My #BestAugust

a bit on where did I hang out this month

Britt Barak
Sep 6, 2018 ยท 7 min read
Back home ๐Ÿ  photo by Hadar Franco ๐Ÿ’›

I knew it was going to be packed! If I was already planning to go to the other side of the world- I might as well make it eventful! ๐ŸŽ‰

The name #bestAugust was born out of my excitement to see so many friends, get to know new friends and communities, and the privilege to partake in multiple impactful events. I was looking forward to the insightful conversations, and to the inspiration I knew will come from unexpected directions.

Here are some of the (public ๐Ÿ˜Š) highlights :


August 13 / Action On Google #1 โ€” Creating Persona ๐Ÿ‘พ

This monthโ€™s events starts with taking opportunities. I had wanted to organize a Google Actions workshop for some time, but the past few months had been filled with travel and changes and life eventsโ€ฆ

In July, at WTM Leads Summit in Madrid, Stav Levi, one of the leads of my Women Techmakers Israel community, fell in love ๐Ÿ˜ป with Google Actions technology. Katha, Actions on Google devRel at Google, reminded me that August is the deadline for the global #buildActionsForYourCommunity program. Stav and I faced the fact that timing will be challengingโ€ฆ but Hadar Franco and Karen Shaham Palman got on board, and then we teamed up with our guest superstar Adi Mazor Kario , for a 3 sessions hands on workshop!

We had the pleasure to kick off the first session, and be the first ever meet-up hosted at Vonage new stunning Tel Aviv office! โœจ๐Ÿ–

I gave an intro talk on Google Assistant, Actions, DialogFlow and our program. Then Adi Mazor Kario [Founder, CEO at Wizard and Voice UX Expert] gave a dazzling talk on voice UX, the future and how weโ€™re shaping it in the present. This was one of my favorite slides:

Then we teamed up and had a hands on workshop to build personas.


August 16 / Android Summit

The same night, I started my journey to the US! ๐Ÿ›ซ

Android Summit, organized by Michael Jones, Jared Sheehan, Sam Edwards and a great team, as alway, was one of my favorite event! This Twitter thread basically sums up for me why:

My talk โ€œOh, the places youโ€™ll go!โ€ focused on navigation on Android. Since I know that Jared Sheehan [Android Summitโ€™s co-organizer and Mobile Leader at Capital One Tech] likes โ€œunder the hoodโ€ content, half of my talk was about the back stack, launch modes and how it all works, and the other half was a short overview on the new Android Navigation component.

Blogpost series with allll the notes and some more related content will be posted soon ๐Ÿคž.


August 17 / CapitalOne Students Hackathon

The great Jared invited me to be a (first ever) guest judge ๐Ÿ‘ฉโ€โš–๏ธ at CapitalOne hackathon for students. I truly didnโ€™t expect that level of project! Android apps, Google Actions, Tensorflow... so many cool technologies and interesting ideas! It was a blast!


August 20 / DC Communities Meetup

DC has some cool local communities, like @DCAndroid, @GDEVDC, @DCKotlin . Luckily for me, Jared, Joni Pepin and the rest of the organizers invited me to meet them! ๐Ÿค— Lots of engineers came to learn with me about what machine learning really is, and how can we use the extremely exciting ML-Kit, as developers. Had so many interesting and eager to learn questions and discussions afterwards, it was amazing!

Slides are here for now, and the blogposts series are in development ๐Ÿ“๐Ÿธ๐Ÿ“


August 21 / Android Meetup

I took a flight to NYC, straight to the NY Android community. I already had opportunities to hang out with many people from that community, but never to speak there!

Kevin Galligan invited me to the beautiful Kickstarter office in Brooklyn, to Crack together Android Navigation . Then, we went for a few drinks at a hip local bar. This community is so social and fun! ๐Ÿธ๐Ÿน


At the same time

August 21 / AndroidDialogs Interview

The only chance you havenโ€™t heard about Android Dialogs is if youโ€™re not an Android developer โ˜. A few moths ago I had the privilege to be interviewed by one of the most sensitive, kind and talented people that I know, Huyen Tue Dao, and be featured at the show. Thank you so much Huyen! ๐Ÿ’•๐ŸŒบ


August 27 / Action On Google #2 โ€” Creating Actions ๐Ÿค–

As Iโ€™m on the other side of the world, the second event of our Women Techmakers Israelโ€™s Actions on Google workshop takes place in Vonageโ€™s Tel Aviv Office . I spent so many hours prepping with the team via hangout, until way past midnight (in Israel timezone)! I feel so proud of each of them! Hadar and Stav gave a fantastic guided talk on how to create Actions, from A to Z! Then they all set down for hands on codelab. We had the fabulous Roy Ben Shushan facilitating from the officeโ€™s side. Roy, This event series couldnโ€™t have happen without you! ๐Ÿ˜

Itโ€™s extremely fulfilling to know that things are rolling and people are taking opportunities, people are coming together, without me being physically present!


August 27โ€“28 / droidcon NYC!๐ŸŽ†!

This is one of those events you wait for an entire year! Devs come from all around the world to attend and to speak. This means โ€” tons of my friends from all around the world were there! literally all around! ๐ŸŒŽ๐ŸŒ๐ŸŒ

Had so many opportunities to catch up, party and hangout together! and still it never feels enough! ๐Ÿ’š

droidcon NYC was organized by.. many! but especially in-charge was the amazing Natalie Krivenko! a person I really love and have a special connection with. It was hot in Brooklyn ๐ŸŒžreally hot, but so so cool ๐Ÿ˜Ž filled with fun moments and interesting content.

My talk was about making apps dance ๐Ÿ‘ฏ with the very exciting MotionLayout:

For this talk as well, blogpost series will follow! ๐Ÿคž

This Twitter thread explains why was this such an awesome experience for me:

But also, another angle stroke me with inspiration, and I decided to share a very personal perspective in a Moment About Appreciation: ๐Ÿ™


August 29 / droidcon NYC Extended ๐Ÿž

It was too soon so say goodbye to Droidcon, so we headed to Jet.com offices, right by the river at Hoboken,NJ, for a few last words. Kevin Galligan and Natalie Krivenko gave a fun summary of the conference, and then I had another opportunity to share my MotionLayout love. Wisdom Dโ€™Almeida and Tyler Eastman shared the stage with me, with their interesting machine learning talks.

It was so much fun! and I won a wonderful chill morning by the riverside before heading back to NYC. Nitya Narasimhan couldnโ€™t come, but of course that she was the queen of the event ๐Ÿ‘ธ, which was organized together with GDG New York City.

Thank you so much for inviting me!! ๐Ÿค—๐Ÿ’•


August 30 / Women Who Code NYC ๐Ÿž

My first time speaking at a Women Who Code event! Priceline and the amazing Elizabeth Funk ๐Ÿ˜˜ [Software engineer at Priceline.com & Director at Women Who Code] hosted me for to discover โ€œWhoโ€™s Afraid Of Machine Learning?โ€ . This time half of the audience were students, grads, or junior developers. Therefore, the session involved many questions and discussions until we sorted out the machine learning and deep learning terms and fundamental ideas.

I had the precious chance to chat with some of the ladies who came, not only about machine learning but also about career, communities, developmentโ€ฆ . I was so inspires and impressed! Really hope to keep in touch!! โค

Slides are here, and blogposts will be posted super soon: http://bit.ly/BrittMLKit,


September 3 / Action On Google #3 โ€” Getting Creative ๐ŸŽจ

(Yes, I know that technically itโ€™s not August.. but.. cut me some slack ๐Ÿ™ƒ)

Heading back to Tel Aviv, ๐Ÿ›ฌ to have the final event of Women Techmakers Israel Actions on Google. It was 100% hands on, where devs teamed up and worked on their own dream bots ๐Ÿค–, with the Adi Mazor Kario as the UX mentor, and the team helping out with technical implementation.


This is just a part of my job! ๐Ÿ‘ฉโ€๐Ÿ’ป

In between allllllll of these events.. I was working! on our SDK that Stitches all communication channels together, while keeping one context. โ˜Ž๐Ÿ“น๐Ÿ“ฑ

If you want to join the developer preview, do it: http://bit.ly/stitchDevPrev


This month was such an awesome adventure! ๐ŸŽ’๐Ÿ’ƒ

Challenging at times, but so fulfilling and exciting and fun!

Now I really need some rest, and see my friends in Tel Aviv, and my beloved local community!

Thank you with all my heart to Google Developer Experts program for supporting me ๐Ÿ’“ As well as thank you to my company Nexmo & Vonage Technology for supporting and enabling me to basically disappear from the office for weeks.

Genuinely grateful for these opportunities ๐Ÿ™โฃ๐Ÿ™

Thank you for everyone who shared any moment of this #BestAugust with me.


Britt Barak

Written by

DevRel @ Nexmo; Google Developer Expert for Android; Women Techmakers Israel community lead.

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