8000 people from 70 countries gathered together to meet, talk, code and network at the largest developer congress in Europe - WeAreDevelopers 2018.
Steve Wozniak, Joel Spolsky, Brenda and John Romero, Angie Jones, Joseph Sirosh and lots of other speakers gathered in Vienna to talk about new, important, emerging and latest topics in tech such as Serverside Technologies, IOT/ Robotics, Reactive Web, Mastering Mobile, QA and Security, Product Lifecycle.
Before the event:
The Diversity Policy of the WeAreDevs: to enable minority and underrepresented groups in technology to participate. 200 Congress Passes are offered each year free of charge, sponsored by the Diversity Funding. Looking at the speakers line-up, it was clear that the diversity is the priority of the conference.
Women in Tech: Apart of giving the opportunity for our members to join the event at the discounted price, we did two giveaways: on Twitter and Facebook and made three amazing and motivated women happy :D
The variety of Workshops at WeAreDevs covered topics from Mobile Development, AI/ML/NLP, Backends and Frontends, Reactive Architecture, Robotics and IOT, Automated Environments Testing, CMS, Secure Development, Blockchain, AR/VR/MR and more.
It was super nifty that the WeAreDevelopers Congress had an app, which allowed everyone to organise three days and interact with speakers and participants.
Day 1 - The Woz, the panel discussion and the venue
The keynote that everyone was waiting for was the keynote by Steve Wozniak, aka “The Woz” - the co-founder of Apple and a pioneer of the personal computer revolution of the 1970s and 1980s.
Wozniak talked about AI, the blockchain and one of the main things that keeps him busy nowadays - the Woz academy as well as why he stopped using Facebook “5K friends that I don’t know…”, “Liking should be private”.
The leading media outlets like Forbes and Business Insider, news.com.au have already highlighted the event in the press and interviewed “The Woz” after the fire-side chat.
The Power of Diversity and Collaboration
I had a pleasure and honour to represent Coding Girls and to participate at the panel discussion “The Power of Diversity and Collaboration” together with Angie Jones - Senior Automation Engineer at Twitter, Alice Pollard - Head of Stuff at CISCO Hyperinnovation Living Labs, Benjamin Perlzweig - Senior Manager at Accenture & Founder at Equality Magazine and Mihir Pathak - Vice President at Stack Overflow.
In a nutshell: we have discussed what “diversity” means for all of us and why it matters, especially in the tech field. We have identified what might happen if diversity and collaboration is not a priority and how to help foster diversity, inclusion, equality, and collaboration in tech at-large.
Nowadays, diversity, especially in tech is not an option, it’s a must. In order to build better products and provide better solutions, we need to involve diverse talent into being a creator, not just a consumer. It is estimated that there will be 500,000 unfilled jobs for ICT professionals by 2020. And it is only in the EU. But who is going to fill these jobs if there’s not enough talent?
Stay tuned for our upcoming article "The Power of Diversity and Collaboration" and video material from WeAreDevelopers 2018.
Day 2 - The Power of Women in Tech
It made endlessly happy to see so many female speakers at the tech conference. Some of the ladies I met during the speaker's dinner or druing the conference. All of them are defitnitely role models in tech, inspiring speakers and passionate professionals.
Here're some of the moments that we captured during the day two.
Day 3 - Remarkable Experience
Do you know that moment when you are enjoying something so much that time flies? I had that feeling during the WeAreDevs Congress! :) Apart from the attractive and interactive booths, one-to-one meetings, interesting talks the thing that made the lasting impression on the participants is the surprise at the end of the event:
I was impressed with the level of the event organisation: from childcare, diversity fund, coding courses for kids to the special goodbye, the organisers thought about many details that matter. The WeAreDevs team was very responsive and responsible. Every time when we had a question or needed any kind of support, the organisers were always very eager to help.
Everything about the Speakers Dinner in one tweet:
Special thanks to the speakers managers and event volunteers who were very friendly and professional. I even had my own volunteer guiding me to my stage :) And yeah, the food was delicious, especially the desserts. It’s a crime to be that tasty :D
Kudos to the co-founders of WeAreDevelopers Benjamin Ruschin, Sead Ahmetović & Thomas Pamminger for empowering the whole tech industry in Europe and putting people first.
Looking forward to the WeAreDevelopers Congress 2019! :)
Follow WeAreDevelopers on Twitter and explore more about the congress using hashtag #WeAreDevs.
Stay tuned for more events, discounted and free tickets, opportunities for women in tech and follow Coding Girls on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
What was your favourite moment at WeAreDevs 2018?
Feel free to share it in the comments below.
Originally published on Coding Girls.
