SLASSCOM and Colombo Selenium Meetup bring ‘Colombo Test Automation Conference 2016’

Panel discussion on the topic of – ‘Experiences in Test Automation’ attended by the speakers of the conference and moderated by Kishan Navaratne

Hosted in collaboration with the SLASSCOM Quality Circle and the Colombo Selenium Meetup group, the Colombo Test Automation Conference (CTAC) was organised envisioning to be the pioneering test automation annual conference in Sri Lanka, providing a platform to all test automation professionals to meet, present and challenge ideas. It brought together engineers from industry and academia to discuss trends in test automation and quality engineering practices.

Held on 24 November at the Dialog Axiata Auditorium, Colombo, CTAC was well attended by over 200 Quality Engineering and Quality Assurance professionals. 

The conference featured an experienced panel of speakers including Sanjeewa Senarath, Head of Quality Engineering of Pearson Lanka; Rifa Salam, Architect – Quality Engineering of Pearson Lanka; Sisira Kumara, Head of Quality Assurance of MillenniumIT; Dilhan Manawadu, Head of QA and Process of CAKE LABS; Kanchana Wickramasinghe, Senior Manager from VirtusaPolaris; and Janesh Kodikara, Chief Executive Office from Pragmatic Test Labs.

Being a platform to gain knowledge on Automation Team Building, Strategy with Open Source, Consistency in Execution, ROI & Value and Tool selection support, many relevant topics; these ranged from post automation challenges for enterprises delivered by Sanjeewa Senarath, Crashing large scale latency critical systems by Sisira Kumara, TechTalks by Kanchana Wickramasinghe, and from Janesh Kodikara, on Selenuim Grid with Decker as well as from Rifa Saleem, on introduction to Javascript  Test Automation Frameworks. A presentation was also made by Dilhan Manawadu, on Lessons learned in Test Automation.

The presentations were followed by a panel discussion that on the topic of – ‘Experiences in Test Automation’ moderated by Kishan Navaratne from MillenniumIT. The speakers of the conference joined as the panellists for this session. 

Areas of discussion included facts on the technology of test automation and to find out what approaches have been successful, what types of applications are now being tested and how test automation has changed. Many application areas, environments and platforms were described and commercial, open source and in-house tools, in traditional and agile development projects were debated and discussed upon including the challenges faced by organisations as they move into agile development.

SLASSCOM is the Knowledge and Innovation Chamber for Sri Lankan IT/BPM industry which acts as a catalyst of growth of the industry by facilitating trade and business, propagation of education and employment, encouragement of research and innovation, and by supporting the creation of a progressive national policy framework. 

The Colombo Selenium Meetup is an open forum founded by Pragmatic Test Labs where Selenium users of all skill levels come to communicate, learn and network.