About

ColdFront is a unique conference that aims to be at the forefront of technology curve by providing inspirational content about tomorrow's challenges and technologies.

Our story

We started ColdFront back in 2014 to flourish the front-end community and to put Copenhagen the global front-end map.

Back in 2014 we had travel to other major european cities such as Amsterdam, London, Berlin, London, New York and San Francisco to be a part of our global front-end community, but with ColdFront we changed that.

ColdFront is a conference for front-end developers who are passionate about building user experiences with the latest and most relevant technologies. Over the past years the term “front-end” has transitioned from meaning building experiences for the web, to be covering a broad span of platforms, devices and runtimes.

The ColdFront name

The name ColdFront expresses the aim to create events that’s on the forefront of the future, and is a mix of the words “cold” as a reference to the cold Scandinavia climate and “front” referring to the front-end disciplin.

Earlier editions: ColdFront 2017, ColdFront 2016, ColdFront 2015, ColdFront 2014

Our principles and manifest

To guide the content for ColdFront we have outlined the following principles that helps us decide what content that is relevant for the conference:

Our format

ColdFront is a single-track conference, and a ColdFront talk is maximum 45 minutes long. After each 2 session block, a 15 min break will follow to allow attendees to stretch their legs.

Why instead of how

We want to hear talks that focuses on the “why” instead of the practical “how”. By this we mean that we would rather hear a talk that provides the reasons and perspective on a given technology or framework, than the “how to” on how to use the technology or framework.

Perspective over tutorials

We want talks that provides perspective, new ways of thinking, and puts today’s landscape into the perspective of tomorrow. If the content can be read in a tutorial, it’s not a ColdFront talk.

Technologies and trends

  • Web platform / browsers / W3C / WHATWG / runtimes
  • Mobile platforms / trends / runtimes
  • React / VueJS / Modern front-end frameworks
  • React Native / NativeScript / Platforms for native apps using web technology
  • CSS / Precompilers / Abstractions for UI styling
  • Animations / ways to bring life to front-end experiences
  • Tooling / productivity / workflows / production learnings / war stories
  • Devices / form factors / IoT / emerging markets
  • Human aspects of software development / management / process
  • Music / arts / creative coding / design

The team

ColdFront is organized by a diverse international team located across 3 cities, in 3 timezones, on 2 continents.

  • Kenneth Auchenberg

    Kenneth is a Program Manager at Microsoft and lives in Seattle, WA, where works on Visual Studio Code. He's a Global Shaper for World Economic Forum, serves on multiple advisory boards, and co-founded ColdFront in 2014.

  • Michael Christiansen

    Joined ColdFront as co-organizer in 2017. Besides he is co-founder of Design Matters focusing on new movements in digital design. Finally he works a lot with membership organizations helping them with the digital transformation.

  • Jessica Tremblay

    Jessica Tremblay is a software designer and front end developer for IBM Design and currently lives in Austin, TX. She is one of the original organizers for FEDucation: a global, internal, front end knowledge sharing program that is part of the ever-growing [email protected] initiative.

Our advisory board

ColdFront is adviced by an Advisory Board consisting of world renowned experts and partners from the leading companies in our industry.

  • Robert Nyman

    Robert is a strong believer in the Open Web, and has been working since 1999 with Front End development. He is currently the Global Lead for Programs & Initiatives, Web Developer Relations, at Google, and loves to travel and meet people!

  • Jessica Lord

    Jessica is a web developer focusing on open source tools to make the web more approachable; she is active in the Node.js and Electron communities. Her project Git-it is one of the top 10 most contributed-to projects on GitHub.

  • Kenneth Rohde Christiansen

    Kenneth is a Web Platform Architect from Denmark working at the Intel Open Source Technology Center. He is a key team member in growing Intel's web involvement.

  • Rachel Nabors

    Rachel Nabors (rachelnabors.com) began telling stories online as a teenager with her award-winning web comics (rachelthegreat.com). Her love of web technologies transformed into a career in front end development, where she has worked with Mozilla, the W3C, and Microsoft to build the web forward.

  • Sune Sloth Simonsen

    I'm currently a Software Engineer at Zendesk where I do front-end development in React, previously I was at One.com building calendar and webmail for thousands of concurrent users. I'm running a couple of open source projects most notably unexpected.js.org.

  • Olga Leus

    A Software Engineer at Zendesk, passionate about various web technologies including React and GraphQL. Previously at Spotify I helped to rewrite the Desktop client architecture and make it a better place for music.

  • Simon Engelbrecht

    Simon is CEO & Founder of SKARP.DK a digital software consulting agency in Copenhagen. 20+ years experience in building user friendly digital products in Denmark and EastAfrica

  • Ulrik Bech Hald

    Android developer and competence lead at Jayway's Copenhagen office. I have a background in embedded and IoT, involved in development of several OEM products. Passionate about reactive programming, open source and tech in general.