SDLCAI

Speakers

Researchers and practitioners working where AI changes the software development lifecycle.

Mo Khazali

Mo Khazali

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Group Associate Partner at Theodo

Industry perspectives

Talk

Mystery talk

Mo Khazali shares an industry perspective on applied AI in software development. The exact topic of his talk is still to be decided.

Mo Khazali is Group Associate Partner at Theodo. Over the last three years, he has led teams as Head of Mobile and Solutions Architect, helping deliver high-impact products while scaling engineering practices across clients and developer communities. He has spoken at dozens of international conferences, hosted React Native London, and now focuses on how organisations can use AI to migrate between technology stacks in ways that are verifiable, safe, and efficient.

Ohans Emmanuel

Ohans Emmanuel

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Co-founder & CEO, Coldtea.ai

Industry perspectives

Talk

Mystery talk

Ohans Emmanuel shares an industry perspective on applied AI in software development. The exact topic of his talk is still to be decided.

Ohans Emmanuel is the co-founder and CEO of Coldtea.ai and a technical author with more than five published books. Since 2017, he has written extensively about software and product development, with his work reaching more than five million readers. He specialises in turning complex problems into simple, reliable systems and building delightful user interfaces that hold up in the real world.

Dr Muhammad Waseem

Dr Muhammad Waseem

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Vice Head of GPT Lab, Tampere University

Views from academia

Talk

GenAI in Software Engineering: What Works, What Fails, What’s Next

This talk examines the current role of Generative AI in software engineering, moving beyond the hype around coding assistants. It discusses where GenAI is already useful, such as implementation, testing, documentation, and refactoring, and where progress remains limited, such as requirements, architecture, and long-term maintenance. The talk also highlights key open questions around measurement, verification, security, developer expertise, and the future shape of software engineering work.

Dr Muhammad Waseem is the Vice Head of GPT Lab at Tampere University. His research focuses on software engineering, generative AI, software architecture, and AI-assisted software development. He is currently supervising PhD and master’s students and has authored more than 90 research papers published in leading software engineering venues, including JSS, IST, ICSE, ECSA, and others.

Tapio Pitkäranta

Tapio Pitkäranta

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Head of AI Development at Siili Solutions

Views from academia

Talk

Agentic Discovery

Abstract forthcoming.

Tapio Pitkäranta is Head of AI Development at Siili Solutions and a PhD candidate at Aalto University researching Software Agents and Generative AI. He has over 20 years of AI experience, spanning early semantic-web agent research, healthcare analytics entrepreneurship, and senior technology leadership across retail, healthcare, tax, and HR. He has served as CTO four times, including at RELEX Solutions during its unicorn-scale growth, and now focuses on applying agentic AI, multi-agent systems, and coding agents to real software delivery.

Jussi Hacklin

Jussi Hacklin

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Chief of Software Engineering at Elisa

Views from industry

Talk

Driving AI adoption above targets in highly regulated environment

How Elisa drove AI adoption across the SDLC beyond expectations through leadership, tooling, communities, and shared practices. The talk also covers how governance continues to evolve to manage costs in the new era of token-based development, while operating critical infrastructure under high levels of regulation.

Jussi Hacklin has more than 20 years of experience leading technology and business organisations, creating digital services and products in-house and for clients across multiple industries. His background spans technology business creation, sales, product management, product development, agile transformation, piloting, and software development. He is a co-founder of Mideum, advises selected companies on technology and leadership, and was the first Finnish graduate of the University of Cambridge Judge CTO Programme.

Viljami Kuosmanen

Viljami Kuosmanen

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Distinguished Engineer at ePilot GmbH

Views from industry

Talk

I Let Non-Engineers Vibe-Code Our Production Codebase

In February, Viljami handed AI coding agents to every PM, designer, and support rep at epilot, then opened the whole codebase to them. He expected a few translation fixes. Instead, they shipped thousands of PRs: hundreds from people who had never written code, with dozens still contributing every week. Engineers review and merge, features go to customers, designers ship real UI, PMs ship features they had waited months for, and customer success builds its own tools. This talk shares what they learned, the guardrails they put in place, the parts that broke, and the day someone pushed unreviewed code to production.

Viljami Kuosmanen is a distinguished engineer and product engineer with more than 15 years of experience. Previously Head of Engineering at epilot, he scaled SaaS teams from early stage to more than 45 engineers while sustaining over 50% year-on-year MRR growth. His work spans SaaS, cloud, and AI, and his open-source libraries have been adopted by companies including AWS, GitHub, SAP, IBM, and Intel. He is the author of the Product Engineer Manifesto, which encourages engineers to move beyond code into end-to-end product ownership.

Zak Allal

Zak Allal

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Physician and AI Engineer

Views from industry

Talk

Mystery talk

Zak Allal shares an industry perspective on applied AI in software development. The exact topic of his talk is still to be decided.

Zak Allal is a physician and AI engineer working at the intersection of medicine, advanced technology, strategic intelligence, and the arts. His technical work spans secure AI architectures, full-stack systems engineering, cybersecurity, and applied AI. He is also a pianist and composer who has performed at Carnegie Hall.

Speaker themes#

01

AI in real engineering pipelines

02

Quality, testing, and review under automation

03

Leadership and governance for AI adoption