I just got home from South Korea, where I taught some workshops at an event hosted by the U.S. Embassy Seoul!

The event is called TechCamp Korea 2026, and the participants were a cohort of young professionals, entrepreneurs, and researchers. It was one of the most unique events I’ve ever been to, where it was part hackathon, part learning event, and part international relations, all in one cool space at Seoul National University’s campus!

My talks were some hefty ones, each 75 minutes long and cramming in workshop time:

• AI-Native Development: Building for Developer Experience
• Turning Ideas into Software

(I don’t have these talks online, but maybe I could record a video or something)

The majority of participants were technical, but about a third of the cohort had non-technical backgrounds, so it made for some interesting questions and ideas around the content.

Because of how the groups were split up so everyone would have good relationship-building time, each of the 5 American speakers delivered our talks 3 times each, and I tell ya, after giving 6 long talks in a short period of time… my throat is feelin it. It was totally worth it though. The participants were so eager to learn about technologies like the GitHub Copilot CLI and alllll the AI models to experiment with, and their excitement was so contagious, I had a blast.

Because my in-laws are based on Korea, it was a fun opportunity too to bring the family along. While I was speaking at the event, they were able to visit our relatives, and having that short but sweet time was so nice. That being said, traveling 18+ hours each way with two babies (nearly 3 and nearly 1 year old)… I’ve made better decisions in my life.

Anyway, meeting other speakers like Bilva Chandra and Brina Koumoin was wonderful. There were Korean-language keynotes that we got to listen to with some translators, and we speakers had the titles of “American Experts”, but really, we were mentors and teachers and user test subjects at this event. We stayed up late after our talks helping the individual groups with their projects, and the results blew us away. Groups worked on everything from robotics to supporting postpartum mothers (which I really care about) to innovative ideas around nuclear energy to educating individuals who are less abled. It was amazing!

The organizers of this event were so thoughtful, and every decision along the way was very intentional for everyone to build lasting connections with each other. Getting to know the participants was delightful (perhaps my favorite moment after I helped one of them was her responding to me with, “Thank you so much, would you please be my cousin?”) and I hope to stay in touch with them. I feel all warm and fuzzy after this one, and have already told the team that I would participate in this type of event again and again!

I gave the opening keynote at Deep Dish Swift 2026 today! It was so fun. The event is very iOS-oriented and nearly 300 people in the Chicago area, and it was cool meeting so many folks who I hadn’t met in person before.

Before the event, I actually spoke on the podcast for the event, called Slices! I love all of the pizza puns this event has so much. The vibe throughout the podcast and the conference was fun, indie, and just cool.

My talk, speaking of pizza puns… started with a pizza pun, where I led with, “I thought this conference was about eating deep dish swiftly…” and my slides were literally just about pizza. The talk itself was actually about AI, the state of the industry, and how we need to share our knowledge and support others… but again the visuals were all pizza.

This was honestly one of the hardest-to-write talks I’ve ever done. Doing the technical AI part of the talk while making my slides plausibly like a real talk about pizza was far more challenging than I expected it to be. But, I’m happy with the outcome!

I’ve never actually had so many people approach me just to ask me about my talk-writing process before, with one attendee saying, “I’ve never seen a metaphor so gracefully navigated,” which is the most flattering thing I’ve ever heard someone say to me while I’m wearing a shirt covered in pepperoni.