Accelerate Chicago 2026 Schedule

Monday, June 22

Time Sessions
10:00 AM - 5:00 PM
Masterclass
  • AI-Driven API Design Workshop
    • Mike Amundsen – Independent author, speaker, trainer, advisor
  • Become an Agentic GitHub Actions Pro
    • Bret Fisher – Docker Captain and Cloud Native Ambassador
  • From Code Assistants to Autonomous Agents
    • Cedric Hurst – Principal & Lead Software Engineer at Spantree
  • Hexagonal architecture
    • Alistair Cockburn – Co-authored the Agile Manifesto
  • Knowledge Flow: Designing Better Decisions Across Teams, Tools and Systems
    • Diana Montalion – Principal Systems Architect at Mentrix
  • Practical Software Architecture for AI And Everything Else
    • Allen Holub – Principal at Holub Associates
  • The Human Effect: Leadership Engineering for the Age of AI
    • Jessie Shternshus – CEO at The Improv Effect

Tuesday, June 23

Time Sessions
8:00 AM - 9:15 AM
Registration & Breakfast
9:15 AM - 9:30 AM
Conference Opening
9:30 AM - 10:30 AM
Keynote
  • How to Be a Curiosity Curator [Main Stage]
    • Jessie Shternshus – CEO at The Improv Effect
10:30 AM - 10:45 AM
Break
10:45 AM - 11:30 AM
Parallel Sessions
  • Design in Software Is Deciding Where to Put the Line of Code, for Every Line of Code [Main Stage]
    • Alistair Cockburn – Co-authored the Agile Manifesto
  • Why Git Still Matters [Room 1]
    • PJ Hagerty – Head of Developer and Community Realtions at GitButler
11:30 AM - 11:45 AM
Break
11:45 AM - 12:30 PM
Parallel Sessions & Lightning Talks
  • Protecting Your GitHub From Supply Chain Attacks [Main Stage]
    • Bret Fisher – Docker Captain and Cloud Native Ambassador
  • The Stack You Can't Refactor [Room 1]
    • Jenny Richards – Principal of Strategy and Execution at Rebel 75
    • Tanarra Schneider – Founder of Rebel 75
  • Lightning Talks - AI Is an Amplifier: Harness Engineering for 3x Velocity [Room 2]
    • Phil Borel – Engineering Manager @ RIVET
  • Lightning Talks - Your Agent Doesn’t Need a Bigger Context Window — It Needs a State File [Room 2]
    • Wil Mckenney – Software Engineer at Capital One
12:30 PM - 1:30 PM
Lunch
1:30 PM - 2:30 PM
Keynote
  • From Data to Discovery: How AI Is Finding Hidden Cures — and Making Them Human [Main Stage]
    • Brian Martin – Chief AI Product Owner, Senior Research Fellow at AbbVie
    • Mark Rickmeier – CEO at TXI. Founder of Walkshop.
2:30 PM - 2:45 PM
Break
2:45 PM - 3:30 PM
Parallel Sessions
  • AI-Friendly Architecture [Main Stage]
    • Allen Holub – Principal at Holub Associates
  • Proactive Inclusion: Embedding Accessibility into the AI Revolution at Coinbase [Room 1]
    • Sam Smith – Senior Staff Accessibility Lead at Coinbase
3:30 PM - 4:00 PM
Break
4:00 PM - 4:45 PM
Parallel Sessions
  • You Can’t Accelerate Beyond Your Intelligence Infrastructure [Main Stage]
    • Diana Montalion – Principal Systems Architect at Mentrix
  • Seizing the Means of Computation with Local AI [Room 1]
    • Jeremy Kahn – Senior Software Engineer at Stord
  • Nieky Allen [Room 2]
    • Nieky Allen – Senior Software Architect at Slalom Build
4:45 PM - 5:00 PM
Break
5:00 PM - 6:00 PM
Keynote
  • AI as an Amplifier: State of AI-Assisted Software Development [Main Stage]
    • Nathen Harvey – DORA Lead and Product Manager at Google Cloud

Wednesday, June 24

Time Sessions
8:00 AM - 9:15 AM
Registration & Breakfast
9:15 AM - 9:30 AM
Conference Opening
9:30 AM - 10:30 AM
Keynote
  • The EiC Problem: Junior Developers, AI Agents, and the Missing Context Layer [Main Stage]
    • Scott Hanselman – VP, Member of Technical Staff at Microsoft/GitHub
10:30 AM - 10:45 AM
Break
10:45 AM - 11:30 AM
Parallel Sessions
  • From Automation to Augmentation: Designing AI Coaches That Amplify Expertise [Main Stage]
    • Mike Amundsen – Independent author, speaker, trainer, advisor
  • Qubits & Neurons [Room 2]
    • Carl Anderson – Software Engineering Director at Slalom Build
11:30 AM - 11:45 AM
Break
11:45 AM - 12:30 PM
Parallel Sessions & Lightning Talks
  • Tag. Publish. Hope. [Room 1]
    • Roberto Perez Alcolea – Software Engineer at Netflix
  • Lightning Talks - A day in the life of a Quantum software engineer [Room 2]
    • Victory Omole – Quantum Software Engineer at Infleqtion
12:30 PM - 1:30 PM
Lunch
1:30 PM - 2:30 PM
Keynote
  • The Validation-First Loop: How to Ship Production Code with AI Coding Assistants [Main Stage]
    • Cole Medin – Founder of Dynamous AI
2:30 PM - 2:45 PM
Break
2:45 PM - 3:30 PM
Parallel Sessions
  • Eric Johnson [Main Stage]
    • Eric Johnson – Principal Developer Advocate at AWS
  • Self-Building Software: Lessons from the HydraFlow Experiment [Room 1]
    • Travis Frisinger – Head of Agentic AI at 8th Light
  • Spec-Driven Development for Airflow DAGs [Room 2]
    • Kyle McCluskey – Data Engineering/ML Leader @ TXI
3:30 PM - 4:00 PM
Break
4:00 PM - 4:45 PM
Parallel Sessions
  • Tim Berglund [Main Stage]
    • Tim Berglund – VP Developer Relations at Confluent
  • You Gave Your AI Agent Cloud Access. Here's What Can Go Wrong at 2am [Room 1]
    • Advait Patel – Senior Site Reliability Engineer at Broadcom
4:45 PM - 5:00 PM
Break
5:00 PM - 6:00 PM
Keynote
  • Serena H. Huang [Main Stage]
    • Serena H. Huang