Software industry professionals will convene in Colorado Springs this month to learn new ways to improve their craft.

Now in its second year, the four-day dev2next tech conference will offer workshops, panels and keynote speeches for software developers and architects, software development leads, technical managers and other tech professionals. They’ll learn “cutting-edge strategies, tools and essential practices for building powerful applications using the latest trends and good practices,” the event website states, gaining hands-on experience and the opportunity to network with industry leaders.

The conference will run Sept. 29 through Oct. 2 at the Colorado Springs Marriott, 5580 Tech Center Drive.

Its dozens of speakers, panelists and workshop presenters include Neal Ford, director and software architect at global IT consultancy firm Thoughtworks, Inc.; Mark Richards, software architect and founder of DeveloperToArchitect.com, which gives resources and training to aspiring software architects; and dev2next conference co-founder Venkat Subramaniam, also the founder and president of software training and consulting firm Agile Developer Inc. and an adjunct professor at his alma mater, the University of Houston, for nearly 35 years.

More than 200 people from across the U.S. and internationally are expected to attend the event, said Subramaniam, who is organizing the conference with his wife, Kavitha Subramaniam. The couple live in Monument.

“I’ve been speaking at conferences for nearly 25 years now. I travel quite a lot across the world and I get to mingle with software industry experts, so I asked the question: What if we can bring those renowned experts from around the world and give access to the people of Colorado to benefit from this wealth of knowledge?” Subramaniam said.

The couple hosted the inaugural dev2next event last fall in Denver, but moved it Colorado Springs this year to make it more accessible for attendees in the southern part of Colorado, he said. But people have registered for the conference from across the state and the U.S., as well as around the world — about 25% of attendees are traveling from Europe, and others from Australia and South America, he said.

“My journey started as being part of the user groups and the community of software developers. My and Kavitha’s drive really was to (establish) this conference so our community of developers could benefit greatly,” Subramaniam said.

He recalled being a 19-year-old undergraduate student in India and how a chance opportunity to speak briefly with W. Daniel “Danny” Hillis changed his life. Hillis co-founded the now-defunct Thinking Machines Corp. in 1983. It was a supercomputer manufacturer and artificial intelligence company.

“I was the 19-year-old who could barely speak English,” Subramaniam said. “At 19, I did not realize I can actually stand in front of a professional and talk to them about computer science. You can imagine the confidence it gave me.”

Encouraged by that experience, Subramaniam earned a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Houston and became a professor.

“As parents ourselves, we’re keenly interested in building the next generation,” he said. “If I can bring students that same opportunity — imagine a student standing in front of Neal Ford or Mark Richards, who are experts in computer architecture, and that they’re talking to Neal or Mark and they’re 19 years old. What a difference that can make (in their futures).”

To help foster their burgeoning careers, the Subramaniams are giving away up to 25 free conference registrations for full-time students attending a college or university. Students can enter the drawing for complimentary event registration online at dev2next.com/student.

Tickets are on sale on the conference website, dev2next.com/register. Pricing will increase after Friday. Event registration ends Sept. 29. Group discounts are available. Additional discount codes are available on the conference Twitter page at @dev2next.

For more information about the event, including a full schedule and list of speakers, visit dev2next.com.