Engage 2024

So eventually it's over. Engage 2024 is already history but boy what a great conference it was. In his last time as event maestro for engage, Theo Heselmans outdid himself once more with a breathtaking venue - the Handelsbeurs in Antwerp. What a location, what a venue, what an event - organisation and logistics have been perfect as always with Theo's events.

But this time, several things have been different for me. First and foremost - the sessions. It's been a long time since I really enjoyed visiting sessions due to repeating and already-heard content. Not in Antwerp this year - especially the sessions close to my own topic around AI/LLMs and Domino have been really great - thanks to Serdar Besagmez and the BCC Team for great inspiring content. HCL has been holding back in my opinion - no "big" announcements, more about the overall portfolio and of course the Volt MX sessions for everything. So it was up to the partners and customers to deliver great content - and they did! The modernization session by FoCul was excellent and brutally honest - good stuff!

And as always - Engage is about the people you meet. We have been lucky this year that a lot of the stars from our community took part in person and payed their tribute to Theo and Hilde so it was a pleasure to meet old friends after several years of being absent and making new friends in coffee breaks and the dinner receptions.

The best news to report from Engage that this Engage won't be the last - being a good shepard, Theo took care about finding successors. Now, Tom van Aken and Kris de Bishop will take over Engage and lead it into the future. They have big boots to fill but I'm confident they will be able to pull it off. It was heartworming to see Theo's reaction when Bill Malchisky handed over the gift for Hilde and Theo from teh Ambassador community - and the phrase "you won't be far" was heard more than once in conversations with Theo.

Also, C3UG awarded Theo the C3UG North Star Award 2024 for outstanding contributions to the community - it was great to be able to do this with Graham Acres and Michelle Smith in Person. I can barely think of somebody who deserved this award more as Theo and, for 2023 Richard Moy for his work with Collabsphere.

So what's the Big news for the HCL Community from Enage? The community is alive and kicking, HCL continues to work on the products and together, we will keep the product family relevant.

Lot's of good stuff to come - stay tuned for more stuff from OpenNTF as well. And it also was reassuring that with these people in the community, we have one of the finest bunch of people of the IT industry with us. There you have it - the slogan from HCL for this your is "Community".

Heiko.