News Archive / Community

One event, over 500 people, countless good ideas and probably the biggest video call in TNG history: Our motto for this year's summer retreat last Friday was "Show some love". As always, there was a lot of discussion and the sense of community at TNG was further strengthened by the exchanges in virtual coffee breaks and during joint leisure activities. We are proud of our biggest virtual retreat so far and thank the organization and tech team for a seamless event.

We're off into the big, wide world: we are becoming even more international!

With colleagues living in Bulgaria, Hungary, Austria and Australia, on the 1st of July, we will welcome our first TNG employee based in Switzerland.

We are looking forward to many lines of code (in "Schwyzerdütsch") and hopefully delicious fondue in the coming weeks and months.

Are you interested in joining us as a software consultant? Then apply here: https://tngtech.jobs.personio.de/

The latest issue of "t3n" magazine features the article "Bewegte Buttons" (Animated buttons) by one of our TNG colleagues. It should be fun to use websites and so UX/UI is becoming increasingly important. Thanks to CSS transitions and animations, fluid effects are now possible, even without JavaScript. The article explains how these technologies work in the browser and where developers should be careful of pitfalls.

Digital formats have never been more important than during the pandemic. Our employees were able to continue to network, educate themselves and share their knowledge via virtual lectures and workshops. At the beginning of the year, two of our colleagues gave two guest lectures, including a workshop, as part of a computer science class at the Technical University of Munich to show the students the practical application of Haskell in everyday work. On this occasion, TNG also awarded a prize to the best students of the semester for a special project. In the spring, our staff gave no less than three talks or presented showcases at the OOP 2021 conference, including one on "Brain Computer Interfaces Demystified - Can Thoughts Take Control?". The TNG talk "Deepfakes 2.0 - How neural networks are changing our world" is much loved and has been given at several conferences, such as CodeDays and JavaLand 2021, since the beginning of the year alone. The topic of deepfakes has also been featured several times on television, including Galileo and Leschs Kosmos.

Learning by doing - that's the motto of our annual winter retreat. In small groups, we code, tinker, ponder and discuss - the topics are as diverse as our colleagues.

At this year's retreat last Friday, March 19, exciting topics such as "Smart Home with Home Assistant", "Self-built video chat - how hard can it be?" or "Quantum Computing with Qiskit" were on the agenda. Sounds exciting? In the next weeks you will find project reports on our Linkedin page.

Even though we were not able to celebrate and feast together in a hotel in the mountains this year, our colleagues were of course still taken care of. Each of them received a surprise snack box, delivered to their door, which they could open and enjoy throughout the day at their leisure.

We also didn't forget to have fun! In the evening there was a wide selection of activities including painting, model building, a cooking class, and much more.

At the Big Techday 2019, the journalist Josh Dean spoke about the secret "Azorian" mission from 1974. The CIA wanted to salvage the sunken Russian submarine "K-129" with the "Glomar Explorer", a ship specially designed for this purpose. All was planned and executed in secret, without the knowledge of the Soviet Union. Even though the mission was only partially successful, as the submarine broke during the recovery, the Explorer was a technical marvel. However, a functioning model has never been built, as far as we know.

Challenge accepted: TNG contacted Pawel Kmieć a.k.a. "Sariel", a highly creative Lego model builder, who'd already presented his inventions and design work at the BTD 2017. We brought the idea, budget and enthusiasm, and Sariel took on the task. His work in progress was shown at the BTD 2020 and since then, completed - Thanks, Pawel!

The model, which is three meters long and not only looks extreme, also swims in real life and is able to grab a model submarine with its gripping device. So while we hope for the Corona virus to be pushed back by vaccines, our big model is also patiently waiting in our office for the summer we are all longing for - and a swimming pool...

Since 2007 TNG has organised the Big Techday: an annual science and technology conference with a focus on IT. There will definitely be a Big Techday in 2021 as well. But it will be postponed from May to September 2021, so that there is a better chance of it - at least partly - taking place in person. In any case, TNG is determined to make it a fantastic event with many diverse and fascinating talks.

Puzzle Advent calendars are all the rage - and so is the Advent of Code, an Advent calendar with small algorithmic puzzles. A number of colleagues use the daily challenges as finger exercises or to learn a new programming language. We even have an internal leaderboard that shows who was the first to find the correct solutions. So it is only natural that TNG help support the Advent of Code as a sponsor. Eric Wastl, the brains behind the Advent calendar, was a speaker at our Big Techday 2019. Have you cracked all the puzzles yet?

...we celebrate the Christmas season together with good food. In addition to a big Christmas party, there is traditionally a japanese themed Techday with delicious sushi and the board game "Go". Like so many things this year, we have also moved these traditions to the virtual world. On December 4th we celebrated the first virtual Christmas Techday and spared no effort: Sushi or Bavarian snacks were delivered to all TNG colleagues for a virtual lunch together. Afterwards there was a holiday speech by our partners. The traditional "Go lecture" with the opportunity to try your hand at the game was also a must this year. To round off the event, there were many leisure activities in the evening. Our event location was once again our Virtual Office - this time in a festive design. The different activities ranged from a virtual Art Night, to baking cookies and various tastings.

Even in these difficult times the TNG employees gave everything and made the most of the current situation by using virtual formats for lectures and events. Two of our colleagues presented "Deepfakes 2.0 – How neural networks change the world" at various conferences, such as the Java Forum Stuttgart, as well as on the TV program WDR reporter. In summer the JungChemikerForum was pleased to host TNG for the lecture "Artificial Intelligence in Chemistry". At the beginning of autumn we topped it off and were not only part of the EnterJS but also of the Developer Week, one of the largest independent developer conferences in Europe, with the lecture "Automated Testing of an Angular Application".