Bridging the Digital Divide: Empowering Accessibility Through AI Innovations

As digital spaces become integral to our lives, ensuring their inclusivity is more important than ever. "Bridging the Digital Divide: Empowering Accessibility Through AI Innovations" explores the transformative role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in making technology more accessible for all. This session highlights how cutting-edge AI technologies, such as natural language processing, computer vision, and machine learning, are driving solutions to bridge accessibility gaps.

From AI-powered screen readers and voice-controlled interfaces to real-time translation tools and personalized learning systems, we will delve into practical examples and inspiring case studies showcasing how AI empowers individuals with diverse needs. Attendees will learn how AI innovations are enabling greater independence, improving user experience, and creating opportunities for meaningful digital engagement.

Will AI Replace My Job? A Town Hall for Software Developers

Will AI replace my job? What happens to my role as a developer, architect, or engineering leader in the next 1–2 years — or 5–7? These are the questions we’re hearing from software professionals everywhere. In this special closing session at GIDS 2025, join Venkat Subramaniam and a panel of industry voices (including Birgitta Boeckeler and James Ward) for a candid, high-energy town hall on how AI is transforming the work of software teams — now and in the years to come.

AI and Ethics: Navigating the Future of Responsible Technology

As artificial intelligence becomes woven into the fabric of daily life, its ethical implications demand serious attention. In "AI and Ethics: Navigating the Future of Responsible Technology," we’ll examine the crucial intersection of AI and ethical decision-making, exploring how developers and organizations can build responsible technology. Through real-world scenarios, such as whether a smart lightbulb vendor should track when it’s used, we’ll discuss the broader implications of data collection and corporate accountability.

Everyday AI: Practical Applications Beyond the Chatbot

Explore practical, real-world integrations of Artificial Intelligence that go beyond simple chat interfaces to genuinely enhance user workflows.

Digital Modernization Through Accessibility

Did you know that half of the US uses their voice, daily, for web searches? Did you know that 3 out of 4 Gen Zers watch videos with closed captions on all the time? These accessibility features, long associated with people with disabilities, have broken through to mainstream success and are used by nearly everybody. Are you prepared to support these features in your app or website today?

Accessibility in the Smart Home: Matter and Thread

In the age of IoT and smart homes, how can we ensure that technology is inclusive and accessible to all? Scott Davis explores the intersection of smart home technology with accessibility, focusing on two groundbreaking protocols: Matter and Thread.

Continuous Accessibility: Adding Lighthouse to Your CI/CD Pipeline

In the age of digital transformation, accessibility can't be an afterthought; it has to be continuous and integrated into your development pipeline. In this enlightening session, Scott Davis will guide you through the process of incorporating Google Lighthouse into your CI/CD pipeline to ensure accessibility checks become a seamless part of your development cycle.

Browser Native Web Development: No Frameworks, Just the Browser

In an era where JavaScript frameworks come and go like fashion trends, Scott Davis advocates for a timeless approach: relying on the power and sophistication of modern browsers themselves. In this session, Scott will delve into how you can build robust, maintainable web applications using just native browser capabilities, sidestepping the need for external libraries and frameworks.

Scott Davis on a Bootiful Podcast

Hi, Spring fans! In this installment I (Josh Long) talk to my friend and world reknowned technologist Scott Davis.

Re-Decentralizing the Web and recapturing our data

In this talk, Nimisha Asthagiri and Scott Davis explore Tim Berners-Lee’s new vision for the Web – Solid and Pods – where user data is “at the beck and call of the users themselves… a future in which [web] programs work for you”. This is an alternative path where privacy and resiliency are at the heart of our system architectures. A path where the web’s pendulum swings back to decentralization.

Tanzu.TV Between Chair and Keyboard - The one with Scott Davis

Please join Nate Schutta and Scott Davis, a Web Architect and Principal Engineer with ThoughtWorks, where he focuses on leading-edge / innovative / emerging / non-traditional aspects of web development. This includes serverless web apps, mobile web apps (Responsive PWAs), HTML5-based SmartTV apps, Conversational UIs (like Siri and Alexa), and using web technologies to build IoT solutions.

Digital trust and the architecture of participation

In 2005, Tim O’Reilly coined the phrase “architecture of participation”, a Web 2.0 concept that pivoted the web away from a “publishing” metaphor to one of “participation”. Over thirty years later, Sir Tim Berners-Lee is back with a new perspective on the architecture of participation - one that is personal, privacy-based, and most strikingly, identity-based. In this keynote, Scott will give pragmatic examples of digital trust that exemplify this new emerging era of the web.

The Wrong Kind of Fast: Embracing Evidence-Based Architecture

Scott Davis debunks common software tropes with empirical, quantifiable, measurable facts -- what he calls "Evidence-Based Architecture". We look at making your web app fast by creating measurable performance budgets. We explore your development process through the prism of the book "Accelerate". And we create "objective integrity assessments" through measurable Fitness Functions, as discussed in the book "Building Evolutionary Architectures".

Design Thinking: Putting the Design Back in Architectural Design

Design Thinking is about taking a solution-focused approach rather than a problem-focused one (like in Agile methodology). Scott Davis offers a hands-on, user-centric flow of understanding, exploring, and materializing to arrive at solutions to a problem. Companies as diverse as Apple, IBM, and SAP successfully use this creative way of problem solving — perhaps you can as well.

Its Spelled Accessibility not Disability

What if you could increase your website's SEO, improve your mobile web design, and get a head start on the coming Conversational UI revolution through a renewed focus on Accessibility? And what if, while you did it, you increased your user base by 20% by making it more accessible to disabled users? Scott Davis explains how accessibility today should be just as important to you as a mobile design strategy was ten years ago.

Adding Speech to your Web App

Conversational UI architecture not only helps to improve your SEO, but it also helps you tap into an underserved market with an estimated market value of over $7 trillion dollars. Scott Davis explores W3C specifications like the Web Speech API, Speech Synthesis Markup Language (SSML), and WebVTT for closed captioning.

The Revolution Will Be Spoken

Gartner estimates that roughly 25% of our computer interactions these days happen with our voice. In this talk, Scott Davis will give you a gentle introduction to the basics of Text-to-Speech and Speech-to-Text, complete with some simple standards-based examples that you can run in any modern browser. You'll also learn how continuous speech recognition can bring live closed captioning to video conferencing.

It’s Spelled, "Accessibility", not "Disability"

If your mobile phone is in silent/vibrate mode right now, would you say that you’re using an accessibility feature, or just a feature of your phone? In this keynote, Scott Davis discusses Universal Design, in which we design features for everyone to use, not just an arbitrary subset of our users. We as an industry have quite a bit of work to do to support the 20% of our users that need our accessibility efforts the most.

Browser automation using Taiko

Scott Davis, Principal Consultant at ThoughtWorks, provides a short hands-on demo of Taiko - a free and open source browser automation tool from ThoughtWorks.

The Framework-Free Web

Netflix saw a 50% performance improvement when they removed React from their landing page. Moving to Google's AMP project lead publishers to see 300% performance improvements. Their secret? Removing client-side JavaScript. In this talk, Scott Davis demonstrates what framework-free web development looks like by taking you on a guided tour of practical, commonsense examples that combine HTML, CSS, and JavaScript in a holistic way.

It's Spelled 'Accessibility', not 'Disability'

Over ten years ago, many companies questioned the need for a mobile-friendly website. Last year, mobile internet traffic surpassed desktop traffic. What does this have to do with Accessibility? The W3C says, "Accessibility overlaps with other best practices such as mobile web design, device independence, and search engine optimization."

What Scott Davis Loves about Speaking at GIDS

A brief interview discussing the unique energy, technical depth, and community spirit of the Great International Developer Summit.

Exploring Vert.x in Java, Groovy, and JavaScript

If you're a Java developer looking for something more than the usual JEE or Spring stack, maybe Vert.x is what you're looking for. Vert.x takes an asynchronous, event-driven view of the world that can be quite a departure for traditional synchronous Java programs, offering polyglot solutions in Java, Groovy, JavaScript, Ruby, Python, and more.

If You Won't Test Your Code, Who Will?

In this keynote, Scott Davis talks about how software testing is a crucial part of the development process. But it is more than a drudgery or a chore -- with the right tools in place, you can gain incredible insight into how your application ACTUALLY works (as opposed to how you THINK it works).

Testing the MEAN Stack

Our industry has proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that you can slap together a Todo list in 60 minutes using the latest framework de jour. But who would really want to put that un-tested mess into production? In this talk, Scott Davis will demonstrate a comprehensive testing stack for the MEAN stack using JasmineJS, MochaJS, KarmaJS, IstanbulJS, and ProtractorJS.

Exploring the MEAN Stack: MongoDB, ExpressJS, AngularJS, NodeJS

In the late 20th century, web developers talked about using the LAMP stack. 15 years later, we have a new acronym that's gaining popularity -- the MEAN stack. In this talk, you'll learn how each one of these pieces of technology complement each other, representing a major shift in architecture and mental models.

Message to a Young Software Developer

Regardless of how many years we've been in this industry, every time we learn a new language, a new framework, or a new library, we're "young" software developers all over again. In this talk, I'll show you tools and utilities to help out with the mechanics of learning something new, as well as rubrics and techniques following three steps: 1. Learn to type; 2. Learn to think; 3. Learn to see the future.

RESTful Web Services in Grails 2.3

No modern web application is complete without offering RESTful web services that return XML, JSON, or both. In this talk, Scott Davis will show you the vastly improved / vastly simplified RESTful offerings in Grails 2.3, and how to use cURL to explore and test any web services from the command line.

HTML5 Slidemaking 101

Modern HTML5 browsers now have the power and sophistication to replace presentation software mainstays like PowerPoint and Keynote. In this talk, Scott Davis will show you three different HTML presentation frameworks: Slidy.js, AsciiDoc / Deck.js, and finally Reveal.js to create a fully modern HTML5 web experience.

Yeoman: Modern Workflows for Modern Webapps

As a web developer, I'm always looking for tools that "script away" the boring part of the project. Enter Yeoman -- a collection of best-of-breed tools that streamline your workflow and can be reused across projects. Yo scaffolds out new projects; Grunt builds and tests your project; Bower tackles dependency management.

From Relational Databases to NoSQL

NoSQL solutions are no more of a "golden hammer" than relational databases -- it's important to recognize circumstances when one is more appropriate than the other. In this talk, Scott Davis will give you a pragmatic overview of the strengths and weaknesses of current popular NoSQL solutions like CouchDB and MongoDB.

User Journey Testing with Gauge and Taiko

In this session, Scott Davis, Principal Consultant at ThoughtWorks covers the importance of User Journey Testing, an introduction to Gauge (an OSS test automation framework), and Taiko (an OSS browser automation tool).

Scott Davis on UI Architecture

Scott Davis, Principal UX Architect from Thoughtworks describes the role of the UX Architect and how he/she is responsible for presenting information and an organized structure on a website from the perspective of the user. Making sure a website is both user-friendly while also providing the information the website owner deems important and necessary.

User Journey Testing With Gauge And Taiko

In this session, Scott Davis covers the importance of User Journey Testing along with practical introductions to Gauge and Taiko, bridging the gap between business requirements and technical assertions.

Fire-side Chat with John Bruce: The Future of the Web is SOLID and PODS

Watch these two brilliant minds in a free-wheeling conversation at GIDS 2019 as they discuss and debate the future of the Web. John Bruce has partnered with Sir Tim Berners-Lee to power the movement to design the next 30 years of the web—a design that will offer everyday web users new choices about how they store and share data.

The Ship of Theseus: Building the 1,000 Year Web

An architectural keynote exploring how we can build resilient, long-lasting web applications by embracing continuous, incremental evolution.

Town Hall Panel Discussion

A collaborative panel discussion tackling the most pressing questions and emerging trends facing modern software development teams.

It's Spelled 'Accessibility', not 'Disability'

Ten years ago, back in the pre-iPhone days, many companies questioned the need for a mobile-friendly website. Last year, mobile internet traffic surpassed desktop traffic. What does this have to do with accessibility? What if you increased your user base (potentially as much as 10–20%) by making it more accessible to disabled users? Scott Davis explains why accessibility should be just as important to you as a mobile design strategy was 10 years ago.

Do You Prefer Jazz or Classical? Enough Already!

A keynote examining the spectrum of software engineering, from rigid, classical paradigms to the improvisational agility required by modern web development.

It's Time for Web Components

A practical guide to breaking free from framework lock-in by embracing the native Web Components standard for reusable UI elements.

Conversational UIs: Talking to Siri, Alexa, and Your Web Browser

An introduction to integrating Voice and Speech Recognition APIs directly into your web browser for a truly hands-free experience.

Conversational UIs in Java and Groovy

A server-side perspective on building the robust, asynchronous backends required to power next-generation conversational interfaces.

JavaScript for Java Developers

A survival guide mapping familiar Java concepts to their JavaScript equivalents, easing the transition to client-side development.

The Littlest Cloud: IoT, UPnP, and Mesh Networks

An exploration of building localized, resilient mesh networks and utilizing Web APIs for IoT hardware orchestration.

Practical Examples of Serverless Architecture

A hands-on introduction to the serverless paradigm, demonstrating how front-end developers can deploy robust backends without managing infrastructure.

MEAN Architecture 2.0

A look ahead at the next evolution of the MEAN stack, incorporating ES6, HTTP/2, and modern web standards.

It's Time for HTTP/2

A deep dive into the performance benefits and architectural shifts introduced by the HTTP/2 protocol.

Keynote: We are not Scientists; We are not Engineers; We are Storytellers.

"Computer Scientist" and "Software Engineer" are two popular euphemisms for what we do, but neither is a perfect metaphor. "Software Craftsmanship" -- an extension of the Agile Manifesto -- comes closer, but it's still not a perfect fit. Come learn about the "stories" you tell based on the language you use to tell them, and more importantly -- how to become a Master Storyteller.

Hands on with Material Design

Google introduced Material Design -- a new "look and feel" design language that is equal parts implementation and manifesto. In this talk, Scott Davis gives you a solid introduction to the concepts behind Material Design, as well as solid implementations using Web Components / Polymer and Material Design Lite.

MEAN 2.0 Architecture

2015 was a watershed year -- new versions of HTML (HTML5), JavaScript (ECMAScript 6), and HTTP (HTTP/2) were all officially released. In this talk, Scott Davis talks about all of the core browser technologies you'll need to be familiar with in order to be successful with the new MEAN 2.0 technology stack.

What's New in JavaScript (ECMAScript 6)

JavaScript turned 20 years old in 2015, and the latest version offers the most new language features in recent memory. In this talk, Scott Davis walks you through many of the new features of ECMAScript 6 -- from syntactic sugar like arrow functions and multi-line Strings, to important new language features like constants, classes/inheritance, and importing/exporting modules.

From Relational Databases to NoSQL

The term "NoSQL" has been around for over 15 years. NoSQL solutions are no more of a "golden hammer" than relational databases -- it's important to recognize circumstances when one is more appropriate than the other. In this talk, Scott Davis will give you a pragmatic overview of the strengths and weaknesses of current popular NoSQL solutions like CouchDB and MongoDB.

Node.js: More Than Just Another Web Server

While Node.js certainly excels at web apps, there is so much more to explore in this exciting new platform that allows you to run JavaScript outside of the browser. In this talk, we'll give you a solid understanding of what Node.js is, exploring the built-in packages and the vibrant ecosystem of plug-ins.

Responsive Web Design

The web is fast becoming a mobile experience. What many web developers don't realize is how easy it is to move from a desktop-centric web experience to a multi-screen web experience -- one that responds to the end user's device and adapts itself accordingly.

Video is the Future of the Web

This super cutting-edge keynote will show you why HTML5 video is the future of the web. We'll start by playing movies using the video element, but quickly move towards emerging APIs like WebRTC that allow you to video conference natively in the browser -- no plug-ins!

The Modern Web Developer's Toolkit

This talk is aimed squarely at the web DEVELOPER. It is all about getting your tools installed and working together in concert -- setting up your "mise en place". We'll discuss build scripts, unit and functional tests, dealing with dependency management, linting, and minifying your JavaScript for deployment.

Require.js: Using Client-side JavaScript Modules

Modules are all the rage in the JavaScript community these days. In this talk, you'll learn how modules break the pathological global nature of JavaScript and replace it with the idea of encapsulation and a more mature approach to dependency management.

Groovy XML Ninja Skills

Once you see XML tremble in fear at the awesome power of Groovy, you'll wonder what you ever did without it. In this talk, we look at various Groovy tools to create, parse, and export XML using XmlSlurper, XmlParser, and MarkupBuilder.

Real World JSON

This class will spike your JavaScript skill sets. We'll see how JSON is quickly replacing XML and SOAP for web services tailored for browser consumption.

The Amazing Groovy Weight-loss Plan

Groovy greases the wheels of Java by decreasing the complexity of the language while preserving the raw power. What this talk is really about is bringing simplicity, clarity, readability, and yes, beauty to your source code.

Dim Sum Grails - A Sampler of Practical Non Database-Driven Grails Applications

Most Grails tutorials demonstrate how easy it is to build simple CRUD applications. In this talk, we look at a variety of Grails applications that go beyond the simple CRUD metaphor -- blogs, wikis, maps, portals, and more.

Lizard Brain Web Design

Inspired by Steve Krug's book "Don't Make Me Think", this talk answers the question, "Why is that website so hard to use?" We'll get inside the heads of typical users and see how their view of our website is drastically different than what we painstakingly planned out.

Web 2.0 Checklist - Deconstructing Modern Websites

In this talk, we discuss what makes a "modern shiny Web 2.0" website look the way it does. We go beyond simple look and feel as we catalog the common features in modern websites and show you how to implement them yourself.

Tomorrow's Tech Today: HTML 5

In this talk, you won't be subjected to discussions about the features that will appear in some distant future release of a web browser. Instead, you'll see the HTML 5 features that are already being used by Google, Apple, and others, ready for you to use right now.

Hidden Web Services: Microformats and the Semantic Web

We'll explore popular microformats such as hCard for contact information, hCalendar for events, and hAtom for syndication. We'll use Java and Groovy to tease out the hidden data in plain old HTML pages for use in everyday applications.

Node.js for Java Developers

If you thought that Node.js was just good for web development, you're only half-wrong. In this talk, we'll learn how JavaScript can be used for administrative scripts that you run from the command line, and how your code can be organized into modules just like Java packages.

Ringo.js: A JavaScript App Server for Java Developers

In this talk, we'll leverage Ringo.js -- a CommonJS compliant App Server -- that runs on top of Java. If you're intrigued by the idea of Node.js, but would like to leverage your existing Java codebase, then come on by and see if Ringo.js is your cup of tea.

HTML5 in Your Pocket: Application Cache And Local Storage

Two major new features of HTML5 - application cache and local storage - allow you to bring the web experience to your users, even when the web isn't there, enabling applications that behave like native desktop apps.

Understanding Single-Page Web Apps (using Backbone.js)

In this talk, we'll look at the emerging wave of client-side, component-oriented single page web frameworks like Backbone.js that are turning many long-held "best practices" on their ear.

CSS3 for Programmers

Modern-day CSS goes far beyond colors and fonts. In this talk, you'll learn many of the new CSS3 features, including media queries for responsive web design, new selectors, form validation, and how to program less by letting CSS3 do the heavy lifting for you.

Runtime and Compile-time Metaprogramming in Groovy

In this talk, we'll explore what it means to be a dynamic programming language and see how Groovy adds new methods to existing Java classes -- even final classes like java.lang.String.

JavaScript for Java Developers

I invite you to leave your biases at the door and learn -- maybe for the first time -- the good parts of JavaScript. There is real power in JavaScript once you understand it. Oh, and it couldn't be more different than Java.

Mobile HTML 5 Video

In this talk, we'll cut through the hype and the skepticism and get to the real details of the new native video element, including codecs, containers, and HTTP Live Streaming.

jQuery Mobile

In this session, you'll learn how jQuery Mobile makes it easy to define finger-friendly widgets and enables you to write a single HTML5 app that runs equally well on all manner of tablets and smartphones.

Backbone.js on Mobile

Come learn how to write a component-oriented single-page app for smartphones and tablets using Backbone.js, taking a conceptual leap from traditional server-side web frameworks.

The Web is Wider than You Think

We are living in an era where the web encompasses a diverse set of devices. In this talk, you'll learn how Responsive Web Design allows your website to flow like water from a 3-inch smartphone screen to a 60-inch TV.

JavaOne Minute with Scott Davis

Danno Ferrin talks with Scott Davis about Service Oriented Architecture and a rhyming rest REST service. Includes the multi-part interview recording.

Resource-Oriented Architecture (ROA) and REST

A technical session differentiating Resource-Oriented Architecture from traditional SOAP, emphasizing the simplicity of RESTful design.

Groovy and Grails Intro

A foundational introduction to rapid application development on the JVM using the dynamic capabilities of Groovy and Grails.