Saying goodbye to a year that brought countless lessons and new challenges

The end of the year is here, the perfect time to look back at what we’ve achieved, which motivates us to keep helping to make high quality software that improves people’s daily lives. We are confident that a year full of opportunities and new knowledge awaits us. 

But before we get there, let’s review some of our favorite moments of the year within the Abstracta community!

Our Highlights of 2020

Sharing Knowledge

One of our key drivers at Abstracta is to share what we learn and give back to the community and in that way, help more people to grow in their testing careers as well. Despite the physical distancing measures, we were still able to bring many people together. Voices were heard and experiences were shared weekly via webinars, online meetups (our Meetup community has over 1,000 members), virtual conferences, blog articles, and more.

Best Blog Articles of 2020

• How to Keep Testers Motivated – Federico Toledo summarizes his Agile Testing Days Talk
• How to Test a Mobile App – A Beginner’s Guide – Pia Tobar breaks down everything to consider before testing a mobile app
• What is a Software Tester? – We asked 100 testers… hear what they said!
• Improve Your Testing Strategy – A Software Testing Maturity Model – Check out this framework to help improve your processes
• Software Testing Tools We’re Watching Out for in 2020 – Did you get a chance to try these new tools?

Best Webinars of 2020

• 2020 Test Automation Survey: What Does the Data Tell Us? – Testim invited Federico Toledo to discuss what teams are telling us about their test automation today

• Behavior-Driven Development and Continuous Delivery – Lisa Crispin shares how to align the two for better outcomes

• Finding the Right Strategy for Your Test Automation – Chris Schotanus shares with us what teams teams should take into consideration before embarking on their test automation journey

New Office Spaces

Before the pandemic, we had planned to move into new office spaces and fortunately, we didn’t have to put those plans on hold. Following all the local safety measures, we were able to move into a larger office at a new location in Montevideo and also open a mobile testing center in Juan Lacaze, Uruguay. Today, Abstractans are welcome to work from our offices or work from home as often as they like (local health and safety measures permitting).

A few days ago in our monthly company meeting, we presented everyone our new office after 3 months of working remotely! Now onto a hybrid remote model! ❤️ #welcomehome #remotework pic.twitter.com/dsB0OPDy87

— Abstracta (@AbstractaUS) July 10, 2020

Not One, But Two New Podcasts

In 2020, we supported two Abstractans, Federico Toledo and Vera Babat, as they launched their own podcasts. Between the two shows, there’s something for everyone as the first, Quality Sense, focuses on technical or “hard” skills, and the other, named, The Everything Else, focuses on, well… everything else (soft skills!).

Quality Sense

Since the first episode aired back in April, host, Federico Toledo, has shared 23 episodes in two seasons featuring 20 incredible guests from Michael Bolton to Janet Gregory. Listen to the show if you’d like to learn about different types and perspectives on testing! For example, in one episode, Federico sits down with Ian Goddard to talk about how to test live concerts in virtual reality and in another, Julio de Lima shares his findings on how you can use machine learning to better analyze performance test results.

Check out some of the most popular episodes:

The Everything Else

Hosted by Abstracta’s Chief People Officer, Vera Babat, and Director of Inc. English Services, Merecedes Remedi, The Everything Else centers around fun and thoughtful conversations about the ways we can improve our lives through better communication, time management, creativity skills and more. The two ladies explore a different topic in each episode that’s relevant to our everyday lives that maybe we hadn’t given much thought to before. On top of these conversations, each episode is followed by a bonus episode with a challenge you can set out to accomplish in order to level up in that certain aspect of your life.

Check out some of the most popular episodes:

New Free Testing Training Program in Chile

This year, Fundación Emplea and Abstracta Chile started the first edition of the Testing Hub Program, which offers professional training online at no cost. The first edition welcomed 40 students from Chile, Venezuela, Argentina, Haiti and Peru who all reside in the north, central and southern regions of Chile.

The program aims to provide young people between 18 and 29 years the knowledge and skills necessary to perform as a software tester in order to start a career related to information technology. One of the priorities of the Emplea Foundation is to empower and train people in skills required by employers. Therefore, this training in functional software testing seeks to prepare young people for the beginning of their career in the IT world. It also aims to help graduates quickly access professional opportunities in a high growth area within technology, such as testing and software quality.

One of the year’s best initiatives, the@AbstractaChile team and its strategic partners have channeled our previous experiences (in founding #AbstractaAcademy & @reconverTIteUY) to generate an impact in the local community, providing free professional test training! 📚 👩‍💻 https://t.co/d7avHZCNIY

— Abstracta (@AbstractaUS) December 14, 2020

Exciting New Client Projects

Last but not least, we have a lot to be grateful for this year because not only did we uphold our mission to keep all of our Abstracta Family members together during this unprecedented pandemic, but we also worked hard to forge new partnerships with companies that are doing some very exciting work!

We’re very thankful for our new partnership with Canada-based deep learning computer vision AI platform, wrnch, as well as international next-generation collective intelligence platform, Keeeb, Inc.

Something that brings us a lot of pride is when someone who had worked with us in a past partnership joins a new company and advocates to work with us again. Such was the case when Kamal Kharrat joined the team at AccuV and Lauren Klymshyn took on a new role at Indi. We are extremely appreciative of you both for your trust!

Cheers to 2021

Of course, we wouldn’t be Abstracta without the amazing people and partners that have stayed with us over the years and have trusted us to help keep quality a priority!

We hope everyone has a happy and safe holiday weekend! Cheers to co-creating more opportunities, quality teams, processes, and software in 2021!