Byteconf React 2018 is here

After months of planning, it’s finally here: Byteconf React 2018. It’s a free React.js conference, streamed on Twitch, so anyone and everyone can attend.

If you’re a software developer, especially one who works in JavaScript or React.js, please be sure to check it out! We’re LIVE today, August 31st, from 9am PST to 6pm PST!

You can watch the stream on our website, or on Twitch, at twitch.tv/byteconf.

💭 Context

I attended my first developer conference, Heroku’s Waza conference, in 2013. It was a hugely important weekend for me — for the first time, I felt like I could actually be a programmer, like, as a real job. That being said, I 1000% couldn’t afford to attend the conference. I was an intern, and I wasn’t being paid that well. Things worked out — I got a full-time, salaried gig, and I can afford to go to conferences now — but I still look back on that weekend as being hugely important to my career!

💡 Idea

In the last couple years, I came to realize that the situation that had led me to be able to get my first gig, to attend that conference, and generally my entire career up until that time was a combination of luck and privilege. I was able to get my first gig, take on some credit card debt to buy a flight, rent an Airbnb, and buy a conference ticket. A lot of people can’t swing that — due to their economic situation, their location, or whatever circumstances they may have, they don’t have the luxury of being able to hop on a plane and learn useful things for their career at a conference.

With this in mind, I started sketching down ideas for Byteconf, a free developer conference, in March, and announced it in April. I started with what I know best in 2018: the JavaScript framework React.js. I’ve been writing React for a couple years (and here at Product Hunt since February!), so I started working on my dream conference schedule, and what kind of conference I would want to attend as a React.js developer.

🚀 Launch

Five months later, the first Byteconf conference, Byteconf React, is happening! The only requirement to attend is that you have a device to stream it on! I’m beyond thrilled with our speaker lineup, which has many React and JavaScript developers that I’ve personally looked up to for years. 🤘

I wanted to build a world-class developer conference that had no economic and geographical barriers, and judging from the number of people around the world that have been joining the mailing list, we’ve already covered a lot of ground! My goal for next year: build a Byteconf community in every country 🙌

🤔 What’s next?

Byteconf React is the MVP of this idea — free developer conferences for everyone. We have more planned: I’m happy to announce today that our next conference, Byteconf JavaScript, will be happening in March 2019! Between now and then, we have a lot of smaller evening events planned, with some of my favorite people in the web development community. Be sure to join our mailing list and follow us on Twitter and Twitch to stay up-to-date.

If you dig the mission, and you want to support the mission of bringing this stuff to anyone and everyone, across the world — please check out our Patreon! It’s launching… right now! At just $2 a month, you’ll be able to help us put on new events, grow our community, and publish more educational content for developers around the world. Our conferences will always be free, but the Patreon will help us continue on this mission and build even better conferences next year, and in the future. You’ll also get some sweet perks, too — be sure to check it out!

🤗 Thank you!

I want to thank the Byteconf community for helping at every step of this process. We received almost one hundred talk submissions as part of our Call for Papers process, and the speakers chosen for this conference were voted on by the community.

Finally, check out our Discord server — we’re working on building a community of developers of all skill levels and backgrounds to chat about what’s next for Byteconf, and what’s new and exciting in the software development world. Thanks and catch you at the next conference 💖