Top QA Events in 2021
The Ultimate Guide by QAwerk
Quarter 4: October, November, December
Calling all testers and QA enthusiasts!
We are glad to present our chock-full list of the top QA events to enrich your professional development in the upcoming three months.
Suppose you are looking for ways to discover emerging trends, gain industry insight, improve your software testing techniques, develop new or enhance existing skills and processes, network, and gather with other high-level professionals. In that case, this is your go-to guide to find yourself in the right place and time for all the above.
It is safe to make an assumption that we’ve all already learned that there is no magic self-improvement or money button – all come with some effort invested. Participating in professional events is a time-proven strategy to conquer greater heights, learn, inspire, and get inspired.
Without further ado, let’s dive right into discovering the latest scoop on what specialties a QA event market has on offer.
QA: Challenge Accepted, October 2. Sofia, Bulgaria. Hybrid
QA: Challenge Accepted opens our Q2 list of IT events, 2021 edition. This is a one-day single-track conference for QA professionals and enthusiasts. The event is initiated by the QA community in Bulgaria – ‘for professionals from professionals’.
The organizers host both an in-person experience in Sofia and a virtual one online. However, we highly recommend tossing around some dates in your calendars to make it to Sofia this October. The team behind the event spared no effort in making this gathering a day to remember. What you can expect:
- Troubleshooting common software testing problems
- Top-tier speakers
- Volunteering opportunities
- Getting to know a ton of amazing people in one day
- The QA of the Year award
- Afterparty
Registration is now live.
Pricing:
- Online only: 69 BGN (around $42)
- Full pass: 209 BGN (around $127)
STARWEST, October 3-8. Anaheim, USA. Hybrid
One of the longest-running software testing and quality assurance conferences, STARWEST returns in hybrid format this October. It’s up to you whether to opt for joining in person in Anaheim or become a part of this experience virtually if you cannot travel or prefer to socially distance. The team behind the STARWEST worked towards ensuring equal opportunities for learning and networking for everyone.
STARWEST conference will deliver six packed days of QA events, lectures, tutorials, and training classes. Attendees may expect to deepen their knowledge and gain new skills within such QA areas as AI and ML in testing, Python® for testers, testing strategies for microservices, quality and testing measures and metrics, integrating automated testing into DevOps, security testing, and the list goes on and on.
The organizers have kindly provided a conference summary report template to help you organize your conference takeaways and actionable items to share with your colleagues.
Pricing:
- Prices start at $2195
The National Software Testing Conference, October 12-13. London, UK. Offline
The National Software Testing Conference is a UK‑based premier QA event. It provides the software testing community with practical presentations and roundtable discussion forums, facilitated and led by leaders from the following industries:
- Financial
- Retail
- Energy & Utility
- Communication
- Public Sector
- Healthcare & Media
According to the outline, the NSTC’s content is geared towards C-level IT executives, QA directors, heads of testing and test managers, senior engineers, UAT analysts,
automation test engineers, technical operations & product managers.
Participants can expect a versatile three-track program to deliver inspirational talks, answers to work problems, networking & discussions, and workshops. The program is put together rather meticulously to cater to the needs of a versatile QA audience. The aim is also to ensure that all the participants access the latest and ground-breaking research in the software testing industry.
We should mention the cherry on top – the event runs under the roof of the monumental building of the British Museum.
Pricing:
- 1-day ticket: £735 (around $1017)
- 2-day ticket: £835 (around $1155)
- 1-day ticket: £1099 (around $1520)
- 2-day ticket: £1699 (around $2,350)
Are you already making a room in your schedule for NSTC? QAwerkers wouldn’t miss it for the world! Come join us for networking and inspiration.
HUSTEF 2021 – Hungarian Software Testing Forum, October 18-21. Budapest, Hungary. Virtual
HUSTEF’s team is organizing this event for all the QA-techies to e-meet their fellow software testing enthusiasts from all around the world. The focal points of the 2021 Hungarian Software Testing Forum are the quest for developing a pioneering mindset and cultivating new skills needed to carry out the most efficient QA strategies.
The words alone won’t do the trick, so check out the event in numbers:
- 40+ Speakers
- 20+ Countries
- 1200+ Interactions
- 21731 Gamification points
The opening day, 18.10, is dedicated to tutorials, and the rest of the event dates, 19 – 21.10, are conference days. We are particularly impressed by the tutorials’ agenda and want to share a list of the QA areas to be covered:
- Selenium testing from scratch
- Improving your integration testing efforts with consumer-driven contract testing
- Agile Test Leadership at Scale
- Condition-oriented test case design with ECT and MCDC
- Building a Continuous Quality Assurance Strategy around your CI/CD pipeline
When purchasing your ticket, don’t forget to check out their special pricing offers.
Pricing*:
- Prices start at 41000 HUF (around $140)
- Prices start at 54000 HUF (around $184)
*Prices exclude 27% VAT
User Conference on Advanced Automated Testing, October 19-21. Virtual
UCAAT 2021 is dedicated to the practical engineering and application aspects of automated testing. Attendees will plunge into a professionally enriching virtual experience of skill-sharing from the use of new techniques for test automation, advanced test automation processes, and standardized testing languages and methodologies for test automation. The application domains to be tackled are a broad spectrum of IT services, telecommunications, transportation, healthcare, finance, and innovations for smart cities.
Given its online format, UCAAT will bring the content to you. The topics to be covered by this 8th annual QA meet-up are the following:
- Practical engineering and application aspects of automated testing
- Experiences from the use of new techniques for test automation
- Advanced test automation processes
- Standardized testing languages and methodologies for test automation in different application domains, such as IT services, telecommunications, transportation, healthcare, finance, and smart cities.
Ensuring to deliver deep-dive content to bring you up-to-date on all the above-listed areas and what else is happening in the software testing world, the organizers bring together A-list speakers, including academics and the industry’s top professionals.
Make yourself a cup of coffee and join in the conversation.
Pricing:
- Free
QA&TEST Embedded, October 20-22. Getxo, Spain. Virtual
Buckle up for the 20th International Conference on Embedded Software Testing, in 2021 available from the comfort of your own home!
QA & TEST, in its twentieth edition, is hosted as a two-fold event. Technology fair and conference tracks are designed to cover ever-emerging QA innovations and issues exhaustively. Here are some of the QA & TEST topics that QAwerkers are looking forward to indulging into:
- How to get the best of GOOD IoT while ensuring the BAD and UGLY sides remain in check and controlled?
- Modern embedding testing
- The future of models in testing
- Test Process Orchestration – coordinating the execution and value of your manual and automated testing efforts
As organizers claim, the second track, a technology fair, is an added value for QA & TEST to make sure that no one was left out, including all the different players in the testing and QA. There is still an opportunity to apply for a virtual banner stand or a virtual stand to display your products and services.
Pricing:
- Only Fair Pass: €50 (around $60)
- Conference Complete (1 person ticket): €150 (around $180)
- Conference Complete (4 tickets bundle): €300 (around $356)
- Conference Complete (10 tickets bundle): €500 (around $594)
TestFlix, October 23-24. Virtual
The event wraps up October – the most intensive (as regards the QA events) month this fall. We expect an impressive agenda: 100 global speakers, 12 themes, 5000+ registrations, and 400+ takeaways across agile, AI & ML, API, testing Automation, DevOps, security, leadership, management, tools, soft software skills, and, last but not least, testing skills.
Attending this conference’s themed sessions and atomic talks will bring you practical benefits such as growing your professional network (as the TestFlixers remind us, your network is your net worth), learning who is who in the QA zoo, and improving on the research-backed topics delivered. On the speakers’ list, we’ve spotted the representatives of renowned corporations, such as IBM, Apple, Vodafone, easyJet, along with professionals who run startups, and freelancers. One of the strongest points of this event is that it provides an opportunity to look behind the QA scenes of companies of all sizes.
The team behind TestFlix created a safe place to binge learn, share, and connect. Sounds like an excellent recipe for using one of the lazy October weekends to your advantage.
Learn from practitioners driving innovation and change in QA. Registration is now live – grab your free pass!
Pricing:
- Free
CAST, November 8-9. Atlanta, USA. Offline
The conference is hosted by The Association for Software Testing (AST) – a non-profit testers’ association with members across the world. The AST’s main aim is to build and support a strong QA community that contributes to faster, better, and less expensive software products.
The AST runs CAST 2021 over two days. This years’ event is all about test automation. To cover the hottest topics in the industry, there will be one tutorial/workshop day and one curated single track day of plenary sessions. The CAST team announced that more information about the event’s agenda and speakers would be available soon. Also, for all those fellow testers and QA enthusiasts who cannot make it to the event, an adjacent virtual session with a selection of the talks will be available as an online-only mini-conference like MiniCAST.
This year’s venue will be Truist Park, aka the Atlanta Brave’s Stadium, so for baseball references, feel free to join the Association for Software Testing (AST)’s mailing list.
Pack up your gear – the next stop is Atlanta!
Pricing:
- Regular Member: $700
- Life Member: $700
- Champion: $600
- Guest: $800
Testing United, November 11-12. Prague, Czech Republic. Hybrid
This event caught our attention with its nomadic nature. The conference was launched in Bratislava in 2018; the following year, it was hosted in Vienna. The year 2020 made its adjustments to everything we had planned, pushing the event to the online format. This fall, the fourth year of the Testing United conference, will occur in Prague and 3D virtual reality. The theme of the upcoming TU is the 2021 QA Odyssey – stepping out of the post-covid (dis)comfort zone. The event runners promise to provide an inclusive platform to discuss how this world’s transformation accelerates technologies and philosophical approaches.
One of the options to participate is to join the event virtually. Still, for a vibrant experience, it is worth paying a visit to the majestic city of Prague for highly curated and safe sessions, roundtables, and networking moments.
Given an air of uncertainty hanging over offline events these days, organizers share a fair notion of canceling policies. In the unfortunate case of canceling an in-person event in Prague, or one’s inability to participate in-person, all paid onsite tickets will automatically convert to virtual reality ones. Full refunds are also available.
Pricing*:
- Onsite: €899 (around $1070)
- Virtual reality: €899 (around $1070)
*10% OFF GROUP 5+: Invite your friends and get a discount of up to 10%
5% OFF CASTB5: Enter the “CASTB5” coupon code and get a discount of up to 5%
Agile Testing Days, November 15-18. Potsdam, Germany. Offline
Agile TD is an annual festival that runs for almost a decade now for the agile community to network & get deep insights in testing & agile excellence. The event’s agenda is thoroughly planned and thought-through, creating a space for all testing enthusiasts and professionals to make the most out of their time and financial investment. Check out the full-day tutorials’ agenda to make a well-informed decision on whether it is an event for you to visit (spoiler alert – it is).
The social activities program is lit as well! It includes but is not limited to morning runs and yoga classes, Award Night, Keynote Xtreme, Games Night, Late Night Talk Show, Powerpoint Roulette, Digesting Poets Society. Wonder what Keynote Xtreme or, say, Digesting Poets Society are and what should you prepare yourself for? Check out the program for more details on all the festival’s events.
While you are contemplating registering your interest, we recommend joining the AgileTD Slack Workspace to meet like-minded agilists, speakers, and testing professionals.
Pricing*:
- 1-Day Conference: €795 (around $945)
- 2-Days Conference: €1425 (around $1693)
- 3-Days Conference: €1995 (around $2371)
- Tutorial Day: €795 (around $945)
*Prices exclude 19% VAT
Paris Testing Conference, November 22-26. Virtual
A 100% virtual experience will bring together 15 QA experts, hosting 12 sessions online. Talks are planned to be in English and French four evenings in a row, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Paris time (UTC+1), so participation is more accessible even for professionals on a tight work schedule. Enhance your knowledge and skills, learning from the QA industry leaders. The topics to be tackled include:
- Learning how to build and grow a QA team from scratch
- Moving from Quality Assurance to Quality Assistance
- Insights on team collaboration with Test-First Approach
- Getting the best out of your RBT strategy
- The “Clean Code” applied to automated QA tests
The field of QA is not standing still, just like any other branch of the ever-growing IT industry. Make sure you are evolving with it. Don’t miss your chance at bettering yourself without spending a dime. Register your interest with no delays.
Pricing:
- Free
Life goes on, and we keep rolling, marking our calendars for the top QA events we at QAwerk are not going to miss this year. Until the pandemic meaningfully recedes, we are not the ones to linger in the on-hold mode, waiting for our favorite conferences to return in the familiar format. Instead, QAwerkers boost the belief that there is no need for intentional delay of professional development and productive networking with like-minded professionals.
We cannot deny the sad reality that due to the COVID -19 implications, many of our event attendance plans have fallen through at the last minute. However, when a problem presents itself, it calls for an answer. To finish off this challenging year, we’ve put together an ultimate guide of the top can’t-miss QA conferences for every QA-techie out there. Hope you find this guide through the events that hit our radar handy.
No more excuses: read on and make your choice!
Yours free: Essential guide to rock an offline IT conference
