Dev Skill Share - Spring 2026
The Edge of Chaos
We're back at the Mt Eden Village Centre lounge after the success of our winter event!
Free food, sharp talks, and a room full of people who build things. Join us on 22 October for an evening of ideas, networking, and a bit of show-and-tell.
Come at 5.30pm — come grab a hot slice of pizza before talks kick off at 5.45pm. It's free to attend; a donation towards the room hire is always appreciated. Stick around after for drinks if you like.
See below for further details.
We recommend parking in the nearby car park, a short 30-second walk to the venue. Make sure to come in through the side entrance, not the main entrance, as this will be in use by other societies (see the side-entrance photo and map, below).
Main Talk
Special guest speaker, Joe Harper, will be giving a talk on The Edge of Chaos: the architecture of AI, its strengths, its weaknesses, and where humans can still add value as the capabilities of LLM models increase.
Discover the weaknesses in AI that everyone is overlooking...and why we probably won’t be wiped out any time soon!
Does Single Responsibility still matter?
Our host Richard Howell-Peak will be arguing that the Single Responsibility Principle may still be relevant in the age of AI software development and what this could mean for future language development.
Show-and-Tell
Let us know if you want to show off your hobby projects, your favourite tools or libraries — or anything interesting you've seen since we last met!
Richard Howell-Peak
Organiser
Richard graduated from Warwick University (UK) with a Masters in Mathematics. He started tinkering with programming when he was fourteen. He loves teaching maths, physics, economics, programming and computer science to the younger generation.
He is currently co-Founder and tech lead at Bizzco Limited, which is an official Odoo partner.
In his spare time he likes to play the guitar, bass, piano and drums. He also likes a competitive game of chess...and a bit of StarCraft.
Shilpa Howell-Peak
Master of Ceremonies
Shilpa is known for being able to get people in communication. She is a nutrition coach, a communication coach and a long-term home educator, with a background in theatre. She has extensive experience in drug, literacy and psychiatric abuse education. Having lived in several countries, she has a strong understanding of different cultures and how they tick.
In her spare time she loves playing the piano and learning about natural medicine.
Joe Harper
Guest speaker
Joe dived into programming age nine, making text adventure games on a BBC micro(!) He graduated with a Comp Sci degree from Massey, where he developed a fascination for AI and has been studying since 2001. Afterwards, he worked as a developer for ten years before creating his own app company making image tools and games. He was also busy as an Angel Investor for tech startups and as a mentor in the Agri-Tech space. When AI become more popular he trained his own models from scratch to start an image-AI company. He has a keen interest in what it means to be a programmer in this new AI world: looking at where we still outperform AI, and how best to develop oneself alongside coding agents.
Any Questions?
Anything not answered here please contact the event organiser, Richard, on:
022-583-1959.
Full details are in the right hand side of this page.
In case you missed it, it's the Mt Eden Village Centre.
https://mtedenvillagecentre.co.nz/
Please come in through the side entrance so as not to disturb other events running.
Mt Eden is well connected to public transport links including bus and train stations.
There is a car park on Essex road, or you can take your chances to find street parking nearby (see map above in image 2)
The event is free, but if you are willing to contribute a small donation for the room hire that would be very appreciated!
Absolutely! The more, the merrier. Just make sure that they (and you) have registered on this website
IF YOU HAVEN'T ALREADY, PLEASE CONSIDER MAKING A DONATION!
Small or large, your contribution is essential for us to be able to provide these talks in the future.
A donation box will be available at the venue for a gold-coin donation, otherwise you can make a donation with a bank transfer.
