Google Developers Group organized yet another successful event, this time it was the GDG Devfest, the event was held on 17th November’18 at NUST H-12. Google Developers group is a community of enthusiast tech experts and developers who organize tech events creating a virtual world of live pictures for those who share a passion for Google’s Developer Technology. Over 400 individuals ranging from students to entrepreneurs and professionals including the youngest Microsoft professional, Haris Usmani actively participated in this years event. The event was sponsored by Bentley,GitHub etc.
The event started off with Muhammad Bin Masood (co-Manager GDG Islamabad) welcoming the attendees and explaining what GDG is all about and how GDG is an entire journey in itself rather than just a community. The proceedings of the event commenced with an introductory session led by Mr. Imran Tanveer, on the latest updated android version called Android P which includes some exciting features that are going to bring about revolutionary changes to your devices very soon. These features include Gesture Navigation, Wind Down and much more. Emphasizing on the concept of Digital Wellbeing he said: “Great technology should improve life, not distract from it”.
The next session was led by Mr. Hassan Habib, an expert graphics designer from Designist, who highlighted the grave issue of technological limitations faced by deaf people around the globe and the efforts being made to overcome such limitations. The event then proceeded with a session on the modern breakthrough of 21st century and the current hot topic,’ The Artificial Intelligence’. From Siri, Cortana and Google Now to Automated Cars and Robots, Artificial Intelligence has eliminated the factor of strenuous human thinking and efforts, thus simplifying day-to-day tasks by the minute. A.I can now encompass anything from Google’s search algorithms to IBM’s autonomous weapons. The future of A.I was discussed by technologist Mr. Zain Fuad, who explained how A.I actually works and how Machine Learning will be empowered by innovation through technological means.
Ever wonder what Github is about and what keeps developers fussing over it? Well, if you didn’t then there’s no time to do it now, let Mr. Ali Ayub Khan (campus ambassador of Github Pakistan) do the job. He states that it’s a developing platform that saves time for developers when coding or working on a project with developers from all over the globe. Imagine the possibilities as GitHub eliminates the need of continuous emailing to one person at a time by working on the project on a singular platform in which all members of that particular project are connected. Everyone’s absolute favorite and the most awaited among all the sessions conducted by tech influencers was the session by the founder of LOLZ Studios and the digital media influencer, Syed Muzammil Hasan Zaidi, on the subject of Google Assistance. Moreover, an interesting and informative talk on Google Deep Dream was given by Aqsa Kausar of Codistan. The talks concluded with an enthusiastic Q&A session with the speakers. A number of workshops and codelabs were also conducted on product designing with Angular and Materials led by Shaheer Wasti from Nayatel, Tensorflow by Irum Zahra and Danish Nazir from Anzen and Firebase by Ilyas Hussain which stirred the audience’s interest to shoot a series of questions in an attempt to clarify their ambiguities and further extract knowledge from them.
The Panel Discussion with Women Techmakers was the tip of the iceberg. The panel included influential women like Maliha Javed Khan (Co-Founder of Easy Insurance), Saadia Khurram (CXO of Jazz), Rabia Babar (Director Professional Services at Elixir Technologies) and Maham Tariq (Women Techmakers Scholar APAC). The panel was moderated by Saad Hamid (CEO – DEMO and SkillsFirst) while the discussion centered upon ‘women empowerment’ and how the digital age can now provide equal opportunities for both men and women. Furthermore, techmakers emphasized on interaction and experience as it would play a key role in success and development of the young generation and would bring them in touch with tomorrow.
The event concluded with an amusing activity where students and professionals alike got the opportunity to interact and engage with each other. Thus, creating a pleasant networking environment for all. Well what’s more to an event than the reviews left by it’s gleeful and satisfied attendees, while to some Devfest’18 was a wonderful motivational experience to others it was an amazing networking platform which boosted their confidence to think outside the box and take that leap.
Every year the annual Devfest is centred upon some theme, this years theme was “Digital Wellbeing” and how it can be achieved.
