DevFest Kampala 2019 — Bringing together a Diverse and Inclusive Community of Developers
This year’s DevFest Kampala event, the Google Developer Groups (GDG) in and around Kampala together with Developer Student Clubs (DSC) came together in partnership with Flutterwave, KaiOS Technologies and Outbox to an exciting DevFest 2019 alongside other developer communities and Industry players to experience learning sessions on Cloud, Machine Learning, Mobile and Web technologies.
GDG DevFests are large, community-run developer events that happen around the globe focused on community building and learning about Google’s technologies.
At DevFests, Developers are equipped with different skills required for them to compete in the tech industry and also an opportunity for them to connect and find opportunities within the tech industry.
The whole day event which took place on the 26th of October 2019, hosted by Outbox with speaker sessions, panel discussion, codelabs and networking, was attended by close to 500 participants from different parts of Uganda.
In his opening remarks, Solomon Opio, the lead, Google Cloud Developer Community Kampala introduced the Google Developer Groups (GDGs) and Developer Student Clubs (DSCs), highlighting some of the programs and impact they have had within the developer communities in Uganda.
The program proceeded with great topics in the different tracks and other networking sessions led by experienced developers.
Diversity and Inclusion:
DevFest Kampala 2019 was attended by a diverse group of technologists including the deaf (aspiring developers) with about 20% representation of women which is a high number compared to most technology events hosted in the country.
A panel of women techies and leaders let by Janet Namutebi the Co-lead, GDG Cloud Kampala and Women Techmakers lead, shared their experience working and learning in the tech industry.
This year’s DevFest was the first of its kind in the history of DevFest events in the country. Among the participants were ten (10) deaf people, who are considered people with disability, including one (1) lady who is currently doing a training in software development.
Most interesting about this inclusion, were the brilliant ideas that the deaf community had, presenting great opportunities for developers to take on and also improve the already existing apps build without considering the needs of people with disabilities.
Ssalongo David (picture below) sited the challenges they have faced with some apps developed in the country.
Developer Student Clubs:
At the DevFest, we were joined by several Developer Student Clubs (DSC) from different Universities in and around central Uganda with one of the leads Patience Ankunda sharing about her journey in technology.
DSCs are university-based community groups for students interested in Google developer technologies. This covers students from all undergraduate or graduate programs with an interest in growing as a developer.
Partners:
Flutterwave: A payment technology company focused on helping banks and businesses provide seamless and secure payment experiences for their customers. They provide an integrated payments platform needed to offer businesses all around the world a powerful, reliable and intelligent payments gateway.
At the DevFest, Peter Ekene Eze the Developer Advocate for Flutterwave presented an opportunity for developers to start building customizable checkout systems with Flutterwave.
KaiOS Technologies: KaiOS enables a new category of smart feature phones and IoT devices that require limited memory, while still offering a rich user experience.
miora randriambeloma the Business Development Manager at KaiOS introduced KaiOS to the developers who can now start building for a smart feature phone.
Outbox: A technology hub that helps new and upcoming African entrepreneurs interested in using technology to build high growth companies with co-working space, business incubation and technical training programs.
Media:
Follow the conversation on social media using the #tags: #DevFestKampala and #DevFest (for all other DevFests around the world).
See Picture from the event here.