Generative AI didn’t make us worse at problem-solving, it made us faster at exposing a habit we already have: jumping to solutions before understanding the problem.

By making answers instant and confident, it is amplifying shallow, short-term fixes that feel productive but simply hide or move problems elsewhere, creating an efficient inefficiency.

This talk engages the audience by challenging them to critically assess AI-generated content and introduces the simple practice of pausing to ask, “What problem are we actually solving?”, and how this helps uncover the root causes of underlying system issues. You’ll learn how slowing down briefly can prevent brittle solutions and lead to better outcomes, even in high-pressure environments.

• Target Audience: Architects, Engineering Managers, Product Managers, Software Engineers, and Tech Leaders.

• Languages Available: English, Portuguese

• Formats:

  • Ignite Session - 5 minutes

  • Breakout Session - 30 minutes

Do you want me to present this talk at your event? Email me at marceloancelmo@gmail.com

Where this talk has been presented

2026-09-28 Presented at Cloud Native Days Austria

• Format: Breakout Session - 30 minutes

• Location: Vienna, Austria

• Language: English

• Resources: Cloud Native Days Austria 2026 Photos • Video recording coming soon

2026-05-21 Presented at DevOpsDays Geneva

• Format: Ignite Session - 5 Minutes

• Location: Geneva, Switzerland

• Language: English

• Resources: Video recording and event photos coming soon

Every single day, modern organizations build a massive mountain of information; then immediately drop the context out of the window.

We hoard data, but lose the human reasoning behind it. The critical decisions, the hard-earned experiences, and the contextual "why" remain trapped in people's heads, isolated in digital silos, buried in forgotten repositories, or permanently lost when a project ends or someone leaves. Because this collective intelligence is so severely fragmented, knowledge vanishes faster than organizations can remember it.

The problem isn’t collecting information. The problem is converting it into knowledge that people can actually understand and reuse. We are scaling our mistakes far faster than we scale our insights. Without meaning to, we have engineered an incredibly efficient Forgetting Machine.

It will help them identify where knowledge is lost, why people and projects take it with them, and what it takes to turn information into knowledge, and knowledge into wisdom, the ultimate source of competitive advantage.

This session is a call to action against that systemic amnesia. It reframes knowledge management as strategic infrastructure and replaces the question "How do we store what we know?" with "How do we make the organization remember what it has learned?". You will leave knowing how to dismantle the Forgetting Machine and what to capture beyond documents (the experience, decisions, outcomes and learnings) to turn information into knowledge, and knowledge into wisdom, the ultimate source of competitive advantage.

• Target Audience: CTOs, CIOs, Chief Architects, Solution Architects, Engineering Managers, Product Managers, and Technology Leaders.

• Languages Available: English, Portuguese

• Formats:

  • Keynote — 45 minutes

  • Breakout Session — 30 minutes

Want this talk at your event? Email me at marceloancelmo@gmail.com

Where this talk has been presented

2026-09-09 Presented at KPMG Group Digital Technology Days

• Format: Breakout Session — 30 minutes

• Location: Zurich, Switzerland

• Language: English

• Resources:

Want this talk at your event? Email me at marceloancelmo@gmail.com

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Mentoring is, by far, the most amazing learning experience that someone can have in their life!

Mentoring is a special moment where you truly, deeply, connect to others. It is the moment when you can share your passion, your hopes, your objectives, your dreams, and your doubts. It is a moment when you can guide, or be guided, through a process where the only objective is that, in the end, both Mentor and Mentee find themselves one level above in their lives, either from a professional or a personal perspective.

Throughout my career, I’ve had amazing opportunities to work with great young professionals, and had the pleasure and honor of being their mentor, helping and guiding them through the “Ways of the Force”. Being a mentor is always an amazing experience for me, and made me realize that we can make a huge, positive impact on someone’s career and life. Until today, doing this type of work is an addiction and a pleasure to me, something that I am keen to do everywhere I go, whenever I can.

But this is not the whole story!

At the same time, I had the opportunity to work with bright minds, seasoned professionals, and people that earned my admiration and my respect, from whom I was able to learn a lot. People that I am proud to say that I was a mentee under. By today, I still approach the ones who are role models for me, professionals who have my admiration and respect, and I ask them to be my Mentor. I ask them to guide me, to share with me their knowledge, to share with me a piece of advice. I ask them to accept me as their humble mentee.

Every project that I join, every team that I am part of, every community that I am a member of, and every conference and meetup that I attend, I try to help people that come to ask for my opinion, that asks for my guidance. I get involved with them and learn a lot in the process. Also, I seek the ones who know about the subjects and topics that I am interested in. I follow their guidance and advice and I give back to them my commitment.

All of them, Mentors and Mentees, earn from me a deep sense of respect and recognition.

You can rest assured that right now, there are a lot of people around you that have a lot of knowledge, and that are willing to share it. People who are more than pleased to share their passion. And at the same time, a lot of people around you are seeking guidance, seeking for help. Move on and give them a chance, ask what they know about, ask for some guidance, offer help and don’t be shy to ask for some help as well.

I joined Meet a Mentor, which is an amazing initiative being led by Barry Cranford, and that started as a discussion on the London Java Community Group mailing list. The main objective of this community is to provide a platform to connect Mentors and Mentees, and all of this for free!

My main objective in joining Meet a Mentor is to find a mentor for myself. At the same time, it is an amazing opportunity for me to help other professionals who want to share their passion and their dreams, and that is asking for help and guidance.

I invite all of you to join Meet a Mentor today, and I ask you to be ready to help and to be helped. No matter how crazy, awesome or difficult your dreams and objectives seem to be. There is someone there that can help you, or maybe there is someone there that needs your help.

And when you’re there, I will be more than happy to say “Hi!” to you.