Google Developers Festival in Islamabad | DevFest18

AIMAN_SAEED · November 18, 2018, 8:18pm

Exactly 3 months back, I along with my Google Developers Islamabad Team started working on Google Developers community annual event which is #DevFest18. Those of you who are not aware of GDG and DevFest, let me run you through these

Google Developer Group Islamabad

GDG Islamabad is a local community-ran meetup for developers interested in resources and technology from Google Developers.

DevFest

GDG DevFests are large, community-run developer events happening around the globe focused on community building and learning about Google’s technologies. As an attendee, you can expect speaker sessions, hackathons, codelabs, study jams, training sessions, and more.

GDG Islamabad - DevFest’18

I along with my core team as well as team of volunteer started working on it and started looking out for speakers, presenters and sponsorships. It was a crazy ride to make sure speakers can present Google Technologies and help the young generations. Scoring sponsorship was not that easy, GitHub supported the lunch whereas local software company covered the other costs. We had a couple of team and volunteer meetings to finalize the agenda

Event took place on 17th of November at NUST, Islamabad. We were seriously overwhelmed by the turnout, some 300 students and 100 professional joined the event to learn more about Google Technologies. Here are some pictures below of registrations to tech talks followed by technical workshops on angular, firebase and machine learning by tensorflow. There was one session on Google Maps API also there was a panel discussion of women techmakers too. Everyone enjoyed the event and especially the lunch and special Google cookies There was an offline zone too so that people can network with one another.

Our team was stunned when we got to know that there was 12 year student who travelled all the way from a very different city - took a flight for 3hrs to attend this event. He was the youngest #Microsoft certified professional in Pakistan. When I had a chat with him, turned out he was a Google Local Guide too

In the networking session I discovered many local guides but they had no idea about Connect Forum so I took them to the computer lab and gave a small demonstration too.

That was all Given a lot DevFests are happening these days in many cities. Did you get a chance to attend one? Do share in comments.

How was your devfest? @NirajBhusal

KashifMisidia · November 18, 2018, 9:07pm

Wow @AIMAN_SAEED

It seems you have a fantastic time there. Congratulations to you because you were also a part of that event .

OmerAli · November 19, 2018, 12:37am

Nice Recap @AIMAN_SAEED

AIMAN_SAEED · November 19, 2018, 5:22am

Thanks @KashifMisidia

I was the organiser of this event, had to put in alot of energy for the event and I’m glad it turned out well

AIMAN_SAEED · November 19, 2018, 5:22am

Thanks @OmerAli . Hope you are doing well

NirajBhusal · November 19, 2018, 9:31am

Congratulations on suvcesucce completion of Devfest18 @AIMAN_SAEED and thank you for sharing your experiences.

Namaste

Niraj

sonnyNg · November 19, 2018, 1:44pm

Hi @AIMAN_SAEED ,

Thank you for sharing with us. It puts a smile to the face, when participants are excited for the first step for the future, through technologies and knowledge.

The collaboration between the community and developers have blossomed into something really thoughtful and promising for the young generation.

P.s: Great looking cookies from the event, kudos to that!

AIMAN_SAEED · November 20, 2018, 6:09am

Indeed very true @sonnyNg
In Pakistan and especially in Islamabad, technologists are seriously lacking such networking events where they can come and not just learn rather network with the right people.

After DevFest18 and other events under Google Developers Group Islamabad, my team and I’ve realised it is very important to arrange such events.

Our next event would be Women Techmakers event in which we will have dedicated local guides session too.