Alphero's Quality Assurance team love to attend tech conferences and have just come back from the 3rd annual NZ Tech Rally at Wellington's Tākina Events Centre.
NZ Tech Rally is one of New Zealand's most loved grassroots tech events, bringing together the whole software delivery team: engineers, testers, product folk, data minds, tech leaders, and founders. Its focus is on creating an inclusive space to celebrate, connect, and grow, with an emphasis on human-centred technology and practical, local solutions.
Here are some of the team's favourite talks and takeaways.
Naga (Senior QA) loved The Accessibility Features of Today Are the Breakthroughs of Tomorrow by Maia Miller, Managing Director at Aleph Accessibility
- Accessibility is not just for people with permanent disabilities — it also helps people with a broken arm, someone squinting at their phone in the sun, or an older user struggling with small text. The improvements benefit everyone.
- Building accessibility in from the beginning is far cheaper and easier than trying to fix it after the product is live — retrofitting costs more time, more money and more rework.
- The message was simple: don't bolt accessibility on at the end, bake it in from day one.
Andrew (Senior QA) most enjoyed Small Voices, Big Stakes: How Children's Rights Shape AI Governance at UNICEF Aotearoa by Ben Chapman, Lead Full Stack Developer at UNICEF Aotearoa
- How do we move beyond the instinct to think about AI purely in terms of 'child protection', and instead consider the perspective of 'children's rights and participation'. Children should have a seat at the table when discussing the technology that will shape their future.
Jade (QA Lead) biggest take away was Cognitive Diversity in the Age of AI: Building Teams That Out-Innovate with a Pasifika Lens by Norie Ape, Program Manager at EROAD
- Norie highlighted that great innovation always starts with people. Her observation that "Great innovation doesn't happen because AI exists. It happens when diverse people trust each other enough to build with it" really summed up this thought-provoking talk.
- She spoke about the unique Kiwi perspective in tech and how we can leverage this to remain competitive on an international level, reinforcing the point with another memorable line: "In the age of AI, technology alone won't determine who succeeds. The winners will be the teams who know how to think differently, together."
Silas (QA Lead) best talk of the day was Cracking the AI Black Box: Challenges and Solutions in Testing Generative AI by Deep Pandey, Senior Consultant in AI at Planit
- A fascinating exploration of how AI models are tested and what to look for when evaluating an LLM.
- Three testing methods were presented: LLM-as-a-Judge, NLP/Data Science Metrics, and Rule-Based Systems. Each is equally valid but designed for different purposes.
- A further highlight was the range of metrics used to evaluate LLMs, each explained with practical examples: Relevance, Usefulness, Completeness, Grounded-ness, Coherence, Consistency, Latency and Drift.
…oh yeah, and the team also really loved the sausage rolls : )
