Community Building with Ingressive — for the #NextMillionDevelopers
Organizing an event is an exciting thing to do, organizing a tech event is even more exciting. The reason being that whenever developers gather they are wont to share ideas, make light-hearted jokes and take awesome group photographs. A gathering of developers should probably be called a snapshot. 📷
On the 31st of January, 2018, there was such a gathering of developers (and enthusiasts alike) at the maiden edition of Rivers State University Ingressive Community meet-up. And as usual they gathered to share ideas, this time on how to Learn, Unlearn and Relearn.
The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn. — Alvin Toffler
It was a gathering of many inspirations and learning. Enthusiasts were converted to the faith and lukewarm members were baptized with fire 🔥🔥🔥. It was a function of developers learning from other developers. No information hiding, just direct passing of encapsulated nuggets of knowledge and wisdom. It was a fun fun function. 😉
We started things off with a brilliant presentation by Eedee Naku (Lead Developer, Tribaxy LLC), who spoke on the Evolution of a Software Developer. And continued with an inspirational talk by Sokari Gillis-Harry (Co-founder, NearBuy.ng), who spoke about his experience growing From User to Builder and how it’s very possible to be a self-taught world-class developer.
The flow of control was then transferred to Maven Harry (Creative Director/Mobile Dev., Boolean Labs) who beautifully shared his thoughts on How to Build World-Class Mobile Applications that are useful, beautiful and functional. After which Joel Johnson (CEO/Product Manager, Tribaxy LLC) kept things rolling by delivering his awesome talk on the dynamics of Building Cross-Functional Product Teams and how software development is a team sport.
At that point we were all hungry and needed something light to refresh our souls. And so while the munching was going on, I asynchronously shared my thoughts on Learning to Code (the sure way). I delineated the steps anyone could take to learn to code and stated the importance of learning to code through communities. GitHub was central theme at that point as I highlighted the usefulness and importance of such an indispensable tool to the workflow of any budding/seasoned developer. I made particular mention of how learning to collaborate and actually colllaborating is a sure path to becoming world-class.
The session ended on a superb note with attendees receiving the awesome GitHub/Ingressive coupon. And all were admonished to go forth and build great things!
Collaboration is the new competition. If your workflow does not include version control, you are not a world-class developer
As is the culture, we made some light-hearted jokes and played some fun games intermittently during the course of the program. Winners were rewarded with gift codes to shop on the GitHub Shop, courtesy of GitHub.
By forming strong communities and by looking out for each other, we will one day rule the world
The Ingressive Campus Community programme awoke the tech community in my campus. There is now something in the air that is infectiously fostering learning and collaboration. A new dawn has begun and it’s only a matter of time before results are evident.
Super thanks to Ingressive and GitHub for the Campus Ambassadors programme! Many thanks to NearBuy.ng, Boolean Labs, Tribaxy LLC, Accentery and Developer Accent for supporting the movement. Greater things ahead!
