GDGs in Murcia and Cartagena organize the first AIFest in the world
Exciting news from Spain! The first AIFest in the world was organized by Google Developer Groups (GDG) from Murcia and Cartagena under the leadership of Irene Ruiz Pozo (a GDG Murcia and Cartagena lead as well as a Women Techmakers Ambassador). Here’s what she says about the event.
Everyone loved the idea of an AIFest
55 local and international speakers joined us for the AIFest Spain to discuss subjects such as Algorithms, Developers Operations, Machine Learning, Deep Learning or Artificial Vision applied to different areas of life and industries, such as medicine, nutrition, sport, education or agriculture.
The event, held in El Batel Auditorium and Conference Center in Cartagena, was organized in cooperation with Mucia Inteligencia Artificial association. Many other organizers collaborated to make the AIFest happen, and among them: INFO Murcia Region, Cartagena City Council, Cartagena Port Authority, Murcia Region Telecommunications Engineers Official College, Cartagena Polytechnic University, GDG Spain, Biyectiva Technology, Aunna IT, ISEN, IES Alcántara, Spain AI, Saturdays.AI, CENTIC and CEEIC.
I’d like to express my gratitude towards all the parties involved: institutions, universities and companies of the Region of Murcia supported us from the beginning to create this event, everyone liked the idea of an AI Fest and did everything possible to make this festival happen.
Why Artificial Intelligence?
We’ve decided to organize the event after observing that there are many conferences dedicated to Android or Cloud, but none would offer the opportunity to learn exclusively about AI from the Google Developers. We saw an opportunity for the Google Developers communities not only to share expert-level knowledge, but also to create a space where students, teachers, universities, institutions and companies nationwide could contribute with their talks, projects and workshops on AI. We also wanted to make GDGs and the projects they carry out more visible, encouraging people to join the communities so that they can continue to grow and learn as a team.
AI is currently used in many areas of life and various industries, but there are still companies falling behind in that matter. This not only prevents them from growing smoothly and gaining technological advantage, but also influences personal development of their employees. By holding this event, we wanted to show the attendees why they should apply AI in the various fields they work in and teach them how to do it.
This event, being national, had a great impact on the professional community in Spain and really grabbed developers’ attention. We had local and international speakers willing to share their expert knowledge. And we were truly amazed at the response and interest in our event! We broadcasted live on YouTube and had three channels to share all the talks. In less than a week, we had more than 1500 views in room A, over 1100 in room B and nearly 350 views in the Workshops room (go ahead and watch the recordings!).
It was a blast!
I must say that the best part of organizing the event was the family that we created throughout the process, not only among the members of our community, but also within the collaborators and speakers who joined us to bring the AIFest to life.
The thing I’ll remember most about the event are the round tables: the speakers who agreed to join us expressed very different points of view, but, at the AIFest, everyone could present their own experience. I also really liked the moment when all the speakers met — thanks to their positive energy and willingness to participate, very big projects are going to be carried out and help the community.
We’re really happy that, thanks to our initiative, new developers have joined the communities, entrepreneurs decided to learn how to use Google technologies, and students have shown interest in joining Google Developer Student Clubs. Developers from all over Spain are asking if there are GDGs in their cities they could join. Folks also want to be a part of Women Techmakers and become Google Developer Experts. So we’ve finally made the Google Developers communities come back strong after the pandemic and gave us all a chance to meet face to face as well as have the talks transmitted live. We have shown people that we are still here, that we have a lot to share with them and that our communities will be the platform where the developers could learn and teach. We are here to help everyone grow as everyone is a valid member of the community.
The adventure has only just begun
As organizers, we don’t want the AIFest to be a one-time thing. We’re planning on organizing the second part of the festival this year and are hoping that more people will be able to attend in person as chatting face-to-face is the most effective way of getting to know the right people and establishing a community. We’re also planning on creating similar events for Android, Cloud, AR / VR, and others that’ll focus on startups, the needs of local communities or inclusion. Our team also dreams of becoming an inspiration for GDGs around the world — we would love to see AIFests happening in all the different countries and the knowledge being shared with anyone who’s eager to learn about AI.
See you at the next event!
