This is a talk that I have been privileged to see some early drafts of its development. I’ve been eagerly awaiting the finished product. Nimisha Asthagiri joins Scott Davis to lay out the vision of Solid and Pods. It is a delightfully protopian vision, and one that is eminently in reach.

In this talk, Nimisha and Scott explore Tim Berners-Lee’s new vision for the Web – Solid and Pods – where user data is “at the beck and call of the users themselves… a future in which [web] programs work for you”. This is an alternative path where privacy and resiliency are at the heart of our system architectures. A path where the web’s pendulum swings back to decentralization. A path that leads to a fundamentally user-centric tech ecosystem.

Scott Davis is a Principal Engineer with ThoughtWorks, where he focuses on leading-edge / innovative / emerging / non-traditional aspects of web development. This includes serverless web apps, mobile web apps (Responsive PWAs), HTML5-based SmartTV apps, Conversational UIs (like Siri and Alexa), and using web technologies to build IoT solutions.

Scott founded ThirstyHead.com, a Denver-based training and software development consultancy, in 2006. Scott co-founded the HTML5 Denver User Group in 2011.

Scott has been writing about web development for over 10 years. His books include “Getting Started with Grails”, “Groovy Recipes”, “GIS for Web Developers”, “The Google Maps API: Adding Where to Your Web Applications”, and “JBoss at Work”. Scott is also the author of several popular article series at IBM developerWorks, including “Mastering MEAN”, “Mastering Grails”, and “Practically Groovy”. His videos include “Architecture of the MEAN Stack”, “Responsive Mobile Architecture”, and “On the Road to Angular 2”.

Nimisha is an experienced technologist who values innovations that result from the amplification of diverse voices and the synergism of collective strength to develop collaborative solutions to the challenges of today and those of the future. This has led me to a path of inclusive and compassionate leadership.