500+ Partners, Customers & Users at 2017 EMEA PUG Challenge

We joined hundreds of our partners, customers and users at the user-organized EMEA PUG Challenge to engage with them on the latest in Progress technology.

Last week, over 500 Progress partners, customers and users across EMEA traveled to Prague, Czech Republic, to attend our annual user-organized conference, the EMEA PUG Challenge. The event offered three days of hands-on workshops and discussions about Progress’ latest technology advancements and best practices in application development and database administration. It was also a great opportunity for networking and some entertainment.

The conference hit the ground running with workshops and breakout sessions where attendees learned about the new Progress Kendo UI Builder 2.0, the latest Progress Application Server for OpenEdge, and more. The day ended with a meet and greet reception that involved fun photos at the social media booth, food and great discussions about the day and everything that has yet to come.

EMEA PUG Challenge’s second day began with an exciting general session with Progress executives. Our CEO Yogesh Gupta, John Ainsworth, SVP, Core Products, and Mark Armstrong, VP and Managing Director for International Operations (EMEA and APJ), talked about our cognitive strategy, core products as well as recent product news. Yogesh focused on what to expect for the future of our cognitive apps strategy and why now is the best time to start focusing on AR, VR and conversational UX. He and the other executives and colleagues were happy to engage with our vibrant partner and customer community throughout the event and have fun with it.

The session ended with Roy Ellis, AKA Elvis, who sang his own version of “Can’t Help Falling In Love” to introduce the new OpenEdge 11.7 which was announced during the conference.

After a lively morning of Progress news and singing, attendees jumped back into their breakout sessions. Brian Bowman and Rob Straight presented the OpenEdge Roadmap and Miguel Saez and Julian Steiner showed how to build mobile native applications using OpenEdge. John Ainsworth and Dion Picco offered best practices to understanding the hidden costs of legacy applications. On Thursday night, attendees and Progress representatives got together at the Žofín Palace for an evening filled with live music, great food and games which included some friendly competition.

The third day of the conference included final breakout sessions on cognitive application development with DataRPM, details about the OpenEdge and Kinvey integration, the future of OpenEdge through 2020 and many more.

This year’s EMEA PUG Challenge was a great experience and definitely a not-to-miss event. We are already looking forward to next year’s EMEA PUG Challenge in Dublin!

For more details on this year’s EMEA PUG Challenge, visit the event’s website here. To see photos and updates from the event, check out the hashtag #PUGChallenge on Twitter.