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GS-UK Virtual Conference 2026Test

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Time Table

Jump To Tuesday 21st April
Jump To Wednesday 22nd April
Jump To Thursday 23rd April

Tuesday 21st April

Stream Session Presentation Title Speaker Company Workgroup Room Time
Keynote: Conference Opening Leanne Wilson 09:30 - 09:45
15 Minute Break 09:45 - 10:00
Virtual Room 1 1A Making Your Early-Career Impact in the Mainframe Community Nishka Sardar WAVEZ 101 VR1 10:00 - 10:45
Virtual Room 2 2A SDSF Hidden Treasures Rob Scott WAVEZ 102 VR2 10:00 - 10:45
Virtual Room 3 3A What's new in CICS TS 6.3? Jenny He CICS VR3 10:00 - 10:45
Virtual Room 4 4A AI for the Modern Mainframe Network Engineer Claire Connor Network Management VR4 10:00 - 10:45
Virtual Room 7 7A Ready Player One? Roy Boxwell Db2 VR7 10:00 - 10:45
Virtual Room 9 9A AI centric z/OS application development experiences with VS Code Agent Mode and MCP Peter Haumer AppDev VR9 10:00 - 10:45
Virtual Room A AA Achieving Zero Trust In The Z Environment Adnan Can Security Working Group VR10 10:00 - 10:45
30 Minute Break 10:45 - 11:15
Virtual Room 1 1B How do you make it go faster and use less resource? Doing performance on z/OS Colin Paice WAVEZ 101 VR1 11:15 - 12:00
Virtual Room 2 2B Step-by-Step Automation: Regex, sed & VTL in z/OSMF Workflows Pavel Zlatnik WAVEZ 102 VR2 11:15 - 12:00
Virtual Room 3 3B Mastering System Synergy: A Guide to Intelligent Region Grouping and Flow Analysis. Rakesh kumar Singh CICS VR3 11:15 - 12:00
Virtual Room 4 4B Encrypting connections to Db2 Giovanni Creato Network Management VR4 11:15 - 12:00
Virtual Room 5 5B Measuring AS activity with SMF 30 Danilo Gipponi Capacity & Performance VR5 11:15 - 12:00
Virtual Room 6 6B Impostor Syndrome - Are you good enough? Niall Ashley Mainframe Skills & Learning VR6 11:15 - 12:00
Virtual Room 7 7B Db2 from the Inside Out: Directory, Catalog, Logs & BSDS Explained Saurabh Pandey Db2 VR7 11:15 - 12:00
Virtual Room 8 8B Beyond the Batch: Unlocking Business Value from Sub-Second Analytics in the Streaming Era Sai Kaushik Ponnekanti LSWG VR8 11:15 - 12:00
Virtual Room 9 9B Accelerating Mainframe Development with AI Claire Connor AppDev VR9 11:15 - 12:00
Virtual Room A AB Beyond the Surface: Tackling Mainframe Vulnerabilities with Strategy and Precision Cynthia Overby Security Working Group VR10 11:15 - 12:00
30 Minute Break 12:00 - 12:30
Virtual Room 1 1C Behind the curtain: The journey of a problem from your report to our support Sudha Dhanwada WAVEZ 101 VR1 12:30 - 13:15
Virtual Room 2 2C Welcome to Z-City-A Street-Level Tour of the z/OS Virtual Storage Map Aditya Srivastava WAVEZ 102 VR2 12:30 - 13:15
Virtual Room 3 3C Latest update on security in CICS TS 6.3 Mark Pocock CICS VR3 12:30 - 13:15
Virtual Room 4 4C TCPIP Security overview Navya Ramanjulu Network Management VR4 12:30 - 13:15
Virtual Room 5 5C Can we all share fairly? Detection and remediation of inter-LPAR performance impacts Scott Chapman Capacity & Performance VR5 12:30 - 13:15
Virtual Room 6 6C Neurodiversity and Z Abi Bettle-Shaffer Mainframe Skills & Learning VR6 12:30 - 13:15
Virtual Room 7 7C CBT Tape Tools for DB2 Klaudiusz Konieczka Db2 VR7 12:30 - 13:15
Virtual Room 8 8C IBM Z Cyber Vault Explained - Soup to Nuts and Nose to Tail Nathan Brice LSWG VR8 12:30 - 13:15
Virtual Room 9 9C Automate the heck out of every LPAR! Bronwyn Davies AppDev VR9 12:30 - 13:15
Virtual Room A AC Check Yourself Before You Wreck Yourself: Are You Prepared for a Cyber Attack? 2026 Edition Thomas Conley Security Working Group VR10 12:30 - 13:15
30 Minute Break 13:15 - 13:45
Virtual Room 1 1D Security is a War Game Niall Ashley WAVEZ 101 VR1 13:45 - 14:30
Virtual Room 2 2D Trust me I'm a certificate Joe Winchester WAVEZ 102 VR2 13:45 - 14:30
Virtual Room 3 3D CICS Security Discovery John Taylor CICS VR3 13:45 - 14:30
Virtual Room 4 4D IP Routing on z/OS Part 1: the basics Edward Seidl Network Management VR4 13:45 - 14:30
Virtual Room 5 5D Blending Art and Science: The Performance Top 10 John Baker Capacity & Performance VR5 13:45 - 14:30
Virtual Room 6 6D Training for Emerging Security Threats - An experienced based approach Andy McCandless Mainframe Skills & Learning VR6 13:45 - 14:30
Virtual Room 7 7D All About Db2 for z/OS Packages Anna McKee Db2 VR7 13:45 - 14:30
Virtual Room 8 8D GDPS quality resiliency on LinuxOne? Yes, it’s possible Steven Cook LSWG VR8 13:45 - 14:30
Virtual Room 9 9D Bang for your zOS buck with Go Mackenzie Malainey AppDev VR9 13:45 - 14:30
Virtual Room A AD Mainframes and the Dark Web - 2026 Reboot Mark Wilson Security Working Group VR10 13:45 - 14:30
30 Minute Break 14:30 - 15:00
Virtual Room 1 1E Db2 for z/OS 101: What you should know about data sharing! Mark Rader WAVEZ 101 VR1 15:00 - 15:45
Virtual Room 3 3E (Primer to) The IBM Z Processor Optimization Primer David Hutton Capacity & Performance VR3 15:00 - 15:45
Virtual Room 4 4E IP Routing on z/OS Part 2: Dynamic routing and Cisco ACI integration Edward Seidl Network Management VR4 15:00 - 15:45
Virtual Room 5 5E What's New in DFSMS Barbara McDonald Storage VR5 15:00 - 15:45
Virtual Room 6 6E Integrating z/OS from an iPaaS? There’s webMethods in the madness! Andrew Smithson Hybrid Cloud VR6 15:00 - 15:45
Virtual Room 7 7E Zcrafter - Claude code for the Mainframe Victor Taiwo AI VR7 15:00 - 15:45
Virtual Room 8 8E Career Toolkit Essentials: How Communities Shape Skills for the Future Natalie Carrillo Mainframe Skills & Learning VR8 15:00 - 15:45
Virtual Room 9 9E COBOL playbook for modernizing core business applications on z/OS Chandni Dinani AppDev VR9 15:00 - 15:45
Virtual Room A AE Single Signon for zOS with Client Certificates Colman O'Carroll Security Working Group VR10 15:00 - 15:45
30 Minute Break 15:45 - 16:15
Virtual Room 1 1F Able baker to Zulu: What I wish I'd learnt at college about enterprise computing Joe Winchester WAVEZ 101 VR1 16:15 - 17:00
Virtual Room 2 2F An IBM Champion’s Guide to Advocacy Niall Ashley WAVEZ 102 VR2 16:15 - 17:00
Virtual Room 3 3F Automating Mainframe Operations with REST APIs & Zowe CLI Plug-ins Joshua Powell Open Mainframe Project VR3 16:15 - 17:00
Virtual Room 4 4F The Next Generation z/OS User Experience Fiona King New Technologies VR4 16:15 - 17:00
Virtual Room 5 5F Improve your RTO & RPO with a multi-site resiliency solutions Ben Younger Younger Storage VR5 16:15 - 17:00
Virtual Room 6 6F Object Storage Fundamentals Andrew Wilt Hybrid Cloud VR6 16:15 - 17:00
Virtual Room 7 7F Bring your mainframe data to your AI Agent Andrew Smithson AI VR7 16:15 - 17:00
Virtual Room 8 8F Reinvent storage for artificial intelligence era Alain Beauregard LSWG VR8 16:15 - 17:00
Virtual Room 9 9F XMIT Unpacked Bringing Mainframe Transmit Files into Modern Automation Pipelines Henri Kuiper AppDev VR9 16:15 - 17:00
Virtual Room A AF Cybersecurity and Data Set Encryption – Overview and tape data set deep dive Cecilia Lewis Security Working Group VR10 16:15 - 17:00
End of Day's Sessions 17:00 - 17:30

Wednesday 22nd April

Stream Session Presentation Title Speaker Company Workgroup Room Time
Virtual Room 1 1G Conquering CodePages, the Rosetta stone of mainframe texting Joe Winchester WAVEZ 101 VR1 10:00 - 10:45
Virtual Room 2 2G RACF Exits & Control Blocks Mark Wilson WAVEZ 102 VR2 10:00 - 10:45
Virtual Room 3 3G Modernization is a Human Story Richelle Anne Craw Women in IT VR3 10:00 - 10:45
Virtual Room 4 4G From Monitoring to Observability: Evolving Mainframe Operations with OpenTelemetry Principles Prema Jogdand New Technologies VR4 10:00 - 10:45
Virtual Room 5 5G Introduction to HA/DR best practises with IBM GDPS Kris Dzialek Storage VR5 10:00 - 10:45
Virtual Room 6 6G Data Gravity and IBM Z: Bringing Processing to the Data Vishal Gupta Hybrid Cloud VR6 10:00 - 10:45
Virtual Room 7 7G Confidently Accelerate Mainframe Transformation with AI‑Powered Intelligence and Automation Deepak Chopra AI VR7 10:00 - 10:45
Virtual Room 8 8G No Data Left Behind: The Complete Guide to IMS Database Recovery Aditya Srivastava IMS VR8 10:00 - 10:45
Virtual Room A AG Embracing AI Without Compromising Mainframe Security Claire Connor Security Working Group VR10 10:00 - 10:45
30 Minute Break 10:45 - 11:15
Virtual Room 1 1H The Hidden Shield: Mainframe Security, Uncovered Simran Sharma WAVEZ 101 VR1 11:15 - 12:00
Virtual Room 2 2H Hi, it's me Joe Winchester WAVEZ 102 VR2 11:15 - 12:00
Virtual Room 3 3H Building Mainframe Career Resilience: Strategies for a Thriving Career in a Changing Workplace. Darren Surch Mainframe Skills & Learning VR3 11:15 - 12:00
Virtual Room 4 4H From Abend to Insight: How LLMs and MCP Server Tools Are Transforming Mainframe Defect Detection Krutika Sapkal New Technologies VR4 11:15 - 12:00
Virtual Room 5 5H Beyond the Bits: A Deep Dive into Mainframe Data Migration Aayush Singh Storage VR5 11:15 - 12:00
Virtual Room 6 6H Making IBM Z Data AI-Ready for Hybrid Cloud Innovation Vishal Gupta Hybrid Cloud VR6 11:15 - 12:00
Virtual Room 7 7H The Future of Z: Scaling Productivity with Generative and Agentic AI Vineet Dumir AI VR7 11:15 - 12:00
Virtual Room 9 9H From Project to Product: Value Stream Management for the Mainframe Spencer Hallman AppDev VR9 11:15 - 12:00
Virtual Room A AH End-to-End Mainframe Data Resilience Ira Miga Security Working Group VR10 11:15 - 12:00
30 Minute Break 12:00 - 12:30
Virtual Room 1 1I LinkedIn isn’t just for boomers Niall Ashley WAVEZ 101 VR1 12:30 - 13:15
Virtual Room 2 2I Understanding Unix System Services. Bourne to Bash and Beyond. Joe Winchester WAVEZ 102 VR2 12:30 - 13:15
Virtual Room 3 3I CICS Explorer: A quick reference with power user tips to level up your CICS administration Dave Nice CICS VR3 12:30 - 13:15
Virtual Room 4 4I From COBOL to Kafka - A guide to event integration patterns on z/OS Andrew Smithson New Technologies VR4 12:30 - 13:15
Virtual Room 5 5I Integrating Object Storage with Batch processing Andrew Wilt Storage VR5 12:30 - 13:15
Virtual Room 6 6I Modernizing IMS Backup and Recovery - The Strategic Shift to Cloud Storage Sujata Mane Hybrid Cloud VR6 12:30 - 13:15
Virtual Room 7 7I Running AI/ML Workloads on Mainframes: Relevance in the Modern Enterprise Sameer Satyavolu AI VR7 12:30 - 13:15
Virtual Room 9 9I From Prompt to Production: Multi-Workflow Orchestration for Code Updates on Z Stephanie Marino-Cundari AppDev VR9 12:30 - 13:15
Virtual Room A AI Keys to the Kingdom: Managing Cryptographic Resources on z/VM Brian Hugenbruch Security Working Group VR10 12:30 - 13:15
30 Minute Break 13:15 - 13:45
Virtual Room 1 1J What's new with ZOAU? Anthony Giorgio WAVEZ 101 VR1 13:45 - 14:30
Virtual Room 3 3J Simplifying CICS configuration: harnessing the power of code Ledina Hido-Evans CICS VR3 13:45 - 14:30
Virtual Room 4 4J AI Agents on the Mainframe: How To Automate Documentation at Scale Collin Smith New Technologies VR4 13:45 - 14:30
Virtual Room 6 6J OpenTelemetry: Enabling Mainframe Integration within Enterprise-Wide Observability Solutions Ruediger Schulze Hybrid Cloud VR6 13:45 - 14:30
Virtual Room 7 7J Let Me Make This as Clear as Robert: Explaining Oft-Misunderstood Db2 for z/OS Concepts Anna McKee Db2 VR7 13:45 - 14:30
Virtual Room 9 9J IBM COBOL Upgrade Advisor Roland Koo AppDev VR9 13:45 - 14:30
30 Minute Break 14:30 - 15:00
Virtual Room 1 1L From Monolith to Microservices: Using AI to Accelerate Decomposition and Team Learning Sunil Mishra AI VR1 15:00 - 15:45
Virtual Room 2 2L Why Mainframe Student Societies Deserve Your Attention Zaid Darsot Mainframe Skills & Learning VR2 15:00 - 15:45
Virtual Room 3 3L Unlocking Mainframe Knowledge: Using AI to Support CICS Professionals Claire Connor CICS VR3 15:00 - 15:45
Virtual Room 4 4L Thriving in Hybrid IT: Overcoming Mainframe and Distributed Tests Barriers Renato Bognar New Technologies VR4 15:00 - 15:45
Virtual Room 5 5L Let's Roll! Maximizing Availability and Automation during change activity Charles Gaskell Capacity & Performance VR5 15:00 - 15:45
Virtual Room 6 6L Let’s Talk About Unsupported Software David Stephens LSWG VR6 15:00 - 15:45
Virtual Room 7 7L Protecting your Db2 for z/OS environment from cyber attacks Jørn Thyssen Db2 VR7 15:00 - 15:45
Virtual Room 8 8L All about SMP/E (System Modification Program/Extended) - It's SiMPlified!!! Pratik Ghatpande IMS VR8 15:00 - 15:45
Virtual Room 9 9L Modernizing Applications with Python & Containers Steven Pitman AppDev VR9 15:00 - 15:45
Virtual Room A AL Mainframe Under Siege: Real-Time Threat Interception and Automated Recovery Al Saurette Security Working Group VR10 15:00 - 15:45
30 Minute Break 15:45 - 16:15
Virtual Room 2 2M Hello Mainframe ? Using Zowe in an AI World with MCP Agents. Joe Winchester Open Mainframe Project VR2 16:15 - 17:00
Virtual Room 3 3M CICS Liberty for Beginners Jakob-Julius Storgaard CICS VR3 16:15 - 17:00
Virtual Room 5 5M Enhancing z/OS performance data to get new insights. John Ticic Capacity & Performance VR5 16:15 - 17:00
Virtual Room 7 7M Who's Knocking At the Door? Best Practices for Auditing Access to Db2 for z/OS Denis Tronin Db2 VR7 16:15 - 17:00
Virtual Room 9 9M No SQL App with Python on zOS Bill Pereira AppDev VR9 16:15 - 17:00
Virtual Room A AM Continuous Compliance: Security Automation with MFPandas Henri Kuiper Security Working Group VR10 16:15 - 17:00
End of Day's Sessions 17:00 - 17:30

Thursday 23rd April

Stream Session Presentation Title Speaker Company Workgroup Room Time
Virtual Room 1 1N ISPF Made Even Easier Part 1 Peter Van Dyke Service Management VR1 10:00 - 10:45
Virtual Room 2 2N What’s new in MQ Gwydion Tudur MQ VR2 10:00 - 10:45
Virtual Room 3 3N OpenTelemetry tracing in CICS TS 6.3 Jenny He CICS VR3 10:00 - 10:45
Virtual Room 5 5N Modern Machines, Modern Metrics Martin Packer Capacity & Performance VR5 10:00 - 10:45
Virtual Room 6 6N Pervasive encryption with DB2 for z/OS Sandip Bhange Db2 VR6 10:00 - 10:45
Virtual Room 9 9N COPILOT ❤️ COBOL Anthony Papageorgiou AppDev VR9 10:00 - 10:45
Virtual Room A AN Mastering Digital Certificates: The Keys to a Streamlined Experience Jan Prihoda Security Working Group VR10 10:00 - 10:45
30 Minute Break 10:45 - 11:15
Virtual Room 1 1O ISPF Made Even Easier Part 2 Peter Van Dyke Service Management VR1 11:15 - 12:00
Virtual Room 2 2O MQ Meets Agentic AI Gwydion Tudur MQ VR2 11:15 - 12:00
Virtual Room 3 3O Integrating CICS with AI - MCP server in CICS TS 6.3 Khadar Mohamed CICS VR3 11:15 - 12:00
Virtual Room 4 4O Let's Talk (Talking) Tech Brian Hugenbruch Mainframe Skills & Learning VR4 11:15 - 12:00
Virtual Room 5 5O An Introduction to Observability, OpenTelemetry and IBM Z Chris Walker New Technologies VR5 11:15 - 12:00
Virtual Room 6 6O Bringing Mainframe into the Future: OpenTelemetry for Db2 for z/OS Christoph Theisen Db2 VR6 11:15 - 12:00
Virtual Room 7 7O Vibe Coding: What Enterprise Developers Need to Know Vaidehi Bhonge AI VR7 11:15 - 12:00
Virtual Room 9 9O Why the binary artifact repository is a game-changer when adopting full CI/CD pipelines Dennis Behm AppDev VR9 11:15 - 12:00
Virtual Room A AO Pen Testing 101: Mastering Mainframe Penetration Testing for Maximum Security Ray Overby Security Working Group VR10 11:15 - 12:00
30 Minute Break 12:00 - 12:30
Virtual Room 1 1P From reactive to proactive optimization: evolve your mainframe Asset Management strategy Simone Catini Mainframe Audit VR1 12:30 - 13:15
Virtual Room 2 2P Quantum Safe MQ Gwydion Tudur MQ VR2 12:30 - 13:15
Virtual Room 3 3P Modernizing the Core: Orchestrating CICS Business Processes with Mainframe-Resident APIs Mihir Shah CICS VR3 12:30 - 13:15
Virtual Room 4 4P Our GSAP Journey: From Zero to z/OS Alessandro Cavallo Mainframe Skills & Learning VR4 12:30 - 13:15
Virtual Room 6 6P Use AI to gain business insights from your data … now! Richard Ruppel Db2 VR6 12:30 - 13:15
Virtual Room 7 7P Defensively Ambitious: LLMs and Assisted Development Jared Hunter AI VR7 12:30 - 13:15
Virtual Room 8 8P Expanding SMF Access to Promote Data-driven Decision Making Todd Havekost Capacity & Performance VR8 12:30 - 13:15
Virtual Room 9 9P The CICS Developer’s Guide to Working Smarter, Not Harder Andrew Twydell AppDev VR9 12:30 - 13:15
Virtual Room A AP The Hacker Whodunnit: Know your cyber assailants Niall Ashley Security Working Group VR10 12:30 - 13:15
30 Minute Break 13:15 - 13:45
Virtual Room 1 1Q How to Pass a Mainframe Audit Daniel Burk Mainframe Audit VR1 13:45 - 14:30
Virtual Room 2 2Q Planning Your Mainframe Processor Upgrade in 2026 Scott Chapman Capacity & Performance VR2 13:45 - 14:30
Virtual Room 3 3Q Seamless Integration between Java and COBOL Robert Stroud CICS VR3 13:45 - 14:30
Virtual Room 4 4Q Step Up the Skills Ladder: Continuous Learning for Mainframers Richelle Anne Craw Mainframe Skills & Learning VR4 13:45 - 14:30
Virtual Room 5 5Q PAVS, what are they, what is there significance? Rahul Gupta Storage VR5 13:45 - 14:30
Virtual Room 6 6Q The latest and greatest in z/OS 3.2! What's new! Steve Warren LSWG VR6 13:45 - 14:30
Virtual Room 7 7Q Why Data Science Students Should Care About IBM Z and Enterprise Systems Amirthavarshini Vimaleshwara Raja AI VR7 13:45 - 14:30
Virtual Room 9 9Q Traditional Mainframe Development practises Giovanni Creato AppDev VR9 13:45 - 14:30
Virtual Room A AQ RACF Update: z/OS 3.2 and More! Mark Nelson Security Working Group VR10 13:45 - 14:30
30 Minute Break 14:30 - 15:00
Virtual Room 1 1R Designing for Defensibility: Evidence-Centric Compliance Architecture for Financial Web Platforms Manasa Uppula Mainframe Audit VR1 15:00 - 15:45
Virtual Room 3 3R Mainframe Trends 2026: Insights from the Mainframe User Survey Amanda Hendley Women in IT VR3 15:00 - 15:45
Virtual Room 4 4R The Anatomy of ‘Why?’. Taking Control of Your Future Career on the Mainframe Clementine Gribble Mainframe Skills & Learning VR4 15:00 - 15:45
Virtual Room 5 5R Introduction to ICF Catalog Support Jim Steel Storage VR5 15:00 - 15:45
Virtual Room 6 6R Understanding, debugging, tracing and troubleshooting AT-TLS. Joe Winchester LSWG VR6 15:00 - 15:45
Virtual Room 7 7R AI-Driven Framework for Zero-Downtime Cloud Database Migration Pradeep Kumar Nangunoori AI VR7 15:00 - 15:45
Virtual Room 8 8R WLM… Did you ever think of? Mary Solomon Capacity & Performance VR8 15:00 - 15:45
Virtual Room 9 9R Semeru (Java) on z/OS: Key Updates & Why Upgrade? Thaksena Rangarajan AppDev VR9 15:00 - 15:45
Virtual Room A AR Crypto Discovery and Inventory for z/OS Asha Shekharappa Security Working Group VR10 15:00 - 15:45
30 Minute Break 15:45 - 16:15
Virtual Room 1 1S z/OS Danger Zone - data theft Al Saurette Mainframe Audit VR1 16:15 - 17:00
Virtual Room 2 2S Instrumenting the Mainframe: An introduction to no-code instrumentation with OpenTelemetry Ruediger Schulze Open Mainframe Project VR2 16:15 - 17:00
Virtual Room 3 3S IBM Concert for Z, an AI-Powered Mainframe Resilience Platform: Solutions vs. Alerts Domenico D'Alterio Service Management VR3 16:15 - 17:00
Virtual Room 4 4S EMMA: an implementation of a mainframe apprenticeship Cameron Seay Mainframe Skills & Learning VR4 16:15 - 17:00
Virtual Room 5 5S z/OSMF Storage Management Plugin - SMS Like Never Before Alexis Kapica Storage VR5 16:15 - 17:00
Virtual Room 6 6S What's new in SDSF for z/OS 3.2 Rob Scott LSWG VR6 16:15 - 17:00
Virtual Room 9 9S REST API (S3) for Unstructured (object) Data on z/OS using OAM Peter Sobik AppDev VR9 16:15 - 17:00
Virtual Room A AS Post-Quantum Cryptography Emily Popovic Security Working Group VR10 16:15 - 17:00
15 Minute Break 17:00 - 17:15
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