When Google first hosted GTAC in 2006, we didn’t know what to expect. We kicked off this conference with the intention to share our innovation in test automation, learn from others in the industry and connect with academia. Over the last decade we’ve had great participation and had the privilege to host GTAC in North America, Europe and Asia -- largely thanks to the many of you who spoke, participated and connected!

In the recent months, we’ve been taking a hard look at the discipline of Engineering Productivity as a logical next step in the evolution of test automation. In that same vein, we’re going to rethink what an Engineering Productivity focused conference should look like today.  As we pivot, we will be extending these changes to GTAC and because we expect changes in theme, content and format, we are canceling the upcoming event scheduled in London this November. We’ll be bringing the event back in 2018 with a fresh outlook and strategy.

While we know this may be disappointing for many of the folks who were looking forward to GTAC, we’re excited to come back with a new format which will serve this conference well in today’s environment.

by Lesley Katzen on behalf of the GTAC Diversity Committee

We are committed to increasing diversity at GTAC, and we believe the best way to do that is by making sure we have a diverse set of applicants to speak and attend. As part of that commitment, we are excited to announce that we will be offering travel scholarships again this year.
Travel scholarships will be available for selected applicants from traditionally underrepresented groups in technology.

To be eligible for a grant to attend GTAC, applicants must:

• Be 18 years of age or older.
• Be from a traditionally underrepresented group in technology.
• Work or study in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Information Technology, or a technical field related to software testing.
• Be able to attend core dates of GTAC, November 14th - 15th 2017 in London, England.

To apply:
You must fill out the following scholarship form and register for GTAC to be considered for a travel scholarship.
The deadline for submission is July 1st. Scholarship recipients will be announced on August 15th. If you are selected, we will contact you with information on how to proceed with booking travel.

What the scholarship covers:
Google will pay for round-trip standard coach class airfare to London for selected scholarship recipients, and 3 nights of accommodations in a hotel near the Google King's Cross campus. Breakfast and lunch will be provided for GTAC attendees and speakers on both days of the conference. We will also provide a £75.00 gift card for other incidentals such as airport transportation or meals. You will need to provide your own credit card to cover any hotel incidentals.

Google is dedicated to providing a harassment-free and inclusive conference experience for everyone. Our anti-harassment policy can be found at:
https://www.google.com/events/policy/anti-harassmentpolicy.html

by Diego Cavalcanti on behalf of the GTAC 2017 Committee

The Google Test Automation Conference (GTAC) is an annual test automation conference hosted by Google. It brings together engineers from industry and academia to discuss advances in test automation and the test engineering computer science field. It is a great opportunity to present, learn, and challenge modern testing technologies and strategies.

We are pleased to announce that this year, GTAC will be held in Google's London office on November 14th and 15th, 2017.

Registration is currently OPEN for attendees and speakers. See more information here.

The schedule for the upcoming months is as follows:

• May 15, 2017 - Registration opens for speakers and attendees, including applicants for the diversity scholarship.
• July 1, 2017 - Registration closes for speaker submissions.
• July 15, 2017 - Registration closes for attendee submissions.
• August 15, 2017 - Selected speakers and attendees will be notified.
• November 13, 2017 - Rehearsal day for speakers (not open for attendees).
• November 14-15, 2017 - GTAC 2017!

As part of our efforts to increase diversity of speakers and attendees at GTAC, we will again be offering travel scholarships for selected applicants from traditionally underrepresented groups in technology. Please find more information here.

Please do not hesitate to contact gtac2017@google.com if you have any questions. We look forward to seeing you in London!

by Sonal Shah on behalf of the GTAC Committee

Our goal in organizing GTAC each year is to make it a first-class conference, dedicated to presenting leading edge industry practices. The quality of submissions we've received for GTAC 2016 so far has been overwhelming. In order to include the best talks possible, we are extending the deadline for speaker and attendee submissions by 15 days. The new timelines are as follows:

June 1, 2016 June 15, 2016 - Last day for speaker, attendee and diversity scholarship submissions.
June 15, 2016 July 15, 2016 - Attendees and scholarship awardees will be notified of selection/rejection/waitlist status. Those on the waitlist will be notified as space becomes available.
August 15, 2016 August 29, 2016 - Selected speakers will be notified.

To register, please fill out this form.
To apply for diversity scholarship, please fill out this form.

The GTAC website has a list of frequently asked questions. Please do not hesitate to contact gtac2016@google.com if you still have any questions.

by Lesley Katzen on behalf of the GTAC Diversity Committee

We are committed to increasing diversity at GTAC, and we believe the best way to do that is by making sure we have a diverse set of applicants to speak and attend. As part of that commitment, we are excited to announce that we will be offering travel scholarships this year.
Travel scholarships will be available for selected applicants from traditionally underrepresented groups in technology.

To be eligible for a grant to attend GTAC, applicants must:

• Be 18 years of age or older.
• Be from a traditionally underrepresented group in technology.
• Work or study in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Information Technology, or a technical field related to software testing.
• Be able to attend core dates of GTAC, November 15th - 16th 2016 in Sunnyvale, CA.

To apply:
Please fill out the following form to be considered for a travel scholarship.
The deadline for submission is June 1st June 15th.  Scholarship recipients will be announced on June 30th July 15th. If you are selected, we will contact you with information on how to proceed with booking travel.


What the scholarship covers:
Google will pay for standard coach class airfare for selected scholarship recipients to San Francisco or San Jose, and 3 nights of accommodations in a hotel near the Sunnyvale campus. Breakfast and lunch will be provided for GTAC attendees and speakers on both days of the conference. We will also provide a $50.00 gift card for other incidentals such as airport transportation or meals. You will need to provide your own credit card to cover any hotel incidentals.


Google is dedicated to providing a harassment-free and inclusive conference experience for everyone. Our anti-harassment policy can be found at:
https://www.google.com/events/policy/anti-harassmentpolicy.html

by Sonal Shah on behalf of the GTAC Committee

The GTAC (Google Test Automation Conference) 2016 application process is now open for presentation proposals and attendance. GTAC will be held at the Google Sunnyvale office on November 15th - 16th, 2016.

GTAC will be streamed live on YouTube again this year, so even if you cannot attend in person, you will be able to watch the conference remotely. We will post the livestream information as we get closer to the event, and recordings will be posted afterwards.

Speakers
Presentations are targeted at students, academics, and experienced engineers working on test automation. Full presentations are 30 minutes and lightning talks are 10 minutes. Speakers should be prepared for a question and answer session following their presentation.

Application
For presentation proposals and/or attendance, complete this form. We will be selecting about 25 talks and 300 attendees for the event. The selection process is not first come first serve (no need to rush your application), and we select a diverse group of engineers from various locations, company sizes, and technical backgrounds.

Deadline
The due date for both presentation and attendance applications is June 1st, 2016 June 15, 2016.

Cost
There are no registration fees, but speakers and attendees must arrange and pay for their own travel and accommodations.

More information
Please read our FAQ for most common questions
https://developers.google.com/google-test-automation-conference/2016/faq.

by Sonal Shah on behalf of the GTAC Committee

We are pleased to announce that the tenth GTAC (Google Test Automation Conference) will be held on Google’s campus in Sunnyvale (California, USA) on Tuesday and Wednesday, November 15th and 16th, 2016.  

Based on feedback from the last GTAC (2015) and the increasing demand every year, we have decided to keep GTAC on a fall schedule. This schedule is a change from what we previously announced.

The schedule for the next few months is:

May 1, 2016  - Registration opens for speakers and attendees.

June 1, 2016 June 15, 2016 - Registration closes for speaker and attendee submissions.

June 30, 2016 July 15, 2016 - Selected attendees will be notified.

August 15, 2016 August 29, 2016 - Selected speakers will be notified.

November 14, 2016 - Rehearsal day for speakers.

November 15-16, 2016 - GTAC 2016!

As part of our efforts to increase diversity of speakers and attendees at GTAC,  we will be offering travel scholarships for selected applicants from traditionally underrepresented groups in technology.

Stay tuned to this blog and the GTAC website for information about attending or presenting at GTAC. Please do not hesitate to contact gtac2016@google.com if you have any questions. We look forward to seeing you there!

by Michael Klepikov and Lesley Katzen on behalf of the GTAC Committee

The ninth GTAC (Google Test Automation Conference) was held on November 10-11 at the Google Cambridge office, the “Hub” of innovation. The conference was completely packed with presenters and attendees from all over the world, from industry and academia, discussing advances in test automation and the test engineering computer science field, bringing with them a huge diversity of experiences. Speakers from numerous companies and universities (Applitools, Automattic, Bitbar, Georgia Tech, Google, Indian Institute of Science, Intel, LinkedIn, Lockheed Martin, MIT, Nest, Netflix, OptoFidelity, Splunk, Supersonic, Twitter, Uber, University of Waterloo) spoke on a variety of interesting and cutting edge test automation topics.

All presentation videos and slides are posted on the Video Recordings and Presentations pages. All videos have professionally transcribed closed captions, and the YouTube descriptions have the slides links. Enjoy and share!

We had over 1,300 applicants and over 200 of those for speaking. Over 250 people filled our venue to capacity, and the live stream had a peak of about 400 concurrent viewers, with about 3,300 total viewing hours.

Our goal in hosting GTAC is to make the conference highly relevant and useful for both attendees and the larger test engineering community as a whole. Our post-conference survey shows that we are close to achieving that goal; thanks to everyone who completed the feedback survey!

• Our 82 survey respondents were mostly (81%) test focused professionals with a wide range of 1 to 40 years of experience. 
• Another 76% of respondents rated the conference as a whole as above average, with marked satisfaction for the venue, the food (those Diwali treats!), and the breadth and coverage of the talks themselves.

The top five most popular talks were:

• The Uber Challenge of Cross-Application/Cross-Device Testing (Apple Chow and Bian Jiang) 
• Your Tests Aren't Flaky (Alister Scott) 
• Statistical Data Sampling (Celal Ziftci and Ben Greenberg) 
• Coverage is Not Strongly Correlated with Test Suite Effectiveness (Laura Inozemtseva) 
• Chrome OS Test Automation Lab (Simran Basi and Chris Sosa).

Our social events also proved to be crowd pleasers. The social events were a direct response to feedback from GTAC 2014 for organized opportunities for socialization among the GTAC attendees.

This isn’t to say there isn’t room for improvement. We had 11% of respondents express frustration with event communications and provided some long, thoughtful suggestions for what we could do to improve next year. Also, many of the long form comments asked for a better mix of technologies, noting that mobile had a big presence in the talks this year.

If you have any suggestions on how we can improve, please comment on this post, or better yet – fill out the survey, which remains open. Based on feedback from last year urging more transparency in speaker selection, we included an individual outside of Google in the speaker evaluation. Feedback is precious, we take it very seriously, and we will use it to improve next time around.

Thank you to all the speakers, attendees, and online viewers who made this a special event once again. To receive announcements about the next GTAC, currently planned for early 2017, subscribe to the Google Testing Blog.

by Anthony Vallone on behalf of the GTAC Committee

The ninth GTAC (Google Test Automation Conference) commences on Tuesday, November 10th, at the Google Cambridge office. You can find the latest details on the conference site, including schedule, speaker profiles, and travel tips.

If you have not been invited to attend in person, you can watch the event live. And if you miss the livestream, we will post slides and videos later.

We have an outstanding speaker lineup this year, and we look forward to seeing you all there or online!

by Anthony Vallone on behalf of the GTAC Committee 

We have completed the selection and confirmation of all speakers and attendees for GTAC 2015. You can find the detailed agenda at: developers.google.com/gtac/2015/schedule.

Thank you to all who submitted proposals!

There is a lot of interest in GTAC once again this year with about 1400 applicants and about 200 of those for speaking. Unfortunately, our venue only seats 250. We will livestream the event as usual, so fret not if you were not selected to attend. Information about the livestream and other details will be posted on the GTAC site soon and announced here.

Posted by Anthony Vallone on behalf of the GTAC Committee

The deadline to apply for GTAC 2015 is this Monday, August 10th, 2015. There is a great deal of interest to both attend and speak, and we’ve received many outstanding proposals. However, it’s not too late to submit your proposal for consideration. If you would like to speak or attend, be sure to complete the form by Monday.

We will be making regular updates to the GTAC site (developers.google.com/gtac/2015/) over the next several weeks, and you can find conference details there.

For those that have already signed up to attend or speak, we will contact you directly by mid-September.

Posted by Anthony Vallone on behalf of the GTAC Committee

The GTAC (Google Test Automation Conference) 2015 application process is now open for presentation proposals and attendance. GTAC will be held at the Google Cambridge office (near Boston, Massachusetts, USA) on November 10th - 11th, 2015.

GTAC will be streamed live on YouTube again this year, so even if you can’t attend in person, you’ll be able to watch the conference remotely. We will post the live stream information as we get closer to the event, and recordings will be posted afterward.

Speakers
Presentations are targeted at student, academic, and experienced engineers working on test automation. Full presentations are 30 minutes and lightning talks are 10 minutes. Speakers should be prepared for a question and answer session following their presentation.

Application
For presentation proposals and/or attendance, complete this form. We will be selecting about 25 talks and 200 attendees for the event. The selection process is not first come first serve (no need to rush your application), and we select a diverse group of engineers from various locations, company sizes, and technical backgrounds (academic, industry expert, junior engineer, etc).

Deadline
The due date for both presentation and attendance applications is August 10th, 2015.

Fees
There are no registration fees, but speakers and attendees must arrange and pay for their own travel and accommodations.

More information
You can find more details at developers.google.com/gtac.

Posted by Anthony Vallone on behalf of the GTAC Committee

We are pleased to announce that the ninth GTAC (Google Test Automation Conference) will be held in Cambridge (Greatah Boston, USA) on November 10th and 11th (Toozdee and Wenzdee), 2015. So, tell everyone to save the date for this wicked good event.

GTAC is an annual conference hosted by Google, bringing together engineers from industry and academia to discuss advances in test automation and the test engineering computer science field. It’s a great opportunity to present, learn, and challenge modern testing technologies and strategies.

You can browse presentation abstracts, slides, and videos from previous years on the GTAC site.

Stay tuned to this blog and the GTAC website for application information and opportunities to present at GTAC. Subscribing to this blog is the best way to get notified. We're looking forward to seeing you there!

by Anthony Vallone on behalf of the GTAC Committee

On October 28th and 29th, GTAC 2014, the eighth GTAC (Google Test Automation Conference), was held at the beautiful Google Kirkland office. The conference was completely packed with presenters and attendees from all over the world (Argentina, Australia, Canada, China, many European countries, India, Israel, Korea, New Zealand, Puerto Rico, Russia, Taiwan, and many US states), bringing with them a huge diversity of experiences.

Speakers from numerous companies and universities (Adobe, American Express, Comcast, Dropbox, Facebook, FINRA, Google, HP, Medidata Solutions, Mozilla, Netflix, Orange, and University of Waterloo) spoke on a variety of interesting and cutting edge test automation topics.

All of the slides and video recordings are now available on the GTAC site. Photos will be available soon as well.

This was our most popular GTAC to date, with over 1,500 applicants and almost 200 of those for speaking. About 250 people filled our venue to capacity, and the live stream had a peak of about 400 concurrent viewers with 4,700 playbacks during the event. And, there was plenty of interesting Twitter and Google+ activity during the event.

Our goal in hosting GTAC is to make the conference highly relevant and useful for, not only attendees, but the larger test engineering community as a whole. Our post-conference survey shows that we are close to achieving that goal:

If you have any suggestions on how we can improve, please comment on this post.

Thank you to all the speakers, attendees, and online viewers who made this a special event once again. To receive announcements about the next GTAC, subscribe to the Google Testing Blog.

by Anthony Vallone on behalf of the GTAC Committee

The eighth GTAC commences on Tuesday at the Google Kirkland office. You can find the latest details on the conference at our site, including speaker profiles.

If you are watching remotely, we'll soon be updating the live stream page with the stream link and a Google Moderator link for remote Q&A.

If you have been selected to attend or speak, be sure to note the updated parking information. Google visitors will use off-site parking and shuttles.

We look forward to connecting with the greater testing community and sharing new advances and ideas.

by Anthony Vallone on behalf of the GTAC Committee

We have completed selection and confirmation of all speakers and attendees for GTAC 2014. You can find the detailed agenda at:
  developers.google.com/gtac/2014/schedule

Thank you to all who submitted proposals! It was very hard to make selections from so many fantastic submissions.

There was a tremendous amount of interest in GTAC this year with over 1,500 applicants (up from 533 last year) and 194 of those for speaking (up from 88 last year). Unfortunately, our venue only seats 250. However, don’t despair if you did not receive an invitation. Just like last year, anyone can join us via YouTube live streaming. We’ll also be setting up Google Moderator, so remote attendees can get involved in Q&A after each talk. Information about live streaming, Moderator, and other details will be posted on the GTAC site soon and announced here.

Posted by Anthony Vallone on behalf of the GTAC Committee

The deadline to sign up for GTAC 2014 is next Monday, July 28th, 2014. There is a great deal of interest to both attend and speak, and we’ve received many outstanding proposals. However, it’s not too late to add yours for consideration. If you would like to speak or attend, be sure to complete the form by Monday.

We will be making regular updates to our site over the next several weeks, and you can find conference details there:
  developers.google.com/gtac

For those that have already signed up to attend or speak, we will contact you directly in mid August.

Posted by Anthony Vallone on behalf of the GTAC Committee

The application process is now open for presentation proposals and attendance for GTAC (Google Test Automation Conference) (see initial announcement) to be held at the Google Kirkland office (near Seattle, WA) on October 28 - 29th, 2014.

GTAC will be streamed live on YouTube again this year, so even if you can’t attend, you’ll be able to watch the conference from your computer.

Speakers
Presentations are targeted at student, academic, and experienced engineers working on test automation. Full presentations and lightning talks are 45 minutes and 15 minutes respectively. Speakers should be prepared for a question and answer session following their presentation.

Application
For presentation proposals and/or attendance, complete this form. We will be selecting about 300 applicants for the event.

Deadline
The due date for both presentation and attendance applications is July 28, 2014.

Fees
There are no registration fees, and we will send out detailed registration instructions to each invited applicant. Meals will be provided, but speakers and attendees must arrange and pay for their own travel and accommodations.

Update : Our contact email was bouncing - this is now fixed.

Posted by Anthony Vallone on behalf of the GTAC Committee

If you're looking for a place to discuss the latest innovations in test automation, then charge your tablets and pack your gumboots - the eighth GTAC (Google Test Automation Conference) will be held on October 28-29, 2014 at Google Kirkland! The Kirkland office is part of the Seattle/Kirkland campus in beautiful Washington state. This campus forms our third largest engineering office in the USA.

GTAC is a periodic conference hosted by Google, bringing together engineers from industry and academia to discuss advances in test automation and the test engineering computer science field. It’s a great opportunity to present, learn, and challenge modern testing technologies and strategies.

You can browse the presentation abstracts, slides, and videos from last year on the GTAC 2013 page.

Stay tuned to this blog and the GTAC website for application information and opportunities to present at GTAC. Subscribing to this blog is the best way to get notified. We're looking forward to seeing you there!

by Anthony Vallone on behalf of the GTAC Committee

The Google Test Automation Conference (GTAC) was held last week in NYC on April 23rd & 24th. The theme for this year's conference was focused on Mobile and Media. We were fortunate to have a cross section of attendees and presenters from industry and academia. This year’s talks focused on trends we are seeing in industry combined with compelling talks on tools and infrastructure that can have a direct impact on our products. We believe we achieved a conference that was focused for engineers by engineers. GTAC 2013 demonstrated that there is a strong trend toward the emergence of test engineering as a computer science discipline across companies and academia alike.

All of the slides, video recordings, and photos are now available on the GTAC site. Thank you to all the speakers and attendees who made this event spectacular. We are already looking forward to the next GTAC. If you have suggestions for next year’s location or theme, please comment on this post. To receive GTAC updates, subscribe to the Google Testing Blog.

Here are some responses to GTAC 2013:

“My first GTAC, and one of the best conferences of any kind I've ever been to. The talks were consistently great and the chance to interact with so many experts from all over the map was priceless.” - Gareth Bowles, Netflix

“Adding my own thanks as a speaker (and consumer of the material, I learned a lot from the other speakers) -- this was amazingly well run, and had facilities that I've seen many larger conferences not provide. I got everything I wanted from attending and more!” - James Waldrop, Twitter

“This was a wonderful conference. I learned so much in two days and met some great people. Can't wait to get back to Denver and use all this newly acquired knowledge!” - Crystal Preston-Watson, Ping Identity

“GTAC is hands down the smoothest conference/event I've attended. Well done to Google and all involved.” - Alister Scott, ThoughtWorks

“Thanks and compliments for an amazingly brain activity spurring event. I returned very inspired. First day back at work and the first thing I am doing is looking into improving our build automation and speed (1 min is too long. We are not building that much, groovy is dynamic).” - Irina Muchnik, Zynx Health