Four of the most well-known System i experts and educators have banded together to create a new consortium of talent, dubbed System i Developer, which has become their foundation for launching a new educational conference, the RPG & DB2 Summit.

The consortium, made up of Jon Paris, Susan Gantner, Paul Tuohy, and Skip Marchesani, is dedicated — as you might have guessed — to delivering RPG- and DB2-specific training and educational forums.

The group designed the RPG & DB2 Summit to help RPG and DB2 developers learn about the latest innovations in RPG and DB2 technologies as well as focus on developing skills in the essential areas they need to excel in their daily work.

"The standard System i events continue to dilute RPG and DB2 topics with increasing coverage of system administration, Domino, Java, and other subject matter," says Paris. "Several of us felt that the RPG and DB2 developers — the people responsible for the majority of mission-critical System i applications — were getting lost in the shuffle. We decided to do something about it."

The consortium's first conference is scheduled for March 20-22, 2007, at the Palace Station Hotel in Las Vegas. Its format combines a rigorous RPG and DB2 curriculum with a focus on practical skills that can be immediately applied to a developer's daily work. The conference will also feature accessible instructors and plenty of opportunities to network with peers and other members of the System i community. The Summit agenda includes four simultaneous educational tracks — three with an RPG focus and one purely devoted to DB2 and SQL topics — as well as two intensive half-day HeadStart Workshops, "All You Need to Know About SQL in 4 Hours" and "Embracing RPG IV and ILE."

In addition to the four consortium founders, Scott Klement, IBM's George Farr, Shantan Kethireddy, and Tom McKinley will also deliver sessions.

Early Bird registration discounts are available online through February 10, 2007. For more information, check out http://www.rpgsummit.com.