On Saturday 7th May 2016, Kualitatem Inc. a software testing company based in Lahore and presence in Europe, US, and MENA region held a Software Testers Meetup in Karachi. The meetup was conducted at the Sir Syed University of Engineering and Technology.
With over 100 registrations in just seven days, this meetup (#TestersMeetupKHI) turned out to be the biggest such activity for software testers community in Pakistan.
Speakers’ Lineup
Sir Syed University organizers Dr. Tahir Fattani, Dr. Rabia Enam, Tauseef Mobeen, and student Hassan Siddiqui managed all the arrangements of the meetup including the participations of their own students.
120 software testing and ICT professionals representing over 50 companies in software, education and other industries attended the meetup.
Mohammad Saad from eDev Tech, Abdullah Bin Masson and Muhammad Jawad from Workforce Software, and Asim Kazmi from 10Pearls, while Khurram Mir and Arslan Ali were going to initiate and wrap up the event.
On the day of the event, the welcome note from Dr. Rabia Enam, head of ORIC (Office of the Research, Innovation, and Commercialization) at Sir Syed University, was presented.
Mohammad Saad spoke about “Software Testing in an agile environment” and within that also explained the human importance of the process. He also broke the mindsets of tester regarding their concepts of Automation and its relation to manual mode testing.
The duo of Abdullah Bin Masood and Muhammad Jawad took the stage with their Test Automation Project implementation at Workforce software. In their technical talk at Testers Meetup, they landscaped the complexities and detailing of creating frameworks, while deploying a fully integrated test automation project, the practices which also coincide with the regression team.
Asim Kazmi of 10Pearls, took the stage with his realistic talk on Software Testing and its management. He emphasized on the importance of both Automation and manual segments of software testing and how management and other important roles formulated this into a success story.
Arslan Ali presented about evolving roles of the software testers and how the testing community can enhance these roles. His talk also enlightens the software testers hiring practices and what career seekers must to do to make good points in the interview.
Closing Remarks
In his closing session, Khurram Mir, with his experience of international markets and clients told the audience taking up the software testing career does not depend on that fact that whether you are a bad programmer or do not want to become one. In fact, it depends on how good you are as an IT professional.
He emphasized that without changing yourself, and building a hunger for new technologies, trends, research and career lines, you cannot be a good resource in any field of IT, which a company wishes to hire. You need to take the time out and make that happen yourself.
Q&A Session
Testers Meetup climax was set to a detailed Questions and Answers session, where speakers took the stage and there were some technical and non-technical questions from the participants.
Two of our participants, Mr. Mohammad Naqi from Karachi Stock Exchange, and Azam Mughal from Secure Beans also answered audience’s questions.
Concluding Thoughts
The most interesting aspect of this whole meetup was the turn up of the audience, and it was the realization factor for the audience that software testing is not just a secondary job. The detailed technical presentations reveal clearly that if you wish to be a software tester then you have to be part of the software development trends and tools.
The session also showcased that the talent resides in everyone, but you need to get it out of your system and show that to the world with your efforts and hard work, something which our generation needs to understand for the sake of their future.
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