I got to present at and attend the Asterisk Africa Community Conference 2018.

I am a developer and know that with some awesome open source software and possibly extra code you can build almost anything that adds value to a business. So when I was asked what we should do for telephony the answer was obviously an open source telephony system - Asterisk. I am no expert when it comes to telephony but managed to build a solution that runs our call centre and was seeking some advice on how to minimise downtime. In sharing the solution with the guys from Clarotech they were impressed with what we had accomplished and wanted us to share our story.

We received the invite to share at the Asterisk Africa Community Conference. Our COO felt I should present as I built the solution. My initial instinct was to say no, I’m an introvert. I immediately remembered the dreaded days of prepared speeches in English class at school: the nerves, forgetting what I’d prepared and stuttering through my points. However, I realised I’ve gained so much from others who have shared their learnings so I needed to step out of my comfort zone and although still nervous - I said yes.

I was invited to a pre-conference dinner, where I met some of the people hosting and speaking, one of whom you may know as the guy behind QueueMetrics - Lenz. He also started the ARI4Java project. I had contributed some code to the ARI4Java project so it was great to meet him in person and chat a bit about running an open source project.

The conference was a 2 day event starting on the 14th March, in Johannesburg with over 100 attendees and speakers from all over the world. The conference was aimed at both techies and business so the talks were divided into those 2 streams. I got scheduled in the business stream - that was another stretch for me. I had to try not to get too technical - the feedback was great so I believe I achieved a balance. I asked if I could record the session which you can find on YouTube.

I’m glad that I stretched myself out of my comfort zone and presented. I really appreciate the opportunity I had to attend the conference, hear stories and meet some of the great people involved in the telephony community.