This month, for our first event of the year we are back… with lightning talks! With pizzas provided by Laura Sharpe of Sharpe Recruitment and venue provided by Campus North.

The event will take place at the Campus North, Sunco House, 5 Carliol Square, Newcastle Upon Tyne, NE1 6UF (location map at bottom of Ignite site).

The event is free and open to all, but please sign up online so that we have an idea of numbers for the venue, and how much Laura needs to cough up for the pizzas.

Feedback, suggestions and ideas for future topics are welcome on our Google Group.

Game Theory in Distributed Computer Systems by Andy Brown

Game theory is the study of decision making among groups of independent agents within a system.

In this talk Andy will be looking at how this theory can be applied to computer systems as a method of analysing behavioural incentives and motivations, and how this influences the design rationale of distributed protocols.

Andy Brown is a Senior Software Developer for Performance Horizon. A graduate of Sunderland University with double degrees in computing, his notable interests include science, travel and distributed consensus systems.

What’s New in Laravel Since 5.0 by Martin Bean

Martin’s back to walk us through what’s changed in Laravel since his last talk, What’s New in Laravel 5.

Martin Bean recently joined Blinkio as senior developer of The Law Superstore after a long period freelancing. He is also the author of Laravel 5 Essentials.

Who the %*#$ wrote this?! by Andrew Willis

How many times have you been given a task on a project written by someone you don’t know, looked at the code, said, “What even is this?” and blamed the author for every problem you encounter from then on? Why was the work done in that way? What should you do in that situation? Who’s really to blame for it? How can you prevent yourself from becoming ‘That Guy’ in the future?

Andrew currently works remotely for a company called Netsells in York and also maintain the PHP League’s Fractal package along with Jason Lewis.

State of Play for North East Open Data by James Rutherford

There are some exciting things happening and opportunity for devs to shape and get involved.