I attended the GDG SSA Community Summit
“Fill this form, if you would like to attend the community summit”, that was how the invite was framed.
I didn’t really give it a thought. I filled the form in the middle of doing whatever it was I was doing. But first, I think I should explain my involvement with GDG.
GDG stands for Google Developer Groups, essentially a group of people interested in one or more Google technologies, who organize people and try to teach or build interest in said technologies. While they are called GDG, two other types of groups were split out recently: Developer Student Clubs (DSC, for campus presence), and Google Cloud Developer Communities (because the Google Cloud is an extremely large platform).
In February of 2018, I got an invitation to co-organize a Google Cloud Developer Community. I had my initial doubts, but Cloud is something I do. So, why not?
Organizing that community was a simple matter of picking something to talk about every month, and putting in on a calendar. Simple? Maybe, if you already know the topic I will be discussing. The problem is, when you live in the developing world, Cloud is not a very popular topic.
That invite came a few months afterward and for the first time, it occurred to me that my community was a part of something larger. Those invites are usually hit-or-miss though because you can’t be sure that you have put in more of an effort than other community organizers. I also had the opportunity to give a talk at the summit. What are the odds? Well, I put in an application for that too.
I got a confirmation that I was going to be attending the summit. The very next thing I did was to look at what GDG event would be taking place in Nairobi around that period. I found that GDG Nairobi had scheduled a DevFest to hold the day after, and about 300 people had already signified their interest to attend. Lucky me! I sent out a note to the organizers asking for an opportunity to speak at the event (why go see elephants, when I can talk to fellow humans? Actually, I have already seen the elephants).
I did not get a response, but the organizers eventually put out a call for presentations, and I filled that twice.
A week or two before the summit, one of my proposals was accepted, and I started work on my presentation. This was for the GDG Nairobi DevFest. On the week of the summit, I got another email that my session had been approved, and a template was attached for my use when creating my slides. This did not ring a bell until two days before the summit. This was when I realized that the second email was about the presentation at the summit. I had completely forgotten about that.
The good news is, by the time I departed for the airport, my slides were done, re-done, and proofed.
At the airport, I ran into a bunch of Nigerian community organizers headed for Nairobi to attend the summit. By the time the flight departed, there were eight of us traveling together.
The flight itself was a relatively short one, with a 19-minute hop to Cotonou before our trip to Nairobi, which lasted about 6 hours. I have never had issues with customs and immigration in Nairobi, and I was out of the airport in a little under 30 minutes. It was already late, and the hotel kitchen would have been closed. Thankfully, the Carlson Wagonlit Travel agent who was at the airport to pick us up had figured out an alternative for dinner! Very thoughtful of her.
It turns out the dinner arrangement caused us to not get to the hotel until around midnight. Once at the hotel, we settled into our cozy rooms, and two of my companions who were presenting at the DevFest decided to start working on their slides.
The next day was the summit. It was my first summit, and also my first Google-organized event. There were over 70 attendees. I don’t know about others, but that is a lot of people to meet in one day! These people came from everywhere that is Africa, Mauritius, Mauritania, Madagascar, and other places that I forgot were a part of Africa! Getting everyone there was a herculean task for the team at Google, and I truly appreciate the effort they put in.
The day of the summit was an eventful one. Of all the attendees, I had only ever met two! I met the Google Developer Ecosystem team for the first time: Aniedi, who recommended me for a Google Developer Expert; and Lai, who manages the communities in Nigeria. I also met Solomon and Fola. I met the Expert Relations team: John Kimani and Vivian Akinyi, both of whom I had spoken with on phone and exchanged lots of emails. I even met two Experts: Kenneth (Cloud GDE) and Olivier (Web GDE).
I gave my presentation to the GDG organizers present, which as basically a call-to-action asking them to introduce Keras to their communities.
The rest of the day was filled with lots of activity. Hearing about what other communities are doing in and with technology, learning about organizational skills, and strategies for growing engagement. I learnt more from sitting in that room, than I could have in either a classroom, or from reading books.
One key takeaway for me was about inclusivity in our work. I was particularly touched by a session that was delivered in French! I could follow along as the speaker delivered her speech. Because she had her slides in English so non-French speakers could follow along, I quickly realized that her message would not have been delivered if her slides were in French and she had spoken in English.
I now find myself constantly thinking about inclusivity (gender, language, disability) in everything I do.
The next day was DevFest Nairobi. It was a massive gathering of over 1,200 people. You can only get a larger crowd when Google organizes events. But, this event was not organized by Google.
The day started like any other day. Breakfast at the hotel and departure for the venue of the event.
Things started out slowly at the venue, but quickly picked up steam. The keynote was delivered, and speakers were moved to a waiting area while attendees settled into their various tracks.
When it was my turn, I delivered a session on getting TensorFlow models into production. The room was packed full! I have never seen such enthusiasm. Organizers had to keep people out. Those who made it in brought extra chairs. Those who couldn’t find chairs sat on the floor. The room had a maximum capacity of 90, but we had over 130 people in that room taking notes.
After lunch, we had more speakers on the AI track. I had fun listening to, and interacting with, the various speakers. The photo above is of those of us who had our sessions before the break.
Nairobi was fun. There was swag, and developers, and I got away with an Android Things kit (meetup holding in three hours’ time).
I am grateful for the opportunity to meet all the people, and to present on two different days to a captive audience. Logistics on the continent is a nightmare, but these organizers pulled it off.
If you are interested, the slides for the session are available here:
