09:50-10:20

🎤 QA vs AI: Friends or Foes?

Hashtags: #Technical #AI #Automation #Tools #Manual

Suitability: Junior Regular Senior Management

Everyone talks about AI, and that is why we will start the day with this hot topic. Victor will explore if AI can help us advance faster on our test cases and whether it might eliminate low-level work, enabling QA professionals to focus on the creative side of testing. Furthermore, he will share concrete examples of how AI can improve the test cases quality, a when and where it requires human validation, highlighting the potential and limitations of AI in testing.

Victor Ionascu

💼  R&D Director @ Axway
✈️  Bucharest, Romania

Victor has 15+ years of extensive experience in experimenting, learning from failures, and helping others think outside the box. Currently, he works on integrating multiple products into high-quality solutions at Axway. He has spoken at many international conferences (including QA: Challenge Accepted), sharing his love for eliminating unnecessary tasks and focusing on what truly adds value. Outside of work, he enjoys hiking, motorbiking, climbing mountains, and spending time with his three kids.

10:40-11:10

🎤 Artificial Intelligence in Analysis of Automation Tests Results

Hashtags: #Technical #AI #Automation #Tools #TestAnalysis #ReportPortal

Suitability: Regular Senior

We already know many use cases of the AI in software testing. But can it also be used for analysis of automation test results? Comparing failures from the previous and current day, checking error consistency, and analyzing new failures manually can be challenging and inefficient. Maroš will share his personal journey with ReportPortal.io, a tool that uses AI to automate the analysis of test results. His talk will cover why daily analysis is crucial, the benefits of ReportPortal, demonstration and practical examples of its integration with various frameworks.

Maroš Kutschy

💼  Technical Lead QA @ Ness
✈️  Košice, Slovakia

Maroš is a passionate automation tests developer, and a proud creator of the Jasecu Automation Framework. Specializing in Java, Selenium and Cucumber, he loves guiding colleagues and newcomers into the world of testing. Maroš has spoken at numerous international conferences (such as Testing United in Czech Republic, Nordic Testing Days in Estonia, and HUSTEF in Hungary), sharing his expertise on automation testing, stoicism, and more. Outside work, he enjoys self-improvement books, stoic philosophy, and gym workouts.

11:10-11:40

🎤 Self-Healing or Self-Killing?

Hashtags: #Automation #Technical #Tools #SelfHealing #Challenges

Suitability: Regular Senior Management

Automation can feel like magic… until it breaks. In this talk, Niki dives into the world of self-healing mechanisms in test automation—spoiler alert, it’s not always smooth sailing. Self-healing test automation is an intelligent solution designed to automatically detect and fix issues in tests that arise from changes in an application's UI or web elements. Typically, test cases rely on locators (like name, ID, XPath, or type) to identify elements, but when the UI changes, these locators can break, causing tests to fail. Niki shares real-world insights after 18 months of integrating self-healing into automation frameworks, explaining how it should work, the challenges his team faced, and how they overcame them. With practical tips on making self-healing automation actually effective, and the ultimate question: Is it worth the effort or is it more self-sabotage? Buckle up for some automation truths!

Nikolay Stanoev

💼  QA Architect @ Merkle Bulgaria
✈️  Sofia, Bulgaria

Nikolay Stanoev has 15+ years of experience in the IT sector. Starting as an intern in 2009, his passion for quality propelled him to the role of QA Architect, where he’s built test automation for major brands like Adidas, Disney, and Shiseido in the eCommerce sector. Niki has also mastered various types of non-functional testing. His influence extends beyond his projects—he’s spoken at renowned conferences like Automation Guild, ISTA, and TestCon Europe, and won the prestigious "QA of the Year" award at QA Challenge Accepted last year. While balancing his love for football (CSKA Sofia) and board games, Niki is recognized as a top Selenium expert, constantly supporting the local QA community. This talk marks his sixth appearance on our stage, a testament to the value and insight he brings every time.

12:00-12:30

🎤 Old Tools, New Tricks: Unleashing the Power of Time-Tested Testing Tools

Hashtags: #technical #Java #Selenium #Karate #CleanCode #Magic

Suitability: Regular Senior Management

In the ever-evolving world of software testing and development, it's easy to get swept up in the allure of shiny new tools and technologies. But what if some of the most effective solutions have been around for decades? Join Benjamin as he dives into the enduring value of timeless testing tools. He'll explore how venerable tools like Selenium, GNU Make, Maven, and Bash continue to be essential assets in modern software development and testing toolkits, demonstrating their adaptability, versatility, and reliability.

Benjamin Bischoff

💼  Test Automation Engineer @ trivago N.V.
✈️  Düsseldorf, Germany

Benjamin Bischoff is a Test Automation Engineer (SDET) at trivago N.V. in Düsseldorf, Germany. After spending the first 15 years of his career as a software developer and trainer, he transitioned to test automation in 2016. He focuses on backend and API testing and is the author of "Writing API Tests with Karate". Benjamin maintains open-source projects for Cucumber BDD parallel test execution and reporting. He's a well-known conference speaker and blogger at www.softwaretester.blog. Outside of work, Benjamin enjoys close-up magic, making computer games, and reminiscing about his first PC, an 80286 with 20MB of hard disk space, where he began his coding journey.

12:30-13:00

🎤 Road to Selenium 5

Hashtags: #technical #Selenium #Rust #WebDriver #Automation

Suitability: Regular Senior Management

Selenium is an open-source project dedicated to web browser automation, primarily used for end-to-end tests for web applications. Boni García will discuss the upcoming Selenium 5, highlighting features such as Selenium Manager for automated driver and browser management, and the WebDriver bidirectional (BiDi) protocol. He will explain the importance of these features and the role of Selenium in the ecosystem of testing tools and frameworks.

Boni García

💼  Associate Professor @ Universidad Carlos III de Madrid
✈️  Madrid, Spain

Boni García is an Associate Professor (with tenure) at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) in Spain. His main research interest is software engineering, focusing on automated testing and open source. Boni is a committer at Selenium and the creator and maintainer of several projects in its ecosystem, such as WebDriverManager, Selenium-Jupiter, and BrowserWatcher. He is the author of "Mastering Software Testing with JUnit 5" and "Hands-On Selenium WebDriver with Java". Boni has published over 50 research papers and frequently speaks at international events. His first computer was a second-hand Amstrad PC-1512, where he began coding in QBasic. You can find more about him at [bonigarcia.dev](https://bonigarcia.dev/).

13:50-14:20

🎤 QA and DevOps: A Journey of Growth, Mistakes, and Learning

Hashtags: #social #thereIsNoFormerQA #testTheWorld #deployTheWorld #imHereForTheBeer

Suitability: Regular Senior Management

Are you a QA engineer or a developer eager to explore new horizons in the tech world? Join Nedko Hristov as he shares his journey of growth, integrating QA skills into a DevOps framework. In this session, you'll learn what DevOps truly involves, the motivations behind Nedko's career path, and the valuable lessons he’s gathered along the way. Discover practical insights, essential tools, and strategies to enhance your role in QA or DevOps. This talk is designed for quality assurance engineers, developers, and tech enthusiasts alike, showcasing how QA expertise can significantly contribute to and thrive within DevOps. Nedko's story emphasizes the synergy between QA and DevOps, inspiring you to leverage your skills for broader professional development, and continuous learning, while openly discussing the mistakes made and lessons learned throughout his career.

Nedko Hristov

💼  DevOps Engineer @ TINQIN
✈️  Varna, Bulgaria

Nedko Hristov is passionate about quality in all its forms. He started hundreds of years ago in IT and has plenty of stories to share, like the perils of doing a live performance testing demo or deployments on Fridays. His experience spans from QA and System Administration to Cloud and DevOps engineering. Currently focused on fixing, rebuilding and automating mid to large systems, Nedko draws motivation from success stories that often begin with "Guys, let's see how this works". He loves to share his knowledge and has a "getting things done" attitude. However, he does not enjoy deleting databases in production (been there, done that). Nedko has attended conferences like QA: Challenge Accepted, Dev.BG, ISTA, and numerous local meetups. A full-time father of two, he is also a randonneur and lecturer in his free time. Remembers jiggling around on his first computer - a 80286 with 2 MB of RAM and 40MB of hard drive running MS-DOS 6.22.

14:20-14:50

🎤 Welcome to Management! - Tips & Tricks for Junior Leaders

Hashtags: #Testing #Tea #Tolkien

Suitability: Regular Senior Management

Have you ever asked yourself, ‘Am I ready to master the challenges to come?’ Andrea Jensen will share her journey into management, highlighting the unexpected challenges and valuable lessons she learned along the way. She will provide practical tips and tricks for first-time managers, using real-life examples to illustrate the day-to-day work of a QA Manager. This talk is perfect for tech professionals aspiring to management roles and junior managers seeking guidance.

Andrea Jensen

💼  Tester & QA Manager @ Navis
✈️  Flensburg, Germany

Andrea Jensen began her tech career by chance in 2011 and has worked as a tester ever since. In 2023, she took on a leadership role, embracing the challenges it brought. Known for her dry humor and straightforwardness, Andrea has spoken at numerous conferences like Agile Testing Days, EuroStar, and ExpoQA. She is proud of completing her master's degree in business informatics while working full-time. Outside of work, she enjoys tea and the works of Tolkien. Andrea's career includes roles at Swiss Life Deutschland and tecis Finanzdienstleistungen AG. She is a RiskStorming Online Instructor and has received certifications such as the Enact Emerging Leader Experience.

15:10-15:50

🎤 Discussion Panel: QA in the Last Decade - Past Lessons and Future Visions

Four leading and well-known QA professionals from Bulgaria will reflect on the past decade of quality assurance - globally and locally. The panelists will share their insights on significant changes, challenges faced, and future trends in the QA sector. Join the discussion and learn from their extensive experience in technical hands-on work, writing books, conducting trainings and courses, managing and growing people...

Aleksandar Karamfilov

💼  Director of QA @ Kiteworks

💼  Founder/Trainer @ Pragmatic

Anton Angelov

💼  Visionary Leader & CTO of Automate The Planet

💼  BELLATRIX Framework Creator

Dimitar Topuzov

💼  QA Architect @ Progress

Nikolay Stanoev

💼  QA Architect @ Merkle Bulgaria

15:50-16:20

🎤 LIGHTNING TALKS

Lightning talks are a type of presentation format where speakers are given a short amount of time, five minutes or less, to present a topic or idea. If you want to speak from our stage, you will have the opportunity to do so and share your insights and ideas with a larger audience. You will be able to sign up during the event. While we try to leave the format as free as possible, consider short talks (max 5 min), English language and our code of conduct policy.

16:40-17:10

🎤 Challenges Accepted and Lessons Learned: A 10-Year Retrospective in Organizing QA Conferences

Hashtags: #Storytelling #Retrospective #Events_Organizing #Social #Fun

Suitability: Junior Regular Senior Management

After 10 years of organizing QA: Challenge Accepted, Peter is finally given the chance to speak at his own conference! Don't miss this one and only opportunity to see Peter sharing the funny and crazy stories from the "kitchen of Challenge Accepted" during the past years. From the wild idea that started after several drinks, via bad logo designs, famous rabbit videos, a catchy theme song, to the point how all of these turned into one of the biggest QA conferences on the Balkans. Join us for a fun, beer-filled talk about the challenges, lessons, and victories over the years.

Peter Sabev

💼  CEO @ Webbicus Ltd.
💼  Director of Engineering @ Pliant.io
📌️ Sofia, Bulgaria

Peter has been a developer, a tech writer, and a project lead since 2005, but most of his experience is dedicated to QA, where he climbed the entire career ladder from Junior QA to CEO of his own consulting company. He is co-founder of Challenge Accepted Events and often called "the father of QA: Challenge Accepted". Peter has played a crucial role for the QA community in Bulgaria - speaking at many conferences, leading workshops, and training hundreds of people at universities and companies, including a specialized QA course for blind individuals and educating unemployed people during COVID. Currently, Peter is Director of Engineering at Pliant.io, where he manages frontend and backend development, DevOps, and QA teams at this successful startup recently acquired by IBM. He is also happily married, dad of two plus ginger cat, traveler, blogger, photographer, and a junior motorbiker.