F8 Kampala Meetup
Facebook Developer Circles Kampala Hosts Viewing Party
F8 is Facebook’s annual developer conference that showcases their latest technology and innovations. This year it was held at the McEnery Convention Center in San Jose, CA on May 1 and 2. In light of this, Facebook Developer Circles Kampala hosted the F8 viewing party at the Andela Uganda Office in Bukoto Kamwokya.
Before the F8 live stream, we had a panel of experts from the finance and technology sector discuss about taxation in the digital economy. This panel included:- Lucy Kemigisha a lawyer currently working as a tax advisor (Legal) with Ernst & Young Uganda currently pursuing an Advanced Diploma in International Tax (ADIT) from the Chartered Institute of Tax UK, James Wire Lunghabo a proven entrepreneur with interests in Energy, Agriculture and IT, John Jet Tusabe a Manager in KPMG Uganda with over 9 years of tax practice experience and Silver Kayondo a corporate and commercial lawyer with sector specialization Technology, Media and Telecommunications law. The panel was then moderated by Peter Malinz the CEO of Digest Africa. The discussion went on well and the audience fully participated. This discussion was streamed live on Facebook and you can find the recording here.
After the panel discussion, we moved on to the F8 live streaming. The keynote was led by Mark Zuckerburg where he talked about a lot of new and cool technological advances the Facebook teams have been up to over the last year. Notably, he talked about a new dating service that the Facebook team is working on, the new features coming to Whatsapp such as the group video calling and and better support for businesses. Also a revamp of the Messenger app and much more.
The F8 conference went on for two days with 80+ sessions and many developer related announcements were made. These included:- Facebook Developer Platform Updates, Facebook Business SDK, AR Studio, PyTorch 1.0 and Updates to Messenger. Check out the Day 1 and Day 2 recap posts from the Facebook newsroom.
As usual, the Facebook Developer Circles Kampala community values time and a demonstration of it we rewarded Collins a passionate member of the community for being the first person to arrive for the meet up. Below is a photo of him receiving swag from our MC of the day Gordon Kisakye.
It is always exciting to meet new people and also catch up with those you have not seen in a long time. The meet up was a great opportunity for many since they got to interact with others and also ended up getting new contacts. This all over a few snacks as shown in the photos below.
I would like to thank all those that managed to make it for this meet up and live streaming of the F8 keynote at the Andela Uganda office. Remember that if you are not yet part of the Facebook Developer Circles Kampala, you are missing out. Join us now here for more information and also for a heads up about our next meet-ups.
You can still watch all the F8 sessions including the keynote here.
Lastly, if you are a developer and you would like to change the world and also get an opportunity to work with the brightest minds in the world. Come join the Andela Uganda family by applying here.
You can find me on twitter. Lets chat
All photographs in this article were taken by Aaron Sekisambu
