Chingu Weekly Vol. 28
Say hello to some gourmet collabos, new job shout-outs, a Senior Dev AMA, and as always, scrumptious code projects!
The Great Cohort Sync of June
Those whispers you’ve heard are true! In June we will be pressing the reset button on ALL cohorts (except you Red-Pandas, you wouldn’t dare let me reset the r-Pandas ;p) and from now on will be launching cohorts at the same time.
What does this mean? Why do this?
Right now, we’re launching cohorts at different times and by doing this we aren’t making the most optimal cohorts possible. Having ALL Chingu cohorts start and stop at the same time will simplify the process and allow us to focus on increasing quality.
Keep your eye out later this week for more info and the June Cohort Signup!!!! (you’ll be able to find it in all the news channels).
News & Random
— Congratulations Rick McGavin who just got the Javascript Developer job of his dreams (at Red-Ventures aka one of the best companies to work for for software devs!).
— Big shout-out to @tarryn who opened the FIRST Chingu Meetup in Austin!! → Calling, does anyone know Django and want to get involved in a Django project? @tarryn’s Austin Chingu Meetup has someone who is looking for someone to collaborate with on a project! Leave a message in the comments here if you want more info.
— Congratulations Gerardo Toledo (@togeri) who just got a Project Manager job!!
— Congratulations Ramesh Syangtan for getting that new Javascript developer job!!
— Congratulations @nativedone who got a React Native Javascript Developer job this week!!!
— CONGRATULATIONS @kaungmyatlwin on getting your new developer job! And for everyone who provided such great advice:
— INTERNATIONAL WHOBOT WEEK!!! Fresh from a month of beta-testing in the Rambunctious Rhinos cohort comes Who-bot’s arrival into Chingu-Central.
Who-bot is Chingu’s Skills Library bot crafted by a couple particularly industrious humans (@peet & @belcurv).
What is Who-bot and how will it benefit you? Who-bot is a slackbot that allows Chingu members to add a list of their skillsets and search for people with certain skills. For example, if you wanted to find someone to code with on a React-Native project, Who-bot will give you a list of everyone in the cohorts who knows React-Native (and then you can message them from there).
More info on how to use Who-bot will be posted in Chingu-Central on Tuesday. Our goal is to get as many to plug-in to Who-bot by the end of the week so it’ll be up-to-date when you need to use it!
(NEW SECTION) →Tales from the Moonshots Lab
So, the cohorts have Moonshot projects on the go, and I felt, why not share the progress, tales, and stumbles of these projects? This will be a weekly section from now on, and each week we’ll look at an ambitious project started in Chingu. :)
THIS WEEK: KIM-BOT (team-name: Fat Giants)
A cheeky nutrition/meal playlists facebook chatbot
Kim-bot was a project born out of a desire to make an impact on global food waste (started in the Belugas cohort). Now, it’s an early-stage startup going through Y Combinator’s (helped launch companies like Reddit and Airbnb) startup school aiming to make an impact.
Yes, I know what you’re thinking…WHAT?!?!?!
Is it a bit crazy that this is happening? Yes.
Am I surprised? Not at all.
Try telling your grandma or friend that you want to create a product that aims to help solve a global problem and they’ll probably look at you like you’re drunk.
Tell the same thing to a Chingu member and you’re more likely to get an excited emoji and the question: “what are we building and what do we need to learn to build it?!” ;p
When the main goal is to learn, we’re less likely to let fear hold us back. It’s a beautiful thing, and I feel grateful to be surrounded by such motivated people who love to learn.
The Kim-bot team is presently made up of @saintograph (Belugas, Malaysia), Chemok (Walruses, Hong-Kong/Holland), Pankaja (Belugas, India) and myself (Canada/Prague). Here’s a few screenshots related to the project thus far:
Pradeep, Kim-bot’s Startup Advisor (Founder of Farmstead), said over and over: “Put the idea together as fast as possible and test it with users”. So we did that and here’s a screenshot from one of the user tests. He also said “validate the idea by asking if people would pay for it”. Below is a screenshot from one of the user tests!
The Kim-bot team is currently working towards building the core MVP and bumbling around this thing people call a “digital-marketing-strategy”. Who knows what will happen, but I do know we’re learning (sometimes painfully) and so regardless of how it turns out, it’ll be worth it.
If anyone has any questions, a nutrition background, tips or wants to informally help with spreading the word, please shoot me (@chance) a DM! :)
Next week in the Moonshots Lab section: A social networking site (ish) that has been engineered to help the FreeCodeCamp community!!!! The MVP is done and currently has around 10 Campers/Chingus beta-testing it!
Showcase & Shoutouts
@Team Cheezy — @valerie & @sparkydance & @Periman (as Project Facilitator) — This is the kind of project I see and go “my god, people are amazing.” It’s called NavBuddy and you can check out the landing page here. I will be featuring this project again next week when it’s completely finished and I can show screenshots of it in action!! :)
@Portalapp, @belcurv — Chingu had its first AMA (ask me anything) session last week, and it was a huge success! We were fortunate to have ANDREW GLASSMAN. Andrew Glassman is a Back End Architect at Digital Measures (Milwaukee WI USA), organizes the Greater Milwaukee Java Meetup, participates in our local JavaScript Meetup (recently presented on Vue.js) and presents at That Conference (“Summer Camp for Geeks”). He was previously a Senior Programmer Analyst / Automation Engineer at FedEx Services. He was EXTREMELY kind and answered every question asked. :)
Big shout-out to Andrew, everyone who participated in the event, as well as @belcurv for organziing/moderating, and @periman/ @icartuscrimea for building Portal (which powered the whole adventure). Later this week we’ll post the transcript of the AMA. Also, check out Andrew’s site here.
@togeri — Recently Gerardo Toledo spoke on the Spanish interview show Cuando ya no esté (past episodes include Neil deGrasse Tyson, Julian Assange and the author of Sapiens, Yuval Harari). Check it out here!!!!!!! (@togeri is wearing the blue shirt and jacket)
@matthew-burfield — This next project is a great example of finding project inspiration in problems to solve! Matthew (co-builder of the Gif-bot!) came up with the idea and built this bot in the same day. It’s a bot that will streamline the process of adding members into private channels! Check out the splash page here to see a gif of it in action!
@TEAM FUTURISTIC FLAMINGOS! — @gurbaksh & @FajriFadli— The Futuristic Flamingos have finished their Build.to.Learn project and cloned the Lion-bot splash page!! See the code here.
@reece — @reece has been working on a wicked RESOURCE LIBRARY for the cohorts called Libru. It’s not finished yet, but here is a sneak peak!!
@Ashiya Banu, @Adeildo Amorim and @Karel Luwena —Paypal bot splash page clone! Check out the finished Build.to.Learn project here!
@icartusacrimea — Check out this awesome interactive code art by @icartusacrimea!!!
@amanfojnr —@amanfojnr made this great website for a business school project: BOOMSHOT!
@logachev — Check out this wonderfully minimal portfolio from @logachev!
@joey_codes — Here’s a slick blog @joey_codes is building.
@saintograph & @vera — shout-out to these two who are embarking on a admirable, intriguing and IMPACTFUL project! It’s called Hero-for-Hire and is essentially ‘Taskrabbit for street performers’. Hire and find street performers for events. Alternatively, give them a couch to crash for the night, and let them guard your house.
Interesting to note: in one week this idea was developed, a team connected and formed (without any help from me), and the below mock-ups were created. That’s what I call AUTONOMY, and is a great example of people using the cohort ecosystem in an advantageous way.
So long, Periklis!!!
Today, the cohorts (temporarily) lose a truly great human, coder and mentor. @periman will be starting his mandatory army service today. He has been in the cohorts for several months, worked on many projects both as a coder and Project Manager (Timed-up, Portal, NavBuddy, Portal-AMA session #1, as well as three others team projects in development), and has helped and inspired so many people.
I am happy to have met Periklis and witness his amazing progress over the past few months. Best wishes and see you soon!
Quotes to go
Kaung Myat Lwin (@kaungmyatlwin — Parrots) on coding:
I see it as an art. Coding is something that you can’t just write on. Like a painting, you can’t randomly stroke 2 brushes and call it an “art”. You need to carefully select colors, psychology aspects, and give it a life, and that the art of code also applies the same principle.
