STARWEST 2026 - Women Who Test Sessions
Friday, September 25
Introduction to Women Who Test
Join Alison Wade as she kicks off Women Who Test at STARWEST 2026. Meet new friends, make valuable networking connections, and prepare to embark upon a day full of enriching experiences for women in the testing field.
Care by Design: Exploring What Happens When the Ways We Have Learned to Survive, Succeed, and Care No Longer Fit the Conditions We Face
In a landscape constantly reshaped by workplace shifts, caregiving demands, and rapid technological disruption, the strategies you once used to survive and succeed may no longer fit the reality you face. Designed specifically for women navigating today’s complex tech environment, 'Care by Design' invites you to step back when old coping mechanisms stop working and shift your focus from asking "what’s next?" to reclaiming "what’s important." Rather than offering unrealistic promises to fix every unchosen circumstance, this transformative session helps you recognize where your genuine care...
Part 1: The Power of Collective Experience
Bring your biggest challenges to this session and tap the wisdom of others. In this immersive session, you will tackle some of the most widely mentioned challenges brought to light from the group. Whether it’s a software testing conundrum, a project setback, a management blocker, a group or team dysfunction or an interpersonal hurdle, all of these can slow our progress and reduce our effectiveness. And when we hunt for options, we all have blind spots and biases that prevent us from thinking out of the box and finding new and different solutions. Typically the best ideas come from...
Part 2: The Power of Synthetic & Collective Intelligence
Now that you’ve tapped into the wisdom of the room, it’s time to supercharge it. In Part Two of this immersive experience, we bridge human experience with the power of modern AI tools to take problem-solving to the next level. While human groups provide deep context, empathy, and lived experience, AI offers rapid pattern recognition, endless iteration, and synthetic perspectives that shatter blind spots even faster.
In this hands-on workshop, you will learn how to transform AI tools from simple search replacements into active, dynamic partners in your brainstorming sessions. Whether...