GDG DevFest 2013 Mombasa
A 9 hour event courtesy of Google at Royal Court Hotel Mombasa
GDG Mombasa hosted the first ever DevFest event in Mombasa
Morning
Google Developer Group Mombasa hosted it's first ever DevFest event in Mombasa which was held at the Royal Court Hotel on Saturday 14th September 2013 proudly sponsored by Google. The event kicked off with a house full of 45 people, out of which 10 were females, very encouraging!
Invited guest speakers from Uganda; Nicholas Kamanzi (GDG lead Busitema who is also the GDG Champion Uganda), Hassan Nsubuga (GDG lead Mbale) and from Nairobi; Anthony Nandaa a.k.a Prof (GDG Nairobi) and Mercy Orangi (GDG Lead Kenyatta University) and Billy Owino (Qualcomm Technologies) and Anwar Ahmed (Manager at Simbanet) were all very glad and enthusiast to meet the community members who had all presented themselves well before time.
The registration team warmly welcomed people in as they gave out some cool stickers, Google branded pens and event programme, without wasting time, the event officially kicked off with a hearty welcome from the energetic and lively MC, Andrew Mwangi after which Nicholas Kamanzi broke the ice by a short talk.
Alifiyah Ganijee and Said Fuad thereafter took it up and officially welcomed everyone to the event and presented a global keynote about the DevFest 2013 Season, they also talked about some of the house keeping rules for the day as well as encouraged members to create awareness via the social media channels. The word was Tweet!Tweet!Tweet!
The MC then welcomed Rachael from Simbanet who shared a few words about the company and what it does and what it is all about. Attendants posed questions which were responded to by Rachael.
Thereafter, we had short networking session where by participants mingled up and moved around getting to know one another which was followed up by the morning tea break. The aroma of the donuts, sandwich, tea and coffee was just more than enough to excite people, after all it was all on the house!
Moments after the morning tea break, we kicked off with a presentation from Mr. Billy Owino, Business Director Qualcomm Technologies. He actually carried away the audience, the presentation was simply amazing, he talked about how Google Developers on Android can leverage SDKs like the Snapdragon. The Snapdragon SDK for Android is a package of software libraries, sample code, and documentation that can help enhance your app when running on Snapdragon-powered mobile devices. It is designed to make it easy for developers and device makers to take advantage of a host of next-gen technologies from low power, always-on geo-fencing to robust facial processing and more. He also emphasized on how developers can change the world by solving problems in the tech space and inspired people on opportunities that await such developers.
We then had a short Question and Answer session after which Mr. Ahmed Anwar, Manager of Simbanet was welcomed with a round of applause on stage. He spoke about the company in depth and the products and services they offer, he also briefly showed the coverage of Simbanet across the country, and indeed as the Company Slogan goes, it is keeping Africa Ahead.
Thereafter, Hassan Nsubuga was welcomed on stage who talked about Android Location Services API and stressed the importance of Android developers to leverage the use of such APIs in their applications. Guess what was next? A brain teaser session by the GDG Mombasa organizers, amongst the 4 brain teasers, the one which seemed to be most difficult was:
What does this message say? G T Y O R J O T E O U I A B G T Hint : Count the letters and try splitting the letters up into groups
Prizes were awarded to the winners of the brain teasers and thereafter, Anthony Nandaa a.k.a Prof took it up and talked about Google Cloud Platform highlighting the trending Google Cloud Developer Challenge, he provided insight on how one can participate in the challenge as well as the great prizes and categories that one can submit an entry in? Exciting indeed!
Well, it was then time for the most awaited session...any guesses? It was lunch time. A delicious meal was provided to all participants at the Bahari suite, the desserts just made it all extra sweet!
Afternoon
Soon after lunch, we had a presentation by Mercy Orangi on Product Development who emphasized on User Experience and User Interface (UI/UX) being an integral part of application development. Mercy simply just hit the floor right with an eye-opening presentation.
All work and no play makes a Jack a dull boy (just to make sure that the scrumptious lunch would not make people lazy! :) ) We played a game which included A lawyer, Judge and a client, ask those who attended, they will tell you how awesome and fun it was! As much we wished to keep on playing, we finally had to stop and award a prize to the winners after which Nicholas Kamanzi led the audience through Android Development focusing on Side Menus, Navigation and Fragments. He actually took the attendants through a practical session and it was just awesome! But Nicholas did not leave the stage after the presentation, curious to know why? Well, he had this special video that had been burning him all through as he awaited this day, a video from Van Riper and Adriana Cerundolo dedicated to Nsubuga Hassan, remarking the 2nd Anniversary for his GDG (GDG Mbale) It was a special moment as Hassan was taken aback. He has been a very hardworking and committed lead and therefore surely deserved such a surprise.
Evening tea was then served as people refreshed their minds and finalized on their project ideas, the judges then deliberated on the ideas and finally it was time, Mercy Orangi and Nsubuga Hassan took to stage to announce the ultimate winner of the project showcase. Three projects were selected:
Position 1: RoadCop - An application that alerts you of the danger spots
Position 2: Mombasa Social App - A social networking app for the Mombasa Tech Community
Position 3: Mens Fashion App - An app that aims to assist men in choosing their outfit
As the event was coming to an end, Alifiyah and Said made closing remarks and gave out a token of appreciation to all the invited guests as well as the organizers (Andrew Mwangi, Musa Alfan, Bryan Opiyo, Zahra Jalalkhan, Jamila Mbarak, Derrick James, Brighton Mwasaru and Harris Mwashalo) without whom the event could not have been a success. Our GDG Country Champion Kenya, Said Fuad was surprised with a small gift and on demand of the audience, he unwrapped it and proudly announced that it was 32GB Micro SD memory card, Congratulations to the Champ!
A vote of thanks was given out by the MC and later by the GDG Mombasa organizers. And the event concluded with a grand surprise for none other than Nsubuga Hassan from GDG Mombasa. A cake was presented to him, and as he cut the cake, he was showered with party poppers and confetti! It was worth a thousand moments!Finally it was time to bid farewell, people walked out, a little tired but very excited, some wished the event could go on all night!
Once again, special gratitude goes to Google, Qualcomm Technologies and Simbanet for making this happen, many thanks to all the awesome GDG Managers who came across from Uganda and Nairobi and of course the organizing team in Mombasa.
Check out Event Photos
Are you looking forward to DevFest 2014?