Tech Events in Leuven

Ontdek de vernieuwde SolarGlider, de zonnefiets die slechts de hélft verbruikt van een gewone speed pedelec.

Raf Van Hulle bouwde, samen met Het Fietslab, een nieuwe, extreem efficiënte zonnefiets. De vernieuwde SolarGlider verbruikt slechts de hélft van een gewone speed pedelec en zit vol innovaties. Om deze machine aan de ultieme test te onderwerpen, reed Raf er in 2025 mee naar de Sahara en terug.

Schrijf je in en kom op donderdag 7 mei (20.00 uur) de techniek achter deze grensverleggende zonnefiets ontdekken terwijl je meereist langs eindeloze landschappen, steile geitenpadjes en bijzondere ontmoetingen.

Datum: donderdag 7 mei
Uur: 20.00 uur (einde voorzien rond 21.30 uur)
Locatie: Sint-Maartenstraat 20a, Leuven
Prijs: gratis toegang

Inschrijvingen: https://www.fietslab.be/talk-solarglider-rafvanhulle

Come and join your fellow peers to have a good time practicing writing code to get better at writing code in your real jobs.

We’ll start off with koffiekoeken and form pairs to do the Game of Life Code Kata.
After 45 minutes we’ll delete all our code and talk about new insights you’ve gained.
Then we’ll pair up with new people and do it all over again but with new constraints applied, like not using conditional expressions, or committing code on green within 2 minutes.

At some point we’ll break for lunch and we’ll figure something out for dinner too.

What to bring?

This event is very hands-on and it’s always better to come prepared.
Bring your laptop (and peripherals if this helps you code better).
Make sure you’ve installed GIT, and some programming languages you like.
Here are some kickstarting code repositories you can already clone to see if they are usable for you on your machine:
https://github.com/SoftwareSandbox/coderetreat-kotlin
https://github.com/SoftwareSandbox/coderetreat-java17
https://github.com/SoftwareSandbox/coderetreat-elm
https://github.com/TimmyGilissen/coderetreat-dotnetcore

Schedule

08:30 Welcome with koffiekoeken
09:00 Kick-off, facilitated by Vincent Verhoeven and Tim Schraepen
09:30 First kata
12:30 Lunch break
13:30 More kata’s
17:30 Closing

Is this event for me?

If one or more of these apply to you, I’d say you’ll have a good time and learn something new:

• You’re a student and want to learn from people that code for a living
• You want to improve your coding skills
• You want to learn how to improve your AI context/harness engineering via software crafting skills
• You’ve never done Test Driven Development before
• You’re experienced and want to pair with somebody outside of your team
• You’re very experienced and want to help your peers grow their coding skills

Practical Info

Our host of the day is Unlockd and along with sponsoring the food and drinks, they’ve lent their office space (desks, monitors, meeting rooms, …) to help you become a better software developer.

Unlockd is an agency specialised in building (mobile) apps for any screen. They focus on collaboration with clients who appreciate creating value through small iterations. They do this for mobile, web, desktop and embedded devices. In small teams they focus on app development but include all involved 'edges' like back-end/middle layers, embedded/BLE interfaces, design, dev ops, app store publishing and optimisation, production monitoring, etc.
They've build apps for Hubo, Standaard Uitgeverij (Strips), Lava (fruite & vegetable auctions), Classified Cycling and many more.

Dive into the future of coding with tips to keep your software safe in the wild world of GenAI.

Generative AI is rapidly reshaping the way software is engineered. Code assistants, chat‑driven development tools and agentic AI systems are becoming part of everyday workflows, promising higher productivity and faster delivery. At the same time, organizations face new challenges around security, maintainability and trust.

With the launch of the COOCK+ project CODEGUARD, we bring together the Flemish software and cybersecurity industry to explore the technology, the risks, and how AI‑based code assistants can be adopted safely and responsibly.

The CODEGUARD project is jointly organised by KU Leuven DistriNet and the VUB Software Languages Lab. Both teams have a long tradition of collaboration in software engineering, programming languages and cybersecurity, and they combine complementary expertise in secure systems, software quality and AI‑driven development. By working together as an inter‑university consortium, the project places strong emphasis on transferring knowledge to the Flemish software industry.

We will explore the current landscape of AI‑based coding assistants, discuss their advantages and risks, and discuss practical approaches to adopt these technologies safely within professional software development workflows.

Location

The kick‑off event will take place in the academic centre of Leuven: Campus Group T, Vesaliusstraat 13, 3000 Leuven. Parking is available at Campus Group T, Parking Servotte, or Ladeuze.

Agenda:

Introduction to LLM**‑**Based Code Assistants (Bert Lagaisse, KU Leuven)
We look at the evolution of code assistants, from early autocomplete techniques to modern LLM‑powered agents. The session highlights their strengths, their influence on the development workflow, and why they are becoming central in contemporary software engineering.

Code Smells in AI**‑**Supported Workflows (Coen De Roover, VUB)
This talk addresses how AI-driven suggestions shape code quality. It discusses typical structural and stylistic issues that can arise when developers rely on AI, and reflects on their impact on long‑term maintainability.

Security Risks: Myths and Scientific Evidence (Bert Lagaisse, KU Leuven)
This session distinguishes between common fears, misconceptions and rumours about AI‑generated code on one hand, and validated scientific findings on the other. It provides a clear picture of what is actually known about vulnerabilities introduced by current tools.

Security Quality: Findings From Our Empirical Studies (Coen De Roover, VUB)
Coen presents research results on the security characteristics of AI‑generated code, illustrating how different assistants behave in realistic tasks and what patterns of weaknesses tend to occur.

Future Planning of the CODEGUARD Project
We conclude with an overview of the project’s next steps, upcoming workshops and the role of participating companies.

Project website:

https://codeguardproject.github.io/

Organisers

Bert Lagaisse — KU Leuven, DistriNet - Group T
Coen De Roover — VUB, Software Languages Lab

It's time for the last meetup of the 2025-2026 academic year. Three interesting sessions that we will unveil in the coming weeks.

19:00 – Doors Open

19:30 – Talks
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21:00 – Networking & Drinks
STUKcafé, Naamsestraat 96, 3000 Leuven

Interested in speaking at a future edition?
Submit your proposal here: https://sessionize.com/data-science-leuven
Or reach out to one of the organizers.

For those unfamiliar with LeanCoffee: it's a moderated discussion format where we talk about the topics that get voted on by the participants. This makes for varying topics.
Overall, Lean Coffee provides a flexible and democratic way for groups to engage in meaningful conversation.

We try to start at 19:30 with an intro round and start gathering topics you want to talk about straight after. Coming late is ok, but just know that you typically won't have a say in what gets talked about.

When you come for the first time, you’ll usually find the host, Nicky, there early, with a Lean Coffee sign on the table — and often in the company of two dogs.