The A to Z of the Google Developers Group DevFest, Bangalore; 3 Tips for Indian Developers
The Google Developers Group (GDG) unveiled at Google I/O 2012, conducted a devfest in Bangalore a couple of days ago on September 30th. Google had announced a devfest window, between 21st September to 11th November, where it would support various chapters in around the world to conduct events. The events are run in various formats, such as Hackathons, Meetups and Barcamps. Sunday’s event was run as a conference with parallel technical sessions and YourStory.in caught up with the coordinators of GDG bangalore, Badrinath Kulkarni and Chintan Shah.
Origins
Badrinath Kulkarni, one half of the organizing committee of the bangalore chapter of GDG, walked us through the origins of devfest:
“GDG was originally Google Technology User Group (GTUG). We then heard of devfest by google and conducted our own version of it called DevfestX
(like TEDeX) which happened earlier this year. Then Google announced the devfest window where they would support groups like ours, and thats how we have GDG devfest today.”Chintan Shah, the other half of the GDG’s Bangalore chapter organizing committee, shared the purpose of GDG devfest:
“The purpose behind devfests such as these is for developers to connect the dots better. People need to be more aware about the new updates in the open source community and GDG aims at providing a platform for developers to help other developers with this awareness.”
“It is also about learning the right way. We have a sizable student following as well and they have access to a large knowledge base as well.”
The GDG Bangalore group aims at conducting more developer oriented event with a focus on open source technology in general. They also have opened the GDG platform for community driven knowledge sharing initiatives.
The Event
The event ran parallel tracks on a variety of subjects. Technical topics such as, Google App Engine, New Features of Eclipse, Battery Conservation
Techniques for Mobile Apps and business ended sessions, such as app monetization were covered.The presenters included developers within the community, established companies such as RedBus and startups such as Little Eye Labs, a tech 30 company.
“Along with working with developers on technical topics, we also want developers to have business outlook on programming,” explained Chintan Shah, on the variety of subjects presented at the event.
Advice for Indian Developers from Keynote Speaker, Uttam Tripathi
The keynote talk given by Uttam Tripathi, Program Manager for Developer Relations at Google, provided unique insights into the mobile development scene in India and key take away from more successful app development ecosystems such as those of Japan, South Korea and Germany.
Here are three key advices provided by Uttam Tripathi to Indian developers in his keynote speech
1) Increase participation in the open source community. Most advanced technologies are coming from the worlds various open source communities.
2) Indian developers must come out of a task focussed mentality and put on their business hats. Think as entrepreneurs and see what the code written means from a business perspective.
3) Become early adopters. New technology leads to newer innovation and most advanced developer ecosystems are heavy early adopters.
Google aims to help conducting 50 devfests across 35 countries through the devfest window (21st September - 11th November), with the aim to reach 10000 developers.
Watch this space for more updates from GDG's in India and click here for more information about DevFest.
Image Credit: Nashad Abdu