In the spirit of continuous learning all your life the GDG Mauritius organised their first full day conference. It is called a DevFest and is fully supported by Google Developers and the Google Developers Group programs. We teamed up with the Developer Students Club (DSC) at the African Leadership Campus to offer multiple tracks of technical presentations and workshops/codelabs to interested attendees.
What is DevFest?
GDG DevFests are large, community-run events that can offer speaker sessions across multiple product areas, all-day hack-a-thons, codelabs, and more.
That statement is literally taken from the official website at https://devfest.withgoogle.com/ and as GDG Mauritius we are glad to be one of the many hosts around the globe.
A few statistics of DevFest Mauritius
Being the GDG Mauritius' first ever DevFest we are really happy about the outcome of the event and would like to share a few figures with you.
- 20 Sessions (2 workshops/codelabs)
- 15 Speakers (1 Female)
- 110 Attendees (30 Females)
- Over 500 pictures in our Photos album
Some snapshots below which can hardly carry the excitement of attendees at DevFest. Please check out the album on Photos, place your Likes and leave a comment or two for us. And in case that you were part of DevFest Mauritius please upload your own pictures and videos to the album. Much appreciated!
What was going on at DevFest?
Of course, there had been technical talks on various topics. Let me give you a brief summary of what has been addressed:
- Angular - lots of Angular actually
- Flutter in all variations
- Vue.js
- Progressive Web Apps (PWAs)
- Google APIs and Google Local Guides
- Kubernetes
- Digital Accessibility
- Tips & tricks on Searchability and gRPC communication
The details of the schedule are available in a previous article called DevFest Mauritius - Agenda.
Surely, we are going to elaborate more on those topics during the upcoming months. Attendees had way more questions to answer than time was available for some speakers to address each and every one.
An empty stomach doesn't like to study...
We had an absolutely tasty and rich buffet of dishes - veg and non-veg -, great variety of salads and a selection of juices provided by the canteen of the African Leadership Campus.
We noticed that there were second rounds...
A Big Win for GDG Mauritius as a community
We were able to extend our reach into new areas and to attract new interested parties to come and attend the sessions. Particularly we worked together with the DSC ALU which helped us with the formal aspects of the event, like registration desk, badges, hand out of t-shirts and guiding attendees in general. Also, we are happy to have reached approx. 25% female participation (attendees) but are worried about our single female presenter who did an amazing job - both her talk and her workshop were well-received. Overall it was a great networking experience, and so far we got solely positive feedback from all sides.
Big Opportunity to take away from DevFest
Actually there are two things that we need to address in the future: First and most important, we need a higher diversity by attracting and inviting more female speakers (as well as attendees). And second, it's about integration. Meaning, that we need to work closer with all IT communities here on the island. Google technology is used almost everywhere and it would be a shame to skip knowledge & expertise that exists in other communities.
Shout out and Thanks!
Our gratitude to everyone behind this campaign at Google Developers and GDG world wide. Thank you so much to enable us to bring more Google technology to the local IT geeks. And thanks to your detailed style guides and the provided material it was a breeze for us to organise.
Words of gratitude by Tabot:
This was a big one for my co-lead Jochen Kirstätter and I because it was the first time we were organizing a DevFest on the island. I want to send a big shoutout to the amazing volunteers who came together and worked tirelessly to make this happen.
A special shoutout to the organizing committee made up of my students at ALU Mauritius Kalanda Alex, Sumaya Salihs, Såvìê A Oulo, Yassine Lakhmarti, Jeremiah Nnadi, Madani Ebrahim Napaul, Lum-neh Angela, Sonia Mars Akimana, Chiara Sebiguri, Abel Makanzu, Graham Ebenezer, Dev, and Simon John Okemdi.
To all the Speakers who submitted session proposals and delivered talks at the event we say thank you. Without great content and delivery the sessions will be worthless.
To my students, Abdulrahman Diwani and Michael Suleiman for delivering amazing sessions on Flutter! I admire how you both continue to push yourselves daily and I can't tell you enough how proud I am of you. The world is yours for the taking!
To Humeira Diljore, I tip my hat to you. For being the only lady to submit a session proposal and you didn't only submit one but two! It was my first time meeting you and I could already feel your passion to get more women involved in Tech through VueVixens. I really enjoy your energy and I look forward to working with you to make that a reality.
To Oboth Nekemiah Isaac for coming through with his expensive RED camera and drone! And for putting this video together. You truly are a consummate professional and when I grow up, I want to be like you.
To my friends and colleagues who came out to support #DevFest18, #DevFestMauritius you know yourselves (if I start mentioning names I won't wrap up this post which is already growing in length), I want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart. Your support meant a lot to the success of this event.
And finally, Thank You to Google Developers and ALU for sponsoring the event. Without the dinero, we wouldn't have been able to pull off this event. Looking forward to #DevFest19!!!
Thank you notes by Jochen:
It was both a pleasure and honour to bring together so many interested and enthusiastic people for the first GDG DevFest in Mauritius.
Kudos to all the organising members and helpers behind the scenes that made this event a successful one. Including the staff at the campus who spent their precious time to cater for us on a Saturday. You know you were part of this fantastic conference, thank you!
Big thanks to all speakers that not only had the courage to submit their proposals but invested a good chunk of their private time into the preparation of their talks, slide decks and materials for our attendees, thank you!
Thanks to Google Developer Groups to encourage the local GDG chapters to get together and organise a day full of latest Google technologies. Your support is vital for our activities, thank you!
And finally, I would like to thank my family for their ongoing support, their understanding of living my passion, and their tireless involvement in such events like DevFest.
See you all in 2019 for the next meeting of GDG Mauritius...
Cover image credit: Hayley Kirstätter