Speaker Bio
A technologist interested in using innovation to help people achieve more, Sam J Watkins joined Network Services Security in July 2022, part of BT’s technology units. This is the latest part of their work in BT Group Plc since 1997, where they have been involved in Semantic Web Research including advanced knowledge sharing techniques and technologies. These days, Sam is empowering developers and solutions teams in delivering secure solutions from day 1 (aka shift-left) in fully transparent yet automated pipelines.
Being Sam passionate about using technology to help people realise their goals has helped them be recognised as an Accomplished Engineer in BT’s Technical Fellowship, develop decision networks for completely automating delivery for a variety of systems and technologies, and be the technical lead in one of BT’s security transformation programmes.
Outside of their day-to-day duties, Sam is a Lead in BT’s Able 2 programme and has been recognised in BT as a champion for disabled colleagues in the workplace, looking to remove barriers to achieving everyone’s potential. They are a committee member across the IT and Telecoms Industry in Prospect Union.
Fun Fact: Diagnosed with type 1 diabetes when I was four years old, I got the chance to ride a bicycle 100 miles in the Prudential Ride London 2019 for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Fund. Having had a major accident a couple of years before when they had 6 fractures in their face, they were terrified about being too scared to do the ride, so Sam only asked for sponsorship money 5 weeks before the ride. Sam still managed to raise over £400 pounds from friends who had more faith in Sam than they had!
