DevFest NYC

DevFest is the signature annual conference run by GDG chapters worldwide, focusing on speakers, topics and activities that are of key interest to their specific community. DevFestNYC is the flagship software developer conference associated with the GDG New York chapter.

While we have run other workshops and hackathons prior to this date, we consider DevFest NYC 2016 to be the first iteration of this event.

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DevFest NYC 2016

DevFest NYC 2016 was a 2-day event held in November 2016 in New York City, organized by the GDG New York chapter. It marked the launch of our DevFest series and was unique in two aspects.

First, the event consisted of multiple tracks, spread out over two distinct venues. The first venue (General Assembly NYC) hosted a 2-day Ultimate Go Training track that provided immersive training in the Go Language for absolute beginners. The second venue (Flatiron School NYC) hosted three parallel tracks consisting of tech talks, workshops and a 2-day hackathon.

Second, the event was completely run with a volunteer crew and planned out (from start to finish) over a period of less than two months. Not only did this involve having to plan and execute on 4 separate tracks, but it also involved managing logistics (catering, signage, design) and budget (sponsorship, ticketing) across a distributed team many of whom had only met once in real life.

While we undoubtedly learnt a lot of lessons (the hard way) from this experience, we also gained a sense of achievement and community, and hope to be able to harness some of those insights into improving our approach in 2017. Most importantly, we had a remarkable roster of speakers for our inaugural DevFest and ended up with at least 10 teams presenting demos and final pitches from the Hackathon.

You can learn more about DevFestNYC 2016 here

DevFest NYC 2017

Planning for our second DevFest season is just beginning. Stay tuned for details.

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