Google GDG DevFest 2017
GDG Devfest 2017
Over the weekend I attended GDG DevFest 2017 @ Bangalore, India. I wanted to share key highlights from the event and I believe it will be helpful for many. If you are part of GDG group in your city, give a shout-out in comment.
Preface about Google Developer Group(GDG)
Google Developer Group(also popularly known as GDG) caters for the developers who are interested in Google's developer technology; everything from the Android, Chrome, Google Cloud platforms, Angular etc. GDG conduct technical sessions, hands-on workshops, codelabs and much more. GDG is spread across the world, they are organized in Universities too.
GDG DevFest is a yearly flagship event which is sponsored by Google. They are basically large, community-run developer events happening around the globe focused on community building and learning about Google’s technologies.
GDG DevFest 2017 Bangalore happened on 8th October 2017 at MLR Convention Center, Bangalore. There were more than 800 people in the event.
Topics
There were awesome topics discussed in the event. Starting with how would you build for next billion users, solve for India, building native mobile apps, AI using TensorFlow, Polymer, PWA, Google Cloud Platform, UX and also about investing in cryptocurrencies(this was mindblowing)!
Apps in Moments - NativeScript with Angular
This talk was about building native apps with NativeScript & Angular. Tracy Lee @ladyleet was the speaker of this session. She showcased how easy it is to build a native app with Angular and how NativeScript help in achieving this easily. How easy it was to executing a simple command line to spin up a application. And, we can still write in JavaScript(Angular) to build a mobile experience(native app)!
There was extensive talk about setting up application, folder structure, styling, routing, services, and all the details required to get started. It was a breeze to learn and understand.
Polymer & PWA: Understanding the “why”
This session was from Ashrith @ashrith_kulai who is currently working at Ola cabs, India.
The session was focused on the following,
- Why did Olacab chose Polymer to build PWA(Progressive Web Apps)?
- What was the application architecture? (data and event flows)
- What Optimizations were done on build, network and browser fronts?
- What did we learn while building PWA?
Indeed, it was very informative to learn about Polymer and its capabilities.
TensorFlow - Gateway to the AI first world?
This was the most anticipated talk about TensorFlow. So much was discussed about this topic in Google I/O 2017 as well. This session was from the flamboyant speaker Sujay Vittal. The talk was focused about how TensorFlow is being used across the globe and in various fields.
Few use cases were also showcased, like Reinforcement learning with TensorFlow, Image Recognition, TensorFlow Lite(AI on Mobile) etc. It was a wonderful session.
Building real time data heavy web applications(SaaS)
Siddharth Kshetrapal was as usual at his best delivering a fantastic session on building real time data heavy web applications with real world example. It has come through a lot of experience building web application from ground up. The challenges, techniques, tools were very well summarized. Also discussed, how products evolve as technology evolve over a period of time.
This session was well received by many and many developers can relate to their daily work at their respective organizations.
Cryptocurrencies: Investing in the blockchain
This was exciting and literally blown up every one(in a good way), people were very much interested and enthusiastic about cryptocurrency. Sathish did wonderful job presenting this topic to the audience. Eye opener for early stage developers and college students.
The speaker discussed about the Blockchain, the evolution of BitCoin and what is its value today, other cryptocurrency like ethereum etc. There were other aspects as well which was presented in brilliant way, about ICOs, building a product or offering using Blockchain technology.
Key takeaway: Explore and understand the technology by investing in cryptocurrency. Then, build awesome stuff and thrive!
Progressive Web Apps (PWA)
Toshi Gupta from Flipkart gave a nice introduction to Progressive Web Apps, why we need it and how it is used in Flipkart Lite. Offline experience, caching techniques, JavaScript bundles/chunks, app like experience were also presented in this session.
Tackling scale with Google Cloud Platform
Safwan Erooth is a well known speaker in various forums. He presented the topic of "Tackling scale with Google Cloud Platform". He started with the evolution of websites, how the scaling issues were resolved and about the tools/technology available today to solve real-world real-time scale issues. It was very efficient and showcased various Google products available today. There are many offerings from Google.
Very informative session and learning from others experience is always an effective way of learning.
The power of Google Apps Script
This session was done by Arjun Rao, he is a student at Ramaiah Institute Of Technology, Bangalore. Very informative and inspirational session.
The session had demos that showcase the capabilities of Google Apps Script and how we can leverage apps script to automate seemingly complex tasks with just a few lines of code.
Examples ranging from generating a Google Slides presentation from top ten videos on YouTube for cats with just a few lines of code, to creating personalized calendar invites and track specific email itinerary automatically based on a conference registration form's responses. The demos also showcase how we can inter-op various Google services like slides, docs, forms, and spreadsheets together with Apps Script to create very powerful workflows with minimal effort.
Create success with UX
Masood Nasser is VP, Advanced UX at Human Factors International. This session was "Cherry on the top" of the event. The speaker explained about how important is UX, cleared misconceptions about UX. There was in-depth examples and science behind it. Having a strong foundation of usability and User experience will lead to success. It was great session for students who would like to pursue their career in UX.
Key highlight: UX based on science and not speculation or guess-work is also what will give credibility and lead to a richer fulfilling career.
Lunch !
The lunch was fantastic! Line up of delicious food.
Swags !
Not to forget the exciting swags which were given at the end of the event.
Image source: Photos shared here are taken by me and other friends who attended the event.
A big thanks and appreciation for GDG Bangalore Organiser and Google.
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STOPGood to findout this event. Was an active participant / organizer in few other cities. Need to join the group here to keep things moving.
Glad to know. Google Developer Days is happening in December @ Bangalore. You can plan for it.