On October 6th 2012, GDG Kathmandu organized one of the best ever event since it started its journey back in March 2011. The coverage of our event in Official Google Developers Blog & listing of event page at Google Developers website was truly motivating. GDG Bangalore organizer came all the way from Bangalore just to host a speaker session in our DevFest. Also, the session over HoA by Android Developer Advocate, Anirudh Dewani was one of the new experience for Google Developers here in Kathmandu. We got overwhelming registration and got expected participants (~200) during first 3 days of publicly announcing the event. It was grand experience of GDG Kathmandu and DevFest Kathmandu was huge success.

DevFest Kathmandu at Google+ Event and Google Developers Event listing

~200 participants

Date/TimeVenue

• 6th October 2012 (Ashwin 20th 2069)
• Regn: 9:30-9:45AM, Event: 10AM-6PM
• Local Developement Training Academy
• Jawalakhel, Lalitpur, Nepal

Sponsors: Google
Internet Provider: WorldLink
Facilitator : Semicolon Developers
Outreach Partners: NOSK, RAN, CSITAN, Mobile Nepal
Special Thanks: FOSS Nepal, CAN, ITS-Nepal, Immune Security, GDG Bangalore

The program started with GDG Keynote session by Chapter Lead, Bhupal Sapkota at 10AM, ended with wonderful live discussions  at Barcamp. GDG Kathmandu Barcamp was our first attempt to start conducting larger informal discussion events. The feedback was awesome. We were successful to give community a kind of new flavor in Barcamp event organization. We will be hosting such barcamp at larger scale and as a separate events in future, even more informal than this barcamp.  With the multiple parallel sessions on Android application development, Robotics Apps, Google Drive, Google I/O Videos & GDG Kathmandu Barcamp, we were successful to keep all the participants actively involved during the whole day event.

Total of around ~210 participants from diverse areas of interest – mobile application developers, technology enthusiasts, web developers, designers, journalists, entrepreneurs & companies attended the program. The exciting moment was realizing that no one neither the participants nor the organizers felt bored even a single moment during the 9:30AM-6:00PM event, the feedback that DevFest was grand and we should bring in more of such events frequently during the event was very inspiring.

GDG DevFests are large scale community-run events that can offer speaker sessions across Google product areas, all-day hack-a-thons or both. DevFest Kathmandu was inspired by and uniquely tailored to the needs of our developer community. GDG DevFest at its core are powered by a shared belief that when developers come together to exchange ideas, amazing things can happen. And it happened, the topics raised during barcamp were wonderful. Participants were happy to get started with Android development.

Many GDGs across the globe have been organizing DevFest. Our effort was to participate in global devfest celebration and acknowledge the theme behind DevFests - i.e - "Engage, Learn & Share with the Google Developers Community".

DevFest Kathmandu on Global DevFest Map

Despite being small country by area, getting covered in global map of events looks wonderful. Thanks global DevFest team for making it possible and for all their support during our devfest.

Resources from the event:

 

Codelab: Build your first Android App

According to feedback from participants the Codelab Session conducted by Samrakchan Ghimire , Prayag and friends was big help for them to get started in Android Apps Development. It's was continuation of our August event. Check slides at http://www.slideshare.net/samrakchan/building-your-first-android-app

Codelab: Google Map and Location

Another codelab session on Android was on Google Map and Location by Sudarshan Pant. In this session participants got idea about hot to use Google Maps & GPS locations in their android applications. The presentation slides is at: https://docs.google.com/open?id=1Qlqg6UtdQDojEEjea0jXq-acf37yCdgI5mNnP3QLR7MRvD6ZaUb00EdFABy1 

You can fork the code: https://github.com/darshanz/HelloMapApp

Using Google Technologies for Product Development

Using Google Technologies for Product Development, Speaker Session by Manoj Ghimire, Chief Application Architect at ImmuneSecurity and co-founder of nLocate, was another session enjoyed by participants. The matured views on enterprise mobile product development was good enough to encourage participants towards enterprise development. Check Presentation Slides.

Speaker Session: Google Drive

Chintan Shah co-organizer of GDG Bangalore visited Kathmandu all the way from Bangalore just to present/participate in our DevFest. His presentations on Google Drive - Enterprise / Developers perspective was liked by many participants. There were participants who were also interested to meet and talk with Chintan about scenario of IT study for Nepalese in Bangalore. His slides are accessible here.

Speaker Session : Robotics With Android

Suresh Ghimire & Pavitra Gautam from Robotics Association of Nepal talked about how we can control electronics devices / robots with our day to day handheld android phones.

[slides will be updated]

Video Sessions

1. Google I/O 2012 Keynote 1, Video Session

 

 

 

 

2. Google I/O 2012 - Making Good Apps Great: More Advanced Topics for Expert Android Developers, Video Session

 

 

 

 

Other Moments Captured at DevFest

 

First GDG Kathmandu Barcamp – 2012

On the spot: Barcamp Agendas

1. GDG, Google & DevFest by Bhupal Sapkota
2. Android
3. Map Kathmandu (Open Street Map)
4. TypeScript Vs. Dart – Arjun sapkota
5. AXON – Connecting Possibilities
6. Phonegap + Cross Platform Mobile Apps Development by Anish
7. Why E-governance and its scope & importance in Nepal – by Suvash Khadka
8. Why don't we have data centers in Kathmandu / Nepal – Prashant (WorldLink)
9. e-Learning – Roshan Bhandari, Sudip Kafle, Santosh Ghimire, Narayan
10. AI & Machine Learning – Shishir Bhattarai
11. Talk About Samsung vs. Apple War – RAN
12. Google Glass & Self Driving Car – RAN
13. Android 4.1 / Jellybean OS – Bijaya, Sahan
14. Sikirakhau
15. Kakhara – What's Cooking, Sakar Pudasaini
16. No tension Sawari, Sakar Pudasaini

[the barcamp section will be updated in another blog post with full documentation of discussions & conclusion]

Planned Events of GDG Kathmandu

Other Resources:

GDG Graphics we used for all the branding at event – find it here (includes t-shirt template and html/css website template)

More Event Photographs:

We were able to collect more than 700 pictures during the event via our G+ event, the awesomeness of G+ events. Check more pictures from the event.
Photo Credits: Mobile Nepal as well (http://mobilenepal.net/content/gdg-devfest-kathmandu)

Online Coverage:

DevFest Kathmandu in Google Developers Blog :
GDG DevFest Season, round 2: Happily hacking!

Thank all our participants for being part of DevFest. We will sure be working on to bring another big event in the community. Stay tuned to updates via our Google+ or at our Mailing List.

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Thanks,
Bhupal Sapkota
Chapter Lead
GDG Kathmandu