Uploaded March 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
#VoxxedDaysCERN26
AI has become part of our everyday lives but we often forget one of its earliest and most fascinating uses: creating an opponent to play games with.
We’ve seen it in chess, Go, and countless video games, where AI opponents follow complex strategies or fixed rule sets. But who says you need PyTorch or TensorFlow to do it? Sometimes, the good old Java is all you need.
In this talk, I’ll share how I built a Deep Q-Network (DQN) in Java to teach an AI to play the board game Azul. I’ll cover environment design, state encoding, reward shaping, and training strategies.
#VoxxedDaysCERN26
AI has become part of our everyday lives but we often forget one of its earliest and most fascinating uses: creating an opponent to play games with.
We’ve seen it in chess, Go, and countless video games, where AI opponents follow complex strategies or fixed rule sets. But who says you need PyTorch or TensorFlow to do it? Sometimes, the good old Java is all you need.
In this talk, I’ll share how I built a Deep Q-Network (DQN) in Java to teach an AI to play the board game Azul. I’ll cover environment design, state encoding, reward shaping, and training strategies.
![[VDBUH2026] Sander Hoogendoorn - Keynote: Seven Habits of a (Mostly) Successful Team](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/8pDCcKqbwB4/mqdefault.jpg "[VDBUH2026] Sander Hoogendoorn - Keynote: Seven Habits of a (Mostly) Successful Team
After four years of building, breaking, and learning at iBOOD, we’ve discovered what makes a development team truly successful. No frameworks, no dogma—just seven practical habits that help teams ship great software, stay motivated, and keep improving.
This talk is based on real experiences, not theory, nor agile BS. We’ll dive into:
Prioritizing Pragmatically Balancing business needs, technical debt, and innovation.
Killing Complexity Keeping architecture, code, and processes simple, even as you scale.
Owning the Work Why autonomy beats process, and how teams can take real ownership.
Communicating Relentlessly Why constant, transparent communication makes everything smoother.
Building Microteams Why smaller, focused teams move faster and collaborate better.
Delivering Continuously Making small, frequent releases a habit (without the chaos).
Having Fun Because happy teams build better software. An afterthought about purpose, mastery, and autonomy.
I’ll share stories from the trenches—what worked, what failed, and what we’d never do again. If you’ve ever wondered how to build a team that doesn’t just survive but thrives, this talk will give you concrete ideas to take back to your team.")
