We're back for our second event of 2026 at Blue Beck in Macclesfield.

Join us for a series of talks and a chance to meet, mingle and share ideas, with refreshments provided.

Please RSVP at: https://luma.com/0onoej7z

Presentations:

Why Swift is a great language for building modern applications on the backend - Tim Condon

Swift is a relatively new language in the server world but provides a significant number of benefits that makes it ideal for building applications for servers. In this session you'll see how Swift's tenets of Safety, Performance, Ease of Use using modern features along with a goal of making it an ideal language for anywhere in the stack make it the perfect language for backend development.

We'll take a short tour of the language and see how easy it is to write clear, maintainable safe code that scales for large asynchronous applications. We'll discuss the language features that eliminate entire classes of common programming errors and see the capabilities that enable Swift to run on embedded devices, Lambda functions, WASM environments, and Docker containers. Finally we'll discuss Swift's interoperability with other languages such as C, C++ and Java that make it easy to migrate codebases to Swift.

Developers Now Have a Second Brain: Learning to Think With AI - Zahed Heidari

AI tools are often presented as a way to write code faster, but their real value may lie in how they help developers think.

In this talk, I'll share practical examples of using AI as a reasoning partner during everyday development work — debugging complex issues, navigating unfamiliar systems, and structuring technical decisions when evaluating new approaches.

Instead of focusing on tools or prompt techniques, the session explores the mental models and workflows that allow developers to use AI effectively while staying fully in control of their craft.

Agenda:

• 6.00 Arrival
• 6:45 Intro
• Talks (from ~7pm, with break between. running order may vary)
• Outro
• Networking
• 9:00 Close

Food:

Our hosts Blue Beck will be providing complimentary refreshments and catering.

Entry:

Find us on George Street, behind Sunderland St. We are above The Silklife Centre. The entrance is to the right of the Church / Foodbank entrance, marked George Street House. Take the lift or stairs to the Second Floor. Someone will be there to greet you and direct you to the Blue Beck offices.

About the venue:

The talk will be hosted at the Blue Beck office in Macclesfield. The full address is:

Second Floor, George Street House, George Street

Macclesfield SK11 6HS

View on Google Maps

Step free access is available at George Street House with lift access to the Blue Beck offices.

Further information on our venues can be found at macctech.co.uk/venues

Parking:

George Street: 2 Hours free pre-6pm, no restrictions after 6pm.

Nearest Car Park: Sunderland Street Car Park - Map

Further information:

Please follow Macc Tech on Bluesky, Facebook, LinkedIn, Mastodon or X for further updates.

Get in touch via www.macctech.co.uk