Facebook Developer Circles: Jeddah — The What, Why, Who & How?
Attend meetups, collaborate, and learn about the latest technologies.
What?
Developer Circles program was announced at F8 — Facebook’s annual conference — in 2017, and in just over a year it has grown to become a community of more than 175,000 developers across 125 cities globally.
These Circles are community-driven and organize offline events where one can learn about the latest technologies from Facebook and other industry leaders along with open-source technologies. More importantly, they are free to join for everyone and a great forum to share knowledge and enable collaborations.
Developer Circle Jeddah is the local chapter of this program based in, you guessed it, Jeddah. We’re the first circle in GCC and we started in November 2017 by holding a series of AI Masterclasses. Which was a program of 5 workshops and 3 live Q&A sessions about Artificial Intelligence topics such as Neural Networks, Speech Recognition, Computer Vision, and Natural Language Processing brought to us exclusively by Facebook AI Research Lab (FAIR).
We organize monthly events for our community, where we focus on a different topic. Our events usually consist of tech talks, workshops, hackathons, viewing parties or a mix of them.
Our goal is to connect and empower local developers!
Though, we’re based in Jeddah. That does not mean our members are limited only to it. We regularly have members who come and attend our events from Makkah, Taif, Rabigh, and KAUST. In fact, we’ve even had some people fly in all the way from Riyadh and Dammam to attend some of our events such as the Blockchain Day @ Wadi Makkah.
Why?
Just as plants need pollination to spread. A healthy and thriving tech ecosystem needs good events where people can come together to learn, collaborate, and share their ideas and experiences in an open and friendly environment.
Regardless, of whatever tech stack you build on, Developer Circle Jeddah connects you with other local developers. It’s a community where you’ll get to engage with local experts and learn about new technologies like Bots, AI, IoT, Blockchain, React and others.
There are a lot of smart people in Saudi Arabia that are already building interesting projects using technology. Be they students, experts, enthusiasts, professionals or academics. We aim to bring them together to foster a community of people driven to learn, collaborate, build, inspire and support each other in building a strong local ecosystem.
Or, you could always land a new job opportunity. 😄 What’s a better place than a community to meet interesting people whom you would potentially love to work with? Speaking of which, if you’re searching for a job then just fill in this form or if you’re looking to hire someone then fill in this other form. And, we’ll make sure you get connected.
As the old saying goes, “A rising tide lifts all boats”.
Who are we?
Well, who is anyone really? But, putting philosophy aside for a moment. We’re two techies who’re passionate about building communities and we co-lead Developer Circle Jeddah.
Andrew is a data science enthusiast based at KAUST (doing his PhD there in renewable energy). He loves building chatbots, web-apps, and other things that make life simple. And I’m a full-stack software developer and a tech consultant who grew up in Jeddah. I’m also an open-source contributor. And I’ve had one of my projects, namely Haikunator included in the Debian and Ubuntu OS along with the vagrant-azure gem by Microsoft.
How can I get involved?
Well, the first thing to do would be to join our Facebook Group. And, introduce yourself to the community. Then try getting involved in our conversations. Don’t worry, everyone is quite welcoming. Lastly, just attend our monthly events!
Though, you can also take part in the community as a speaker during our events. We’re a community that is language and platform agnostic, so you can talk about or give a workshop on almost any technical topic.
Think about an idea that delights you. Is there a tool you love that you’ve been telling everyone about?
Did you do something with computers that seems impossible or amazing or just really fun? Maybe, you learned something new and amazing about your favorite language. Perhaps, you would like to talk about or showcase a project you’re working on. Then submit a talk about any of those things, or just surprise us!
If this is your first time presenting, don’t worry. You don’t need to be a professional speaker. If you need help, we’ll be there to mentor you.
So don’t hesitate to reach out to us, Usman (again, that would be me) or Andrew, your friendly neighborhood community-leads.
Also, in case you’re not on Facebook. We still have you covered. Since our motto is to be where our community is. We also have a WhatsApp Group along with a Meetup Page and even a Newsletter. So you really have no excuse to miss one of our events or to be part of the community.
Beyond events
Developer Circle Jeddah is more than the events it holds. We’re a diverse community with different backgrounds. But, we all hang out together online even if it’s at different places. We like to share what we care about or find interesting and fun with each other. So don’t be shy! And, share away!
A few parting words
If you’re a software developer trying to build something, or a student who’s trying to learn what code is, you’ll find yourself a supportive community in Developer Circle Jeddah.
See you at our events, and bring along your co-workers, students, friends, and family. And invite them to join Developer Circle Jeddah.
Oh, and spread the word far and wide on social media too.
Your next steps
- Join our community on the Facebook Group and say hi
- You can also join us on the WhatsApp Group, Meetup Page or the Newsletter
- Check out other articles published by Developer Circle Jeddah
- And reach out to us, if you want to give a talk or want to us to cover a topic
Facebook Developer Circles: Jeddah is an open and inclusive community. We don’t discriminate or support any biases. We’re a diverse community and encourage active participation by everyone, especially women.
