EuroSTAR is Europe's largest conference for software testers. The conference is arranged annually in November since 1993 and lasts for four days. This year it was held in The Hague and had about a thousand participants. Rikard Edgren, test expert at Nordic Medtest, has participated in the conference a dozen times before as a speaker.

This year he received the honorary assignment of being Program Chair. The work of hosting the conference includes setting the program. The planning work begins a year before EuroSTAR takes place in November and mainly consists of going through the lecture proposals that are submitted. Rikard received about four hundred proposals which he, together with a committee, went through and which finally landed in the program's fifty-five lectures.

"The starting point I had when we were going to select lecturers was that it would be based on experience and self-experienced, not just theoretical," says Rikard about the work with the conference's agenda.

When Rikard tells his colleagues at Nordic Medtest about his experiences from the conference, he is asked if he could see any trends in testing at the conference. "It is difficult to point out a trend among the lectures at EuroSTAR, as the purpose of the conference is to be as broad as possible. Something we also took into account when we selected the lectures," says Rikard. “But if I had to say any trend, it's a more humble approach to test automation; that it solves some problems, but not all.”

Rikard talks about EuroSTAR as a meeting place where everyone is there to learn and make connections, regardless of whether you are a lecturer, a regular visitor or there for the first time. "As a visitor, I have always focused on learning. As Program Chair, the perspective was completely different. Now I instead looked more at the whole in all the lectures. How they were received and experienced by the participants. The emphasis was on hosting. Set the mood, make sure everyone is comfortable, give shorter speeches, be visible and answer questions. "

Rikard tells us about his secret plan: to remove the hierarchy. "As a first-time visitor, you often feel less valued than those who lecture or have been to the conference many times. My goal was for everyone to feel that they had an equal right to be there and take up as much space. That everyone contributes by creating contacts and exchanging experiences.”