DEVFEST ABUJA EXPERIENCE
DevFests are community-led developer events hosted by Google Developer Groups around the globe. GDGs are focused on community building and learning about Google’s technologies. — https://devfest.withgoogle.com/
Devfest Abuja was originally slated for 5th October, 2019 but later postponed to 12th October, 2019. 21 GDG Minna members were in attendance as GDG Minna selected few of its lucky member and sponsored them for the ever awesome event. Every developer looks forward to this period of the year to share, network and learn from each other.
My experience was personally had an astonishing time, of course every great event always has two part, which should I start with? Let me not spoil it for you, ours has none of the bad, so we agreed to set out of Minna city by 6am but as God will have it, we were delayed by rain, we converged around 7am and started the journey. We got to Abuja around to 11, welcomed with breakfast, and swag at the venue; Ayalla Hotels, Area 11, Garki,Abuja.
We joined the event Keynote speech by GDG Abuja Lead (Balama Yusuf), Aniedi Udo-Obongi — Google Developer Ecosystem Manager, follow Auwal MS — Program Manager, Developer Student Clubs SSA, who has the shortest and awesome slide I have ever seen, and I am sure a lot of persons were inspired and motivated to work on their skills and also acquire more skill (hard & soft skills).
My first session was “Enabling Auto sign-in using credential management API” led by Grace Adeola, WTM Ambassador and Co-organizer GDG Ilorin, Kwara, Nigeria. She took us through how to implement the credential management API and use auto sign-in to new and existing website, it was awesome.
Secondly, “Software entropy: the theory of broken windows” led by Chinonso Ani who is a software engineer at Interswitch group. His talk was derived from the psychology around broken window where people don’t take responsibility for things especially when it’s not built or not own by them. This happens among developers who do not want to keep legacy codes and prefer re-inventing the wheels.
Thirdly, “Dealing with imposter syndrome” by Daniel Adepoju a software engineer at interswitch, he narrated his journey as a developer and how he dealt with the fear developers mostly have, that they can’t do some i.e not believing they can build things or thinking they’re not or do not know enough, he briefly discussed how he dealt with it and how he got his first job. I must say more developer advocates should talk more on this.
Fourthly, “Motion design and its impact on User Experience” by Daniel Kingston Andrew a designer advocate for Figma Abuja. Though I was late to this session but I got little out of it. All designs are based on a story or to put it better, all designs tells a story.
Wow, this is the last but was the best, it’s the most interactive I attended, “Think products not features” by Sharon Ud Georgewill an android developer at Teal technology service. Before I continue, let me ask you this, “If you were to produce something what will you think first, product or the features?”, I bet it’s the product as its allows you think more of the user of the product and their needs. Mehn! this speaker is endowed with knowledge and soft skills.
This article will not be complete without a shout out to the organizers Balama Yusuf, Umar Auna, @Ishaka Usman, @Pius Aboyi, @Kamaldeen Kehinde, @Abdullahi Aliyu, GDG Lead Abuja, Minna, Keffi, Makurdi, Ilorin and Lafia respectively, also the sponsor
