The embedded systems industry is evolving at a rapid pace. Just a few years ago, most embedded products were disconnected systems that used bare-metal scheduling techniques. Today, the drive to connect devices and add intelligence at the edge is revolutionizing how we build embedded products. The only way to stay current and not get left behind is to learn and network with colleagues and industry experts continuously.
This year, the 2024 Embedded Online Conference is shaping up to be the best one yet. In this post, I’ll share the current keynotes, workshops, and talks in the queue. I’m writing this in mid-January, so you can expect additional content to be announced! To date, there are:
- 4 Keynotes
- 4 Workshops
- 23+ talks
- 2 panels
In addition to these new sessions, attendees also have access to all the previous years’ talks as well. Let’s take a closer look at this year’s conference lineup.
2024 Embedded Online Conference Keynotes
This year, we have a spectacular line-up of keynote speakers, which include:
- Elecia White is the author and host of the embedded.fm podcast, and principal embedded software engineer at Logical Elegance.
- Jack Ganssle is an internationally recognized embedded systems engineer, author, and speaker.
- Phillip Koopman is an internationally recognized autonomous vehicle (AV) safety expert whose work in that area spans over 25 years.
- Jacob Beningo is an author, consultant, and educator in embedded systems and founded the Beningo Embedded Group.
Below is a list of the keynotes that they will be giving:
The Embedded Frontier: Modern Trends and Practices by Jacob Beningo: Embedded systems development has dramatically changed over the last decade. Navigating today’s trends and where you need to be tomorrow can impact whether you’ll be successful or struggle to deliver your products on time. The latest trends can lead to best practices that help you develop more reliable embedded devices faster and within customer budgets.
Creating Chaos and Hard Faults by Elecia White: The best way to understand why the processor sends you love letters (exceptions) is to see what they look like when you aren’t frantically trying to fix your code. This talk covers the code necessary to cause (and debug) divide by zero, bus errors, stack overflows, and buffer overflows.
Really Real Time by Jack Ganssle: Real-time systems must respond to events in a timely manner. We view this as a software thing when, in fact, it is a systems problem. The hardware and software should be tuned to achieve the needed response times.
Truths and Myths about Automated Vehicle Safety by Philip Koopman: This talk will cover what is fact, hype, and pure fiction about automated vehicle safety, including both vehicles without human drivers and those that require a human driver to be present.
2024 Embedded Online Conference Workshops
Keynote talks provide a fantastic way for developers to understand key aspects of where the industry is and is going. As developers, we want to get our hands dirty and apply those ideas! The embedded online conference also includes a daily workshop that allows developers to take actionable skills back to the office.
This year, there are four workshops that developers can attend. This includes:
Getting Started with Embedded DevOps Using GitLab CI/CD Pipelines by Jacob Beningo: Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) have become critical tools to IoT edge device developers. In this workshop, participants will delve into the fundamentals of Embedded DevOps by designing and implementing their own CI/CD pipeline using Gitlab.
Modern C++ Interface Design by Ben Saks: Good interface design is important in writing safe, reliable software. By writing interfaces that are easy to use correctly, we let software engineers communicate clearly and reduce maintenance costs. By using the type system to write interfaces that are hard to use incorrectly, we can catch many potential errors at compile time and improve development time.
Building a Clean and Simple Command Line Interface in an RTOS Environment by Peifang Zhou: This workshop will demonstrate how to design a clean and simple CLI in an RTOS environment by partitioning functionalities and distributing them to functional blocks.
Workshop #4 to be announced soon!
2024 Embedded Online Conference Talks
Conference talks are a great way to get up to speed on specific ideas, tools, and techniques you need to succeed. These often cover techniques ranging from entry-level skills to advanced skills or cutting-edge topics. While I can’t list every talk in the conference, below are a few highlights that I think you’ll find interesting. For the complete list of talks, please visit www.embeddedonlineconference.com.
Architecting for Safe Embedded Systems That Integrate Open Source Components by Kate Stewart: Products are no longer created from monolithic code bases; they are composed of components that are integrated over time and maintained by different entities, some of which are open-source communities.
The Power of a look-up table by Nathan Jones: Look-up tables have been speeding up math operations for time immemorial, but there’s more to this simple programming “idiom” than just numbers in an array.
Hardening Linux for Embedded Systems by Aljoscha Lautenbach: With increasing regulatory requirements on cybersecurity around the world, it is more important than ever to secure the systems you develop. As Linux is an integral part of many embedded systems, we will address how to harden Linux systems, such as how to reduce their attack surface by applying appropriate configurations.
Conclusion
The embedded online conference is a fantastic resource for embedded systems developers. It provides access to industry experts from around the world. Attending such an in-person conference could easily cost you and your company $5,000. You’d attend talks once and leave to your notes and own devices afterward.
The embedded online conference uniquely provides much value at a low price. Not only do you get access to experts and cutting-edge techniques, but you also get access to past talks and workshops. The most you’ll pay for yearly access to the embedded online conference is $295! You can easily reference any talk when needed, which can help the conference become a source of continuous education for you. If you were to pay for an in-person conference, the fees would easily be $1,000. The cost for in-person training is also an order of magnitude higher.
The embedded online conference will greatly enhance your skills, help you network with colleagues, and ensure your development skills stay on track this year. I hope you’ll join us this year for another great conference!
Register at www.embeddedonlineconference.com by January 31 for only $95 using EARLYBIRDJAN (A $200 savings)
