I learned so much at GitHub Universe that I am not sure where to start. The people there were all accomplished engineers among other professionals working on amazing technologies. I was blown away. Everybody I met was so nice and welcoming not to mention humble. Those I was lucky enough to meet would share their stories with me and give me valuable advice that I will take with me on my journey. This experience really made it real for me. I was able to put a face on the engineers working on the latest technologies.
The speeches ranged in topics and difficulty (at least in my opinion). There were honestly more speeches that went over my head than I would like to admit, but I sat through them and I tried to learn as much as I could from each of those speeches. I learned about the GitHub Workflow and the changes GitHub is currently working on, I learned about Atom and Electron APIs. I made a lot of notes of topics that I would have to research when I got home.
One of my favorite speeches was given by Pamela Vickers the engineering manager at Mailchimp. The presentation was titled Crossing the Canyon of Cognizance: A Shared Adventure. I loved it not because she used a cute unicorn animation, but because she talked about the process of learning to code. It really tied in the conference for me. I recommend that anyone learning or teaching coding should watch her speech.
I also learned so much about open source and the wonderful things others are doing with it. It really made me earn a new respect for GitHub as a company and the way they are impacting the world. I feel so much more informed about the possibilities that open-source provides. I feel as though I am returning home with excitement, inspiration and much better prepared to contribute to open source. If there is one thing I learned it is that GitHub and open-source are changing the world. I’ve learned so much I still have to process a lot of it, but I know that if I get the opportunity I will try my best to attend any future conference and I will keep up to speed on what GitHub is doing.This conference really made me self-aware of how much I need to learn and do, but it also made me confident that I can do it.