Posted by Greg Hartrell, Product Director, Games on Play/Android
Save the date for this year’s virtual Google for Games Developer Summit, happening on March 14 at 9 a.m. PT. You’ll hear about product updates and discover new ways to build great games, connect with players around the globe and grow your business.
Here are three things you can expect during and after the event:
1. Hear about Google’s newest games products for developers
The summit kicks off at 9 a.m. PT, with keynotes from teams across Android, Google Play, Ads and Cloud. They’ll discuss the latest trends in the gaming industry and share new products we’re working on to help developers build great experiences for gamers everywhere.
2. Learn how to grow your games business in on-demand sessions
Following the keynotes, more than 15 on-demand sessions will be available starting at 10 a.m. PT, where you can learn more about upcoming products, watch technical deep dives and hear inspiring stories from other game developers. Whether you’re looking to expand your reach, reduce cheating or better understand in-game ad formats, there will be plenty of content to help you take your game to the next level.
3. Join us at the Game Developers Conference
If you’re looking for even more gaming content after the summit, join us in person for the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. We’ll host developer sessions on March 20 and 21 to share demos, technical best practices and more.
Visit g.co/gamedevsummit to learn more and get updates about both events, including the full agendas. See you there!
Posted by Rachel Francois, Google Developer Student Clubs, Global Program Manager
Each year, the Google Developer Student Clubs Solution Challenge invites university students to develop solutions for real-world problems using one or more Google products or platforms. How could you use Android, Firebase, TensorFlow, Google Cloud, Flutter, or any of your favorite Google technologies to promote employment for all, economic growth, and climate action?
Join us to build solutions for one or more of the United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals. These goals were agreed upon in 2015 by all 193 United Nations Member States and aim to end poverty, ensure prosperity, and protect the planet by 2030.
One 2022 Solution Challenge participant said, “I love how it provides the opportunity to make a real impact while pursuing undergraduate studies. It helped me practice my expertise in a real-world setting, and I built a project I can proudly showcase on my portfolio.”
Solution Challenge prizes
Participants will receive specialized prizes at different stages:
The top 100 teams receive customized mentorship from Google and experts to take solutions to the next level, branded swag, and a certificate.
The top 10 finalists receive additional mentorship, a swag box, and the opportunity to showcase their solutions to Google teams and developers all around the world during the virtual 2023 Solution Challenge Demo Day, live on YouTube.
Contest finalists – In addition to the swag box, each individual from the seven teams not in the top three will receive a Cash Prize of $1,000 per student. Winnings for each qualifying team will not exceed $4,000.
Top 3 winners – In addition to the swag box, each individual from the top 3 winning teams will receive a Cash Prize of $3,000 and a feature on the Google Developers Blog. Winnings for each qualifying team will not exceed $12,000
Joining the Solution Challenge
There are four steps to join the Solution Challenge and get started on your project:
Create a demo and submit your project by March 31, 2023.
Google Resources for Solution Challenge participants
Google will support Solution Challenge participants with resources to help students build strong projects, including:
Live online sessions with Q&As
Mentorship from Google, Google Developer Experts, and the Google Developer Student Club community
Curated Codelabs designed by Google Developers
Access to Design Sprint guidelines developed by Google Ventures
and more!
“During the preparation and competition, we learned a great deal,” said a 2022 Solution Challenge team member. “That was part of the reason we chose to participate in this competition: the learning opportunities are endless.”
Winner announcement dates
Once all projects are submitted, our panel of judges will evaluate and score each submission using specific criteria.
After that, winners will be announced in three rounds.
Round 1 (April): The top 100 teams will be announced.
Round 2 (June): After the top 100 teams submit their new and improved solutions, 10 finalists will be announced.
Round 3 (August): The top 3 grand prize winners will be announced live on YouTube during the 2023 Solution Challenge Demo Day.
We can’t wait to see the solutions you create with your passion for building a better world, coding skills, and a little help from Google technologies.
Learn more and sign up for the 2023 Solution Challenge here.
I got the time to push my creativity to the next level. It helped me attain more information from more knowledgeable people by expanding my network. Working together and building something was a great challenge and one of the best experiences, too. I liked the idea of working on the challenge to present a solution.
It’s hard to build experiences that let users enjoy the best that their devices have to offer. Undoubtedly this brings a level of complexity for developers who will need to build and test against multiple OS updates and new features. That’s the thing about development—the environment is constantly evolving. We want to cut through the complexity and make it simpler to choose the technology you use, whether for an app on one device or across large and small screens.
Earlier this year at Google I/O, we shared our focus on making developer tools work better together, and providing more guidance and best practices to optimize your end-to-end workflow. For example, we announced the new App Quality Insights window in Android Studio that shows crash data from Firebase Crashlytics directly inside the IDE to make it easier to discover, investigate, and fix offending lines of code.
But our work doesn’t stop once I/O ends. We work all year round to offer increasingly flexible, open and integrated solutions so you can work smarter, ship faster, and confidently set up your business for the future.
That’s why we’re excited to connect with you again—both in person and virtually—to share more recent product updates. Over the next three months, we have over 200 events in more than 50 countries reaching thousands of developers through product summits, community events, industry conferences, and more. Here are a few:
Local Google Developer Groups (GDG) organize these technology conferences according to the needs and interests of the region’s developer community, and in the local language. Tune in virtually or join in person.
This year the Chrome team will meet you at your favorite regional developer conferences and events, in addition to online forums across time zones. Join us on the journey to build a better web. Check out the calendar.
Join this hybrid event online or in person in New York City to hear how Firebase can help you accelerate app development, run your app with confidence, and scale your business.
Learn from the source about building excellent apps across devices, coming to you online and around the world. We’ll be sharing the sessions live on YouTube in three tracks spread across three weeks, including Modern Android Development on Oct 24, form factors on Nov 9, and platform on Nov 14.
Hosted by Bazel and Google Open Source, BazelCon connects you with the team, maintainers, contributors, users, and friends to learn how Bazel automates software builds and tests on Android and iOS.
Women in ML Symposium | Coming in December
Join open source communities, seek out leadership opportunities, share knowledge, and speak freely about your career development with other women and gendered minorities in a safe space. Catch up on last year’s event.
Flutter Event | Coming in December/January
Hear exciting product updates on Google’s open source framework for building beautiful, natively compiled, multi-platform applications from a single codebase. In the meantime, re-live last year’s event.
We look forward to the chance to meet with you to share technical deep dives, give you hands-on learning opportunities, and hear your feedback directly. After you have heard what we’re up to, make sure to access our comprehensive documentation, training materials, and best practices to help speed up your development and quickly guide you towards success.
Mark your calendars and register now to catch the latest updates.
Posted by Jeana Jorgensen, Senior Director, Cloud Product Marketing and Sustainability, Google
Google Cloud Next is coming up on October 11 – 13. Register at no cost today and join us live to explore what’s new and what’s coming next in Google Cloud.
You’ll find lots of developer-specific content in the Developer Zone. Here’s a preview of what we’ve curated for you this year.
A developer keynote to get you thinking about the future
For the Next developer keynote we’re going to share our top 10 cloud technology predictions that we believe could come true by the end of 2025.
Hear from our experts who are on the cutting edge of many of these technology trends, whether it’s AI, data and analytics, or modern cloud infrastructure:
Jeanine Banks, VP of Developer Products and Community
Erik Brewer, VP of Infrastructure and Google Fellow
DevFests are local tech conferences hosted by Google Developer Groups around the world during Next ‘22. The content of each one will vary to suit the local developer community. You might find hands-on labs, technical talks, or simply a chance to connect.
To find a DevFest near you, visit the DevFest page and filter the map by Google Cloud Next. You can RSVP via the map interface. Quick side tip…this is separate from Next registration.
In the challenge, you can use Drone Racing League (DRL) race data and Google Cloud analytics tools to predict race outcomes and then provide tips to DRL pilots to help enhance their season performance. Compete for the chance to win a trip to the season finale of the 2022-23 DRL Algorand World Championship and be celebrated on stage.
Google Clout Challenge
Spice up the middle of your week with a no-cost, 20-minute competition posted each Wednesday until October 10. All challenges will take place in Google Cloud Skills Boost. And as a new user, you can get 30 days of no-cost access to Google Cloud Skills Boost* – plenty of time to complete the whole challenge.
Test your knowledge against your fellow developers and race the clock to see how fast you can complete the challenge. The faster you go, the higher your score.
Can you top your last score?
To participate, follow these three steps:
Enroll – Go to our website, click the link to the weekly challenge, and enroll in the quest using your Google Cloud Skills Boost account.
Play – Attempt the challenge as many times as you want. Remember the faster you are, the higher your score!
Share – Share your score card on Twitter/LinkedIn using #GoogleClout
Win – Complete all 10 weekly challenges to earn exclusive #GoogleClout badges
*Requires credit card
Innovator Hive livestreams to get the latest tech news
Innovator Hive livestreams are your unique opportunity to hear from Google Cloud executives and engineers as we announce the latest innovations. Join any livestream to explore technical content featuring new Google Cloud technologies.
Save your seat at Next
We at Google are getting excited for Next ‘22. It’s this year’s big moment to dive into the latest innovations, hear from Google experts, get inspired by what your peers are doing with technology, and try out some new skills.
There’s so much good stuff lined up – all we’re missing at this point is some #GoogleClout badge boasting, drone stat analyzing, technology-minded people to geek out with. Register for Next ‘22 today and join the fun live in October.
Posted by Julia DeLorenzo, Program Manager, Coding Competitions
Coding Practice with Kick Start is a four-day practice session where you’ll have the chance to learn more about the Kick Start platform, utilize starter code to help frame your solutions, and interact with Google engineers.
It’s not a timed round and there is no scoreboard! No one else will be able to view your scores from the session. This is just for fun and a great way to hone your coding skills, and get better acquainted with Kick Start.
So, why should you join the session? We’re glad you asked!
About Coding Practice with Kick Start
The problems you’ll see in Coding Practice with Kick Start range in difficulty. The concepts covered in these problems align very closely with concepts covered in introductory CS courses like Data Structures and Algorithms, and topics you may encounter in Google interviews.
You can solve the problems in any order you like. Looking at a problem does not start any timers, so feel free to read all of them at the start of the session, and then solve them in the order of your choice. We also provide starter code at the top of each problem statement to get you started with your solution.
Stuck on a problem? Don’t worry! You can use the “Ask a question” button on the problem overview page.
At the end of the session, tune in for a livestream where Kick Start engineers will walk through each of the problems featured during the round!
Hear from some past participants how Coding Practice with Kick Start helped them along their competitive programming journey.
Session 2 Participants: Tell us why you enjoyed your experience!
Balla says:
“At first I used to think that the Kick Start coding rounds were very tough and I couldn’t solve them. But the level of the initial questions are such that it boosts us to give it a try, and increases our confidence level. I feel that this is the best part that every coder hopes for. After attempting the session, I felt like I could solve the problems if I worked a little harder.
My favorite problem in Coding Practice with Kick Start Session 2 is ‘Irregular Expressions’. The problem is very interesting; I couldn’t write up the logic, but it made me think a lot. It’s the best problem I faced in the round.”
Mbalire says:
“I personally had problems with test samples not catering for some cases, and that I failed to understand the questions. The answers and support from the Google engineers during Coding Practice with Kick Start was good. I felt as if different people at Google were reading my code and seeing my development, and that boosted my confidence.
While solving the problem, I could see my own development while creating my own solution. I hope to do much more and participate in the coming Kick Start competition rounds. It may be because I started programming this year or because most of the code I know is from my research, but getting these algorithms right has been a huge accomplishment for me.
My favorite problem was ‘Building Palindromes’ from Coding Practice with Kick Start Session 2.”
Nandini says:
“Coding Practice with Kick Start was very engaging and I had a lot of fun. It reminded me how much I enjoy computer science and math and solving problems!
My favorite problem from the past coding practice session has been the ‘Building Palindromes‘ problem. This is because I had fun trying to come up with an optimal solution to this problem and it pushed me to learn new techniques for optimizing my solution: prefixing sums/pre-calculation.
I also really enjoyed solving the ‘Parcels’ problem since it involved search algorithms which I love! I found that it was the right amount of ‘challenging’ to keep me thinking about it all day. Thanks, Google!”
Joining Coding Practice with Kick Start Session 3
With the third and final session for the year coming up, we encourage you to join us. Coding Practice with Kick Start is the perfect opportunity to practice and grow your skills without the pressure of a public scoreboard or timed round.
At Google Play, we are committed to helping developers of all sizes reach their full potential, and go further, faster. To continue supporting indies as they bring some of the most innovative titles to players worldwide, today we’re opening submissions to the 2022 edition of our two annual programs – the Indie Games Accelerator and Festival.
Through these programs, independent game developers and small studios can boost their game’s visibility, get training, and tap into a network of gaming experts:
If you are a small games studio looking for help to launch or grow a new title, enter the Accelerator to get exclusive training by mentors and industry experts;
Or, if you have already created and launched a high quality game that is ready for the spotlight, enter the Festival in Japan, South Korea or Europe for a chance to win promotions and reach new players.
Submissions for both Indie Games programs are open from June 1st to July 1st, 2022.
Growing up, many students across Latin America watched eagerly as the technology in their cities became more advanced and opportunities to create the future expanded. For some, computers and web technologies presented untold potential. Still, excitement about doing right by their communities was all at the heart of it all. Now, a forward-looking group of university students from 27 different Latin American nations and Google Developer Student Clubs (GDSC) have formed a continent-wide network to chart a course forward for their continent. They are building a community of Spanish-speaking Latin American student developers that support each other, help foster leadership skills, and bring more opportunities to student developers in the region.
Teaming up to build skills and teach other student developers
In November 2021, this regional coalition of students came together to host a continent-wide LATAM conference, a two-day student conference (the team planned and executed it in just two weeks). The event featured ten speakers from Spanish-speaking Latin American countries and taught students about different developer technologies. Attendees learned about machine learning, automating processes using data pipelines, leveraging react to upload landing pages to Firebase, and building mobile applications with Firebase and React Native. 300 people attended the conference over two days, and the conference recordings have attracted hundreds of views on YouTube.
“We’re coming from a less developed region. We grew up seeing other countries that were more technologically advanced. Now, developers from Latin America are more confident that they have the skills to implement projects, produce new things, and bring advancement to the continent.” – Maria Agustina Cuello (Chichi)
Working together with purpose
Through working together on the conference, the organizers of LATAM conference know Latin American youth have a bright future. They are excited by the opportunity to use the power of technology and connectivity to change the world.
Luis Eduardo, Lead GDSC UTP (Perú), says it felt amazing to be part of the LATAM conference: “being able to meet students from other countries with the same desire to work for the community was wonderful. Knowing that, despite being thousands of miles away, there was no impediment to being able to work as an organized team. This is what makes this family unique.”
“LATAM conference was the opportunity to show that wherever we are, we can help others, and you will always find people with similar ideas,” says Francisco Imanol Suarez, Lead GDSC UNPSJB (Argentina).
Solution Challenge preparations
The group is now hosting events to teach student developers new skills and prepare them for the 2022 Solution Challenge, a global contest where students from around the world are invited to solve for one of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals using Google technologies.
In preparing their communities to build projects, the group plans to activate the countries and regions in Latin America. The students aim to expose each other to multiple technologies in the field and plan to host theme weeks for the Solution Challenge, like a Firebase week, a UX/UI week, and a Flutter Festival.
Students across the GDSC LATAMs are forming teams for the Solution Challenge. Some are local, coming from a single university, while others are broader, like students in Argentina working with students from Mexico. “A few months ago, no one knew how many people we would help take their first steps in the world of development. Let’s hope this community continues to grow to be able to show that amazing things can be done in LATAM,” says Luis Eduardo, Lead GDSC UTP (Perú).
“I’m grateful to be part of this community and work with amazing team members who are so eager to work together and do activities. We want to bring all the opportunities we can to Latin American students, and gender and language are not a barrier,” says Cuello.
What’s next for GDSC LATAM
The members of GDSC LATAM plan to continue hosting collaborative events for the community such as Google Cloud Machine Learning bootcamp, a hackathon, and a 2022 student conference and related events with other student communities. The group holds Android and Google Cloud Platform (GCP) study jams, publishes a podcast, and hosts networking events to help reach more students, create networking opportunities, and expand each university’s GDSC. Eventually, they hope to positively impact the region by encouraging budding developers to build new technologies in Latin America.
Posted by Greg Hartrell, Product Director, Games on Play/Android
With over three billion players showing strong engagement worldwide, the games market continues to remain resilient and grow beyond expectations. As we look ahead this year, the influx of new and returning players creates a great opportunity for developers to scale their games businesses.
The Google for Games Developer Summit returns virtually on March 15, 2022 at 9AM Pacific. From mobile to cloud, learn about our new solutions for game developers that make it easier to build high-quality games and reach audiences around the world.
Join us for the keynote at 9AM Pacific followed by over 20 developer sessions on-demand. We’ll share deep-dives and updates on the Android Game Development Kit, Google Play Games beta on PC, Play Asset Delivery, Play Console, and more. The summit is open for all. Check out the full agenda today at g.co/gamedevsummit.
We are happy to announce ML Olympiad, an associated Kaggle Community Competitions hosted by Machine Learning Google Developer Experts (ML GDE) and TensorFlow User Group (TFUG).
Kaggle recently announced “Community Competitions” allowing anyone to create and host a competition at no cost. And our proud members of ML communities decided to dive in and take advantage of the feature to solve critical issues of our time, providing opportunities to train developers.
Why the ML Olympiad?
To train ML for developers leveraging Kaggle’s community competition. This is an opportunity for the participants to practice ML. This is the first 2022 global campaign of the ML Ecosystem team and this helps build stronger communities.
Competition will be focused on the Enem (National High School Examination) data. Competitors will have to create models to predict student scores in multiple tests.
Hosts: Vinicius Fernandes Caridá (ML GDE), Pedro Gengo, Alex Fernandes Mansano / Tensorflow User Group São Paulo
The aim of this competition is to build a multi-class classification model capable of accurately predicting the most suitable driver for one or several given orders based on the destination of the order and the paths covered by the deliverers.
Google Developers support ML Olympiad by providing swag for top 3 winners of each competition. Find your interest among the competitions, join/share them, and get your part of the swag for competition winners!
Posted by Erica Hanson, Global Senior Program Manager, Google Developer Student Clubs
Have you ever thought about building an application or tool that solves a problem your community faces? Or perhaps you’ve felt inspired to build something that can help improve the lives of those you care about. The year ahead brings more opportunities for helping each other and giving back to our communities.
With that in mind, we invite students around the world to join the Google Developer Student Clubs 2022 Solution Challenge! Where students from around the world are invited to solve for one of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals using Google technologies.
About the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals
Created by the United Nations in 2015 to be achieved by 2030, the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) agreed upon by all 193 United Nations Member States aim to end poverty, ensure prosperity, and protect the planet.
If you’re new to the Solution Challenge, it is an annual competition that invites university students to develop solutions for real world problems using one or more Google products or platforms.
This year, see how you can use Android, Firebase, TensorFlow, Google Cloud, Flutter, or any of your favorite Google technologies to promote employment for all, economic growth, and climate action, by building a solution for one or more of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
What winners of the Solution Challenge receive
Participants will receive specialized prizes at different stages:
Top 50 teams – Receive customized mentorship from Googlers and experts to take solutions to the next level, a branded T-shirt, and a certificate.
Top 10 finalists – Receive additional mentorship, a swag box, and the opportunity to showcase solutions to Googlers and developers all around the world during the virtual 2022 Solution Challenge Demo Day live on YouTube.
Contest Finalists – In addition to the swag box, each individual from the additional seven recognized teams will receive a Cash Prize of $1,000 per student. Winnings for each qualifying team will not exceed $4,000.
Top 3 winners – In addition to the swag box, each individual from the top 3 winning teams will receive a Cash Prize of $3,000 and a feature on the Google Developers Blog. Winnings for each qualifying team will not exceed $12,000.
How to get started on the Solution Challenge
There are four main steps to joining the Solution Challenge and getting started on your project:
Create a demo and submit your project by March 31, 2022.
Resources from Google for Solution Challenge participants
Google will provide Solution Challenge participants with various resources to help students build strong projects for their contest submission.
Live online sessions with Q&As
Mentorship from Google, Google Developer Experts, and the Google Developer Student Club community
Curated codelabs designed by Google Developers
Access to Design Sprint guidelines developed by Google Ventures
and more!
When are winners announced?
Once all the projects are submitted by the March 31st, 2022 deadline, judges will evaluate and score each submission from around the world using the criteria listed on the website.
From there, winning solutions will be announced in three rounds.
Round 1 (April): The Top 50 teams will be announced.
Round 2 (June): After the top 50 teams submit their new and improved solutions, 10 finalists will be announced.
Round 3 (July): In the finale, the top 3 grand prize winners will be announced live on YouTube during the 2022 Solution Challenge Demo Day.
With a passion for building a better world, savvy coding skills, and a little help from Google technology, we can’t wait to see the solutions students create.
Learn more and sign up for the 2022 Solution Challenge, here.
Posted by Joe Hicks, Product Manager, Core Developer
The apps, platforms, and systems that the Bazel community builds with Bazel touch the lives of people around the world in ways we couldn’t have imagined. Through BazelCon, we aim to connect Bazel enthusiasts, the Bazel team, maintainers, contributors, users, and friends in an inclusive and welcoming environment. At BazelCon, the community demonstrates the global user impact of the community—with some quirky and carefully crafted talks, a readout on the State-of-Bazel, an upfront discussion on “Implicit Bias Mitigation,” and community sharing events that remind us that we are not alone in our efforts to build a better world, one line of code at a time.
At BazelCon, the community shared over 24 technical sessions with the 1400+ registrants, which you can watch here at your own pace. Make sure you check out:
“Reproducible builds with Bazel” — Stories about the meaning of “hermetic” and how to achieve it in the context of builds and a meditation on the aesthetic aspects of build reproducibility.
“Implicit Bias Mitigation: Making the Unconscious Conscious” — Reviews the concept of implicit bias and tactics for mitigating it both personally and professionally in the broader context of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging.
“Streamlining VMware’s Open Source License Compliance” — Solving the complexities of identifying and tracking open-source software (OSS) to comply with license requirements by using Bazel to create an accurate bill of materials containing OSS and third-party packages during a build.
Attendees were able to interact with the community and engage with the Bazel team through a series of “Birds of a Feather” (BoF) sessions and a live Q&A session. You can find all of the BoF presentations and notes here.
As announced, soon we will be releasing Bazel 5.0, the updated version of our next generation, multi-language, multi-platform build functionality that includes a new external dependency system, called bzlmod, for you to try out.
We’d like to thank everyone who helped make BazelCon a success: presenters, organizers, Google Developer Studios, contributors, and attendees. If you have any questions about BazelCon, you can reach out to [email protected].
We hope that you enjoyed #BazelCon and “Building Better with Bazel”.
Posted by Alessandro Palmieri, Regional Lead for Spain Developer Communities
Google Developer Groups (GDGs) around the world are in a unique position to organize events on technology topics that community members are passionate about. That’s what happened in Spain in July 2021, where two GDG chapters decided to put on an event called AI Fest after noticing a lack of conferences dedicated exclusively to artificial intelligence. “Artificial intelligence is everywhere, although many people do not know it,” says Irene Ruiz Pozo, the organizer of GDG Murcia and GDG Cartagena. While AI has the potential to transform industries from retail to real estate with products like Dialogflow and Lending DocAI, “there are still companies falling behind,” she notes.
Irene and her GDG team members recognized that creating a space for a diverse mix of people—students, academics, professional developers, and more—would not only enable them to share valuable knowledge about AI and its applications across sectors and industries, but it could also serve as a potential path for skill development and post-pandemic economic recovery in Spain. In addition, AI Fest would showcase GDGs in Spain as communities offering developer expertise, education, networking, and support.
Using the GDG network to find sponsors, partners, and speakers
The GDGs immediately got to work calling friends and contacts with experience in AI. “We started calling friends who were great developers and worked at various companies, we told them who we are, what we wanted to do, and what we wanted to achieve,” Irene says.
The GDG team found plenty of organizations eager to help: universities, nonprofit organizations, government entities, and private companies. The final roster included the Instituto de Fomento, the economic development agency of Spain’s Murcia region; the city council of Cartagena; Biyectiva Technology, which develops AI tools used in medicine, retail, and interactive marketing; and the Polytechnic University of Cartagena, where Irene founded and led the Google Developer Student Club in 2019 and 2020. Some partners also helped with swag and merchandising and even provided speakers. “The CEOs and different executives and developers of the companies who were speakers trusted this event from the beginning,” Irene says.
A celebration of AI and its potential
The event organizers lined up a total of 55 local and international speakers over the two-day event. Due to the ongoing COVID-10 pandemic, in-person attendance was limited to 50 people in a room at El Batel Auditorium and Conference Center in Cartagena, but sessions—speakers, roundtables, and workshops—were also live-streamed on YouTube on three channels to a thousand viewers.
The event made a huge impact on the developer community in Spain, setting an example of what tech-focused gatherings can look like in the COVID-19 era and how they can support more education, collaboration, and innovation across a wide range of organizations, ultimately accelerating the adoption of AI. Irene also notes that it has helped generate more interest in GDGs and GDSCs in Spain and their value as a place to learn, teach, and grow. “We’re really happy that new developers have joined the communities and entrepreneurs have decided to learn how to use Google technologies,” she says.
The effect on the GDG team was profound as well. “I have remembered why I started creating events–for people: to discover the magic of technology,” Irene says.
Taking AI Fest into the future—and more
Irene and her fellow GDG members are already planning for a second installment of AI Fest in early 2022, where they hope to be able to expect more in-person attendance. The team would also like to organize events focused on topics such as Android, Cloud, AR /VR, startups, the needs of local communities, and inclusion. Irene, who serves as a Women Techmakers Ambassador, is particularly interested in using her newly expanded network to host events that encourage women to choose technology and other STEM areas as a career.
Finally, Irene hopes that AI Fest will become an inspiration for GDGs around the world to showcase the potential of AI and other technologies. It’s a lot of work, she admits, but the result is well worth it. “My advice is to choose the area of technology that interests you the most, get organized, relax, and have a good team,” she advises.
