DEVFEST WESTERN KENYA 2015

The 2ND annual Devfest Kisumu  was an unprecedented event in the history of GDG Kisumu.Some 250 persons, from three universities nearly half of whom were women, attended the event on  November 28th 2015.The atmosphere was electric, and the air was thick with love – love for technology and free schwag.

It could have been that we were excited to hear what the two Googlers from the Kenya office had in store for us.Or perhaps it was our anticipation for the future of the tech eco system in this part of the country. Whatever the reason, we were all on cloud nine.

Android offline kits

The tone of the conference was set with opening remarks from Victor Mwendwa - lead organiser of GDG Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology.

The first keynote John Kimani Developer Ecosystem Program Manager at Google.He talked about the Google ecosystem and how the tech community in Western Kenya can be part of the ecosystem.

John

The second keynote was from Mercy Orangi - Developer Ecosystem Community Manager at Google.She talked about how android developers can improve app quality.She talked about Google resources such as Lauchpad that the tech community can use to scale their start ups.

Mercy

Roina Ocheing from GDG Strathmore university also gave an awesome talk titled "Women Techversation" highlighting the evolution of women in technology.

Roina 

We took a short break,then we had several side events in smaller rooms for one hour. Most of them were practical workshops focused on different technologies and codelabs. (Polymer,firebase,android and tech-prenuership)
All these sessions were led by ladies.Yeeiy Women techmakers!!!

Attendees having lunch

With our bellies full of  chicken and a couple of drinks, we kicked off the second half of the fiesta with a presentation from Eugene Mutai, who a GDE and a full stack web engineer at Andela.Eugene gave a detailed presentation on "Web development craftsmanship as of 2015"

Eugene

GDG Kimathi University of Science and Technology lead, Kenneth Kinyanjui, anchored the event with the second presentation on "Service Workers: Offline Functionality and Push Notifications"

Kenneth

Panel Discussion.

The local techies also got a chance to present to the audience what tech start ups they had been working on.

The conference was not just talks and workshops. The speakers had a small  tour around Kisumu city on Sunday before they left.

Boat ride at Lake Victoria

Here's the link to more events photos
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Special Thanks to

Google

Lake-hub

GDG Kisumu and MMUST

WTM Kisumu and MMUST

All the organizers

All the volunteers

God above all

 

GOOGLE IO WESTERN KENYA 2015

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​Greetings from the shores of Lake Victoria.

GDG Kisumu collaborated with GDG MMUST and Lakehub to hold its' second edition of Google I/O.

The event was held on 28th March from 5 pm to 29th March 7am at Varsity Plaza Maseno.

 

Google I/O is two days of inspirational talks, hands-on learning, and a chance to hear more about Google's latest developer products.

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​Flow of event

1.Registration of attendees 

Close to 100 people attended this years IO 

30 Females

70 Males

 

2.Introducing Google IO to attendees and IO 2014  recap. 

Dorcas (WTM and GDG co lead kisumu) Introduced the first time attendees to Google IO.She also did a short recap of 2014's Google IO mentioning the highlights

 

3.Viewing of Keynote speakers

We started watching the keynote speakers from 7 pm  to about 10pm EAT

 

4.Dinner

We took a break to have a sumptuous dinner for about one hour before the next session.

 

5.Breakout Sessions(Android.Polymer and Women Techmakers)

We had three interesting break out sessions.

• The Polymer session that was lead by Boniface(Polymer lead in GDG Kisumu) and Sigu.Here is a small feedback report by one of the attendees of the polymer session.Maxwel (GSA Maseno University) 
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  polymer session

• The Android session was lead by GDG MMUST Co organizer.They discussed android api,material design and android studio.
  
  
  
  
  
  android session

• The Women TechMakers session was lead by WTM lead MMUST.They discussed ways of getting more women in western Kenya interested in tech.At the end of the session they had formed a group that will volnteer to go to girls high schools to mentor them in tech related subjects.
  
  women techmakers

 

6.Snack and Coffee

We then took a 30 munitues coffee break,this was around 2:00 am.

 

7.Barcamp lead by James Odede.(Director and Founder of Lakehub)

Major topics discussed

(i)Tech mashinani -Geting technology to the villages.

(ii)Techprenuership,-How we can create scaleble aplications that will solve our own African problems.

(iii)Internet security

(iv)Internet of everything.

 

8.Breakfast

 Breakfast was served at 7am

9.Networking

 Attendees networked at as they took photos

viewing keynote

 

Special Thanks To

Lakehub

Google

Maseno Varsity campus

GDG MMUST

All the participants

 

Lead, Women Techmakers Kisumu, Kenya

           Co Founder  SokoNect

Lakehub

(+254) 729027734 |

Dorcas Adhiambo Owinoh

GDG Kisumu

                       

Google UX Masterclass

Following Google's UX Masterclasses in Africa, we will be holding our own UX Masterclass event on the 25th of October 2014 at Lakehub.

"This masterclass is suitable for anyone with a passion for creating outstanding user experiences, regardless of whether you are a software developer, product manager, web designer or user experience designer". So as you can see, everyone's invited!

Don't forget to grab your ticket here!!

See you all there!

Lakehub Launch

Its been a long time coming.

On the 27th of September 2014 we finally launched our own tech hub Lakehub.. It was an awesome time of networking and charting our way forward. One of the founders, Evan Green got us the Google cardboard which we also spent some time playing around with.

Watch this space y'all, Lakehub is coming!

Some photos of the auspicious occassion..
More photos here..

Solve For X

During our monthly meetup in August we Solved for X.


We were definitely not short of ideas on how to go about solving some of the local and some international challenges. The challenges were listed up and we had to vote for the one we would take up as a GDG.


Expect periodical reports on our progress on the project we are currently undertaking.


As usual Photos are in order..

I/O Extended Kisumu

Google's annual I/O Conference went down this year in June.. and Kisumu was not left behind. Being our first I/O Extended we didn't really know what to expect. Almost loosing out on the venue at the last minute to getting sufficient internet connection were some of the challenges that could have deterred us from realizing our event but it all worked out in the end and we had an awesome time and fun.


This post would would not be complete without the mention of a suggested Android L device that one of our most active members Dianga Michael felt was missing.. the Android Oven.. how the oven works is that you download a picture from the internet of the food you want and you upload the photo to the oven and you wait for the oven to output the real thing. We offer ourselves as GDG Kisumu to be the seed dev team to start working on it :)


Check out the photos from the event

Google Computer Science For High Schools Kisumu

Hi guys.

Kisumu is honored and privileged to be one of six institutions in the whole of Africa to have been granted Google's Computer Science for High Schools grant.

On the 7th of June we convened to brainstorm and chart a way forward on how best to implement the program. We dialogued on the best approach to the curriculum, teams and team leaders were chosen and we got the ball rolling.

We hope to achieve the most optimal impact from this program on our babies in high schools, our future GDGs.

We invite y'all to join us on our G+ Community Page , critique our every move, comment on our photos or just say hi.

I also take this opportunity to wish us all a happy Google I/O 2014 and merry I/O Extended 2014.

Cheers.