Biennial STACK Developer Conference to spotlight developer productivity

GovTech Singapore’s Chief Technology Officer, Chang Sau Sheong, is no stranger to developer conferences.

Talking about his role in organising this year's biennial STACK Developer Conference, he shares that during his 30-year career as a programmer, he has been organising GopherCon since the 2010s, the largest Go programme language conference in Southeast Asia. He was also a co-founder of a Java community group in the mid-1990s and a Ruby community group in the 2000s.

It’s rare for a government to appoint software engineers to top public servant positions – rarer still for it to run one of the country’s largest developer conferences. The fact that GovTech Singapore has run the STACK Developer Conference since 2018 signals the country’s commitment to a digital government backed by strong internal developer capabilities.

Chang shares that he has spent most of his career in the private sector, and that there is strong awareness of GovTech’s community-building efforts in the tightly knit technical community.

Having been a keynote speaker at the first STACK Developer Conference in his former capacity as Managing Director of Digital Technology in SP Group, and CEO of SP Digital, a new digital business unit of SP Group, his new role means it is now his turn to “take the baton” and run the conference for 2024.

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Raising developer productivity

Previous STACK Developer Conferences were focused on foundational concerns, such as cloud technology, application building, and product development.  However, as the government’s internal development capabilities grew, its outlook has evolved over time, says Chang.

This year’s conference, to be held on November 6 and 7 at the Sands Expo and Convention Centre, will focus on raising engineering productivity – becoming “more optimal”, says Chang.

“That’s how we can be more efficient, do more with existing or even less resources. That’s very important in this current climate,” he says. That is why this year’s theme is “Supercharge Your Digital Engineering Productivity.”

In his current role as Chief Technology Officer and Deputy Chief Executive (Products), Chang oversees the development of whole-of-government platforms, such as its cloud platform, while overseeing the government’s overall tech strategy.

This year’s focus on developer productivity is informed by the rise of generative AI (GenAI), he notes, which offer new tools for developers, designers, and product managers that enable them to be more effective.

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How AI will support developers

The conference will showcase the ways in which AI, among other things, can support developers in their programming work and in delivering better products, he explains.

“Our hope is that we can bring some of these things to the forefront of thinking for the agencies, our developers, and the community at large,” he says.

“We want to showcase how programmers can use AI, either through libraries or calling APIs or whatnot, to do more stuff than what they were able to do in the past.”

“How do we use AI for programming, and how do we use AI to program? These are the two focus areas,” he shares.

AI coding assistants are already supporting developers in raising their programming productivity. According to an experiment by GitHub, developers using GitHub Copilot have seen a 55 per cent decrease in the time taken to complete a task.

Singapore’s National AI Strategy 2.0 identified the government as a key enabler of AI adoption within Singapore in 2023, with public sector adoption of AI projected to improve business outcomes.

Innersourcing and other themes

The STACK Developer Conference 2024 will also explore open-source and innersourcing – also known as internal open-source sharing – practices within the Singapore government.

Prior to GovTech’s formation in 2016, the Singapore government was more reliant on vendors to develop software, making it difficult for agencies to learn from each other and build similar or adjacent systems, he says.

With the government building its internal engineering capabilities, innersourcing has become key to driving developer productivity and collaboration, Chang notes.

The government also shares some of its codes and taps on the collective wisdom happening outside government through open source, he adds. Several government products, such as FormSG, have been open-sourced as digital public goods that other countries have adopted.

In a previous interview with GovInsider, GovTech’s Director of Product Management, Gabriyel Wong, shared that innersourcing helps developers share best practices and code, simplifies their work, and speeds up development.

Other themes to be explored at this year’s conference include application innovations, cloud technology, digital culture, digital trust and cybersecurity, and urban technology.

Why STACK stands out

Developer conferences are traditionally run by grassroots developer communities or large tech companies with commercial motivations.

What makes the STACK Developer Conference stand out is that even though there is a showcase of government technologies, it is not selling its products, says Chang.

“We are focused on building the community of software engineers, developers, designers, and product managers. It’s a technology conference, not a government conference.”

As such, the conference invites members of the private sector to attend, and its lineup of speakers extend well beyond the government. This year’s keynote speakers include Ashley Kramer from GitLab, Evan You from Vue Technology, Gregor Hohpe the author of Architect Elevator series, Lilian Shieh from GovTech, Scott Shaw from Thoughtworks, Steve Springett from ServiceNow, and Suthen Thomas Paradatheth from Grab.

“I have looked at it from the non-government angle for a long time. This is very important for the local industry because government is a big part of Singapore, and having such strong presence is a major boost to the community,” Chang shares.

“I have not known any other government to run developer conferences. It’s actually pretty unique. What we are doing here is pushing the boundaries of what government does,” he says.

Be a part of the biggest Government-led developer conference happening on 6 – 7 Nov 2024 at Marina Bay Sands Expo and Convention Centre! The early bird registration for STACK Developer Conference 2024 has been extended to 20 Sep, register now at https://go.gov.sg/stack2024-gi