP-IN Forum’s Testing Conferences has been the most successful and widely acknowledged gathering of software testing professionals, and for most people, the premier knowledge and networking event on the software testing calendar. STeP-IN Core Committee and the Technical Panel have chosen the theme for this years SUMMIT 2016 to be – “Global QE in a Digital World”

Some highlights:

Over 500+ delegates from India and abroad

Awards for the most popular speakers chosen by participants

45+ sessions including Key Notes, Plenaries, Technical Tracks, a Mini-colloquium, a Panel Discussion, Lightning Talks and Tutorials

STeP-IN SUMMIT 2015: the 12th International Conference on Software Testing – Jun-July, 2015 @ Bangalore, Pune & Hyderabad

Dawn of the New Age Testeris set to take center stage in India across multiple cities in June 2015. The challenge today is not only in mastering techniques to use newer technologies, but in establishing a robust QA model that is aligned to function effectively in the agile / DevOps world. The key word today is Quality Engineering – and this has reflected in the need for a radical shift in testing methodologies, a vastly different set of skills for resources and new age tools. STeP-IN SUMMIT 2015 focuses on the relevance of QA within this shift, and helps you to re-invent yourself yet again. We’ll talk about the fear of change, sharpening your skills, getting involved and voicing an opinion. We’ll also talk about some of the obstacles you will face and some unspoken, and not so unspoken, aspects of the industry.

Some highlights:

Over 400+ delegates from India and abroad

Awards for the most popular speakers chosen by participants

45+ sessions including Key Notes, Plenaries, Technical Tracks, a Mini-colloquium, a Panel Discussion, Lightning Talks and Tutorials

STeP-IN SUMMIT 2014: the 11th International Conference on Software Testing – June 25-27, 2014 @ Bangalore and June 18 & 19, 2014 at Pune & Hyderabad

"Testing NOW" – Today’s tester is a unique being, driven, not by deadlines and mundane tasks, but by a relentless curiosity and a fascination with possibilities. Join us at STeP-IN SUMMIT 2014 – the 11th International Software Testing conference. Awaken the tester in you. This is where you want to be; this is NOW.

Walk away with exciting ideas and quality insights from other industries. Make your mark by challenging the existing paradigm.

Some highlights:

Over 800+ delegates from India and abroad

Awards for the most popular speakers chosen by participants

40+ sessions including Key Notes, Plenaries, Technical Tracks, a Mini-colloquium, a Panel Discussion, Lightning Talks and Tutorials

STeP-IN SUMMIT 2013: the 10th International Conference on Software Testing – June 18-21, 2013 @ Bangalore endeavoured for something special for everyone – from the enthusiastic yet raw new recruit; the seasoned techie who has been there, done that; to the experienced leader looking for new insights and answers to today’s challenges. Different events were planned to ensure maximum take-away to address divers needs, for all levels of professionals.

The conference theme “Next Generation Testing: Learning from the past; Preparing for the future” was chosen, keeping in mind the evolution of Software Testing into a sophisticated discipline over the last two decades while acknowledging the fact that the Post-PC era is challenging old paradigms and methods of working.

Some highlights:

Over 1000+ delegates from India and abroad attended

Keynote addresses by Lee Copeland, Consultant SQE; Srinivasan Desikan, best-selling Software Testing author and Sashi Reddi, VP & GM, Big Data and Analytics at CSC

Awards for the most popular speakers chosen by participants

33 sessions including Key Notes, Plenaries, Technical Tracks, a Mini-colloquium, a Panel Discussion, Lightning Talks and Tutorials

STeP-IN SUMMIT 2012: 9th International Conference on Software Testing - February 2011 @ Bangalore, Pune, Hyderabad & Chennai. ‘GenNext Testing Professionals – Building Leaders in Business, Technology & Management ‘ was aptly chosen as the theme for this conference. Some highlights: Over 650 delegates from India and abroad STeP-IN Forum felicitated industry veteran Mr. Arun Ramu, Founder Partner, Avekshaa for his contributions to the industry. Keynote addresses by Mr. Sam Guckenheimer, Product Owner,Visual Studio, Microsoft and Mr. Sunil Kunte, President, FMR India. Lively and thought-provoking Panel Discussion and Open house sessions STeP-IN Forum hosted a special show case of collaboration with the academia. Ms Deepa. R, MS Student, IIIT-B presented a report on the project on ‘Making sense of different testing metrics’ under the guidance of Ms. Renu Rajani, Sr. VP, Citi Group

The overlysing theme of the conference was addressed by the question: In today’s changing paradigm, are we doing the right testing? Many new concepts like "Cloud based development/hosting", "Customer Experience Management", "Application Mobility" were addressed as the conference as well as challenges like how do we to keep pace with extremely short release cycles when it comes to mobile and cloud hosted applications. How do we address reliability for mission critical internet/extranet applications?

The conference covered

Over 450 delegates from India and abroad

Conference inaugurated by Mr. Subroto Bagchi, Vice Chairman and Gardener, MindTree Ltd.

Keynote addresses by Mr. Lee Copeland, Software Quality Engineering, USA and Mr. Nachiket Sukhtankar - Lead, Delivery Centers for Technology in India, Accenture.

In the last few years, software testing has metamorphosed into a full-time, creative and lucrative profession. With each passing day, the senior management of organizations is beginning to understand the direct implications of software testing on client and user satisfaction, and also on maintenance and operational costs.

The conference covered

Over 300 delegates from India and abroad

Conference inaugurated by Mr. Aravind Jannu, IAS, Director, Directorate of IT & Biotechnology, Govt. of Karnataka, MD, KEONICS, and MD, KBITS

Keynote address by Mr. Nachiket Sukhtankar, Lead - Delivery Centers for Technology in India, Accenture and Mr. John Scarborough, Vice President, Quality Engineering & Customer Solutions Group, MindTree Ltd.

This time STeP-IN SUMMIT 2009 introduced the concept of “tracks” in order to increase the take-away from the conference. Day 2 of the Conference showcased 2 separate tracks on different domains for more focused learning.

The conference covered

Over 350 delegates from India and abroad

Conference Inauguration and Inaugural Address - Jan 22, 2009 Dr. A. R. Upadhya – Director, National Aerospace Laboratories

Keynote addresses by Dr. V Kala - Deputy Head, Software Engineering Divisions, Aeronautical Development Establishment and Gangadharaiah. C P – Sr. Vice President and Global Head of Testing Services, Wipro Technologies.

This four-day Annual International Conference provided a platform for test champions, gurus, industry practitioners, academicians, and professionals to share their expertise, in-depth knowledge and industry best practices. This Conference was produced by STeP-IN Forum and hosted by QSIT - Quality Solutions for Information Technology Pvt. Ltd.

The conference covered

Over 250 delegates from India and abroad

Conference inaugurated Kris Gopalakrishnan, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, Infosys Technologies Ltd. (NASDAQ : INFY)

Keynote address by Krishnakumar Natarajan, President & CEO - IT Services, MindTree Consulting Lively and thought-provoking Panel Discussion on “Crystal gazing into the future of Indian Test Community”

The 4th edition of the STeP-IN Forum Annual International Conference was spread across 4 days. STeP-IN SUMMIT 2007 turned out to be an enriching experience and a platform for over the 1000+ attending delegates to interact with each other and share their knowledge.

The conference covered

Over 250 delegates from India and abroad

Conference inaugurated by S.N. Zindal, Director General, STPI

Keynote address by Ashutosh Tiwary, Product Unit Manager for Visual Studio Team Edition for Software Testers, Microsoft, Redmond

Lively and thought-provoking Panel Discussion on “To build or buy a Test Automation Tool”

‘Careers in Software Testing’ was aptly chosen as the theme for the conference keeping in mind the growing demand for Test Professionals. This growing demand was reinforced by the fact that the conference was attended by over 1000 delegates across the 3-day event. Professor Mahabala, IIIT-B related his experiences in the then new world of software development and testing during his inspiring and humourous inaugural address.

The conference covered

Over 250 delegates from India and abroad

Conference inaugurated by Prof Mahabala – IIIT-B

Keynote address by Mr. Vikram Shah, Managing Director, Intec India.

“Software Testing – Principles and Practices” authored by Ramesh Gopalaswamy and Srinivasan Desikan was released by Prof Mahabala

Keeping in mind the enthusiastic response from the community to STeP-IN SUMMIT 2004 – the 1st International Conference on Software Testing, the 2nd edition of the event was scheduled for January 20-22, 2005 at The Leela Palace, Bangalore.

The event, themed “Software Testing – An Engineering Discipline” had 8 half day tutorial workshops spread across two days, and was followed by more than a dozen plenary and technical track session on the day of conference.

Key speakers included Zohar Gilad, Mercury Interactive; Srinivasan Desikan, Talisma Corporation; Sudhir Patnaik, Accelerys Software; Vidur Kohli, MphasiS; Arun Ramu, Infosys and J Veeraraaghavan, Novell.

STeP-IN SUMMIT 2005 was sponsored by Mercury (Event Sponsor); Compuware and Seque (Platinum Sponsors); Telelogic (Gold Sponsor); ReadyTestGo and SQA Tech (Silver Sponsors); and Indium Software (Luncheon Sponsor

Message to the Software Testing Community:

Till almost a few years ago, software testing was still in its rudimentary stages, and a ‘Tester’ was perceived as being second to the ‘Designer / Developer’. Not so anymore! The IT world has begun to acknowledge globally, that, effective software testing is a pre-requisite to quality!

Whenever a new concept develops, it is always useful to have a platform where practitioners, experts, service providers and tool vendors come together to share their knowledge and experiences.

STeP-IN SUMMIT – the International Conference on Software Testing strives to be this very platform

STeP-IN SUMMIT 2004 was held during January 8-10, 2004 at the Leela Palace, Bangalore. It featured 8 half-day tutorial workshops spread across two days and a day of conference. Key speakers included Satyen Parikh, Borland Software; T Ashok, Stag Software; Mieke Gevers, Segue; Dr. Prakash Mutalik, RelQ Software; Dr. Jon Whittle, Ames Research Centre, and V Gangadharaiah, Wipro Technologies.

Sponsors included Segue, IGI and RelQ Software.

The world of the testing professional is bubbling with new ideas, innovations, and growth areas!

In order to ride the wave, it’s important to first understand who you are and what you want to do. For the first time ever, at HSTC 2014 - STeP-IN Forum's 5th International Conference on Software Testing in Hyderabad, we bring to you a unique conference that reflects the landscape and opportunities for Testers today.

Understand your growth path in Services vs Product vs Captive vs Quality Assurance organizations. Discover yourself - choose and plan your future with respect to Organization, Technology, Testing Tools & Processes.

We started as developers who also tested code, introduced ourselves to technology testing and functional testing; and steadily worked our way to being all-rounders who wore multiple hats: BA, Tech Champ and gate keeper to the user community. The implicit asks for a tester today? ‘Agile tester’, ‘scrum master’, ‘functional expert’, ‘business analyst’, ‘architect’, ‘project manager’, hands-on ‘technical engineer’ – the list is daunting!

So how do you equip yourself to meet this challenge?

At HSTC 2013, we will not give you ‘gyan’, nor bombard you with jargon. What we promise to do though, is help you understand the evolution of Testing , the present-day scenario and challenges, and the role YOU play in it. We will bust a few myths, we may make some of you a bit uncomfortable, but we will definitely make all of you think.

The first two editions of HSTC – STeP-IN Forum’s Software Testing conference at Hyderabad were runaway successes. In order to keep up the momentum & excitement generated in the Hyderabad Software Testing community, STeP-IN Forum is happy to announce its 3rd edition – HSTC 2012 on September 27-28, 2012 with the theme of the conference being Software Testing v2.0 – Smarter, Leaner,& Simpler.

Changes in our ecosystem (technological, demographical, financial, environmental, etc.) are forcing testers to re-invent themselves and their organizations. Given the mind boggling speed at which technology is changing these days, re-invention becomes essential, not just to survive the challenges of this environment but thrive in it. Hence, all stake holders in the testing discipline need to look at every opportunity and avenue to make their craft Smarter, Leaner & Simpler.

STeP-IN Forum’s is 2nd edition of its Software Testing Conference at Hyderabad on September 14-15, 2011 saw good turnaround of techies and managers from IT giants both domestic and MNC’s. The event was successful in bringing together Test Champions and Gurus to share their knowledge for the benefit of Testers.

The conference covered

Test related Technical areas,

Test Automation related aspects, and

Test Management related insights.

In order to reach out to the growing and enthusiastic testing community at Hyderabad, STeP-IN Forum Software Testing Conference scheduled on September 03, 2010 was the first one organized by STeP-IN Forum at Hyderabad. Almost 500 testing practitioners gathered together at the Taj Krishna to interact and learn from each other. Mr. Sanjay Kalra, CEO of Tech Mahindra gave all the delegates sufficient food for thought and plenty to laugh about, in his thought provoking yet hilarious Key Note address.

Some highlights:

Over 450 delegates from India and abroad

Conference inaugurated by Dr. S.K.Chaudhuri, Outstanding Scientist, Associate Director, Research Centre Imarat, Hyderabad

Keynote address by Mr. Sanjay Kalra, CEO, Tech Mahindra

Lively and thought provoking Panel discussion on " Emerging technology trends in Software Testing"

The Conference was well received by the 150+ physical attendees, and around 30number of virtual ones Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai. The event was sponsored by Borland, a MicroFocus Company and ITB – Indian Testing Board.

Dr. Pradeep Waychal, Head - Innovation Centre, College of Engineering, Pune did the Welcome note

The keynote “Enterprise Mobility Testing – Now a Need No More a Want!” was by Murali Meenakshi Sundaram, Head – Cloud Computing, CSC.

The conference, conducted at the Leela Palace and attended by more than 200 delegates delivered on the promised objectives, which were to increase awareness of, and share experiences on:

The conference covered

Building secure software by aligning business process to provide stakeholder-centric services

Technology standardization for testing the whole software development life cycle which in turn involves testing the people, the process, and the technology

Intensifying meeting of Security requirements

Use of Security testing frameworks

Threat Modeling Approaches: Identification of Better ways of Risk identification, analysis, and ranking at design level to reduce security problems and their impact

STeP-IN Forum’s theme conference on Security Testing was planned keeping in mind the Security and fraud issues that became critical concerns for financial institutions and merchants spearheading smart-card adoption (online transactions) in the first decade of the 21st century.

Mr.Shyamal Ghosh, then Chairman of the Data Security Council of India delivered the Key Note address to over 200 enthusiasts attending the event. Speakers like Sameer Ratolikar, CISO, Bank of India, and ArvindDoraiswamy, Project Manager,Paladion Networks (among others) enthralled the attendees with information packed sessions on Application Layer (Layer 7) attacks, and incidents in a web driven world.

Since the Finance industry, especially Banking Services, facilitates large volumes of high value transactions, the need for defect free software is absolutely critical. Companies in BFSI sectors are sensitive to the knowledge that a single error can result in the loss of business, revenues and reputation. It is a known fact that testing and re-testing systems, process, products and protocols is of high importance.

By its requirement, software testing is a very demanding job; especially so with respect to this sector, making it imperative for this service to be managed by dedicated experts with the necessary domain knowledge.

STeP-IN Forum’s theme conference on Testing BFSI Applications was organized with the aim to help participants get a broader and deeper perspective of BFSI Testing and also give them a good insight of its organizations.

Software testing is a key practice and has become a significant growth driver to business. As software testing became more challenging and business-value oriented, it became vital to a keep close tab on the pulse of testing in terms of effectiveness, efficiency and business value.

Over the years, measurements in testing are no longer limited to defects at the execution stage, but span the entire software and business cycle. Measurements in testing indicate test effectiveness of testing, product quality, release risks, demonstrate business value, provide management insight into the progress, highlight kinks in the SDLC and help improve the overall process.

This conference focused on the measurements/metrics in testing with an intention to strengthen the test community. Key speakers at the event included visionaries like Amitava Roy, President – Symphony Services, and industry stalwarts like J Veeraraaghavan, Principal Consultant, PM-Power Consulting.

Software Test Automationbecame a key driver to improving the efficiency of testing early in the last decade. A wide spectrum of tool sets existed that helped in the automation of functional and non-functional tests. Some of these are COTS tools and open source toolsets also started becoming dominant players. Automated testing has a significant business implication in implementing cost-effective testing and improving the overall product.Large scale automation is indeed a vital development activity and demands good principles of design and programming in addition to being good in testing.

This conference aimed to enhance the skills of the professional working on test automation. The objective of the Conference was to increase awareness of, and share experiences on test automation that help in improved software testing. The conference helpedpractitioners to get a broader and deeper perspective of test tools and automation and also threw insight on automation practice in organizations.

Towards the end of the last decade, software had become larger, more complex, and customers’expectations towards the same changed drastically as well. One of the key attributes that emerged during the time was performance.

Large scale systems pose significant challenges in architecting and coding to meet performance expectations. Performance testing during the time grew into the larger discipline of Software Performance Engineering that relates to ensuring that performance attributes are considered at the earliest stages.

This conference covered the concept of Performance Engineering as a key discipline with a set of techniques, processes and a rich set of specialized tools. It aimed at advancing the skills of performance test specialists, bycovering aspects of software architecture, test techniques, tools, mathematical models and statistical analysis.This conference also addressed the issues and challenges faced in the domain of Performance Testing.

STeP-IN Forum’s theme conference on Usability Testing and Engineering was one of the firsts of a series of themed events on carefully selected topics keeping in mind the evolution software testing as a scientific discipline, and the changing needs and expectations of customers from the industry.

This theme conference aimed to provide a platform where test champions and gurus, industry practitioners, academicians, and professionals could come together to share their expertise, in-depth knowledge and industry best practices in the area of Usability Testing and Engineering.

Over 300 delegates from India and abroad.

Well appreciated by Sponsors: Mercury and Compuware.