DAVID MCLAUGHLIN: So hi, and welcome to the studio today.
I'm David, and I'm here in India for my very first visit.
I'm really pleased to be here.
It's a beautiful country, and I've
enjoyed meeting with all of the developers
and all the startups over the last few days.
We join you today from the newest studio in the Google
Developers Live family, the studio here in Hyderabad.
Brand new, and this is the first show to be recorded from it.
I'm here today with Uttam, the regional lead for India.
Happy to have you on board.
UTTAM TRIPATHI: Thank you.
DAVID MCLAUGHLIN: We're here today
to talk about the DevFests.
DevFests are a great series of events
that we're right in the middle of now.
So Uttam, a couple of years ago, Google
used to run a series of events in a handful of cities
around the world.
What led to the creation of DevFests?
UTTAM TRIPATHI: Yeah, David, as you rightly said,
a couple of years ago Google was running
events, Google Developers [? Days ?] and DevFests.
These events were across multiple cities in the world.
So one of the things with these events
is we are only able to touch those many places because we
have constraints on Google [? Spot ?]
that we can reach out to.
And around a couple of months after I joined,
one of the things that we saw from the community coming up
is there was an interest of Google Developer Groups going
out and running larger events.
We saw pilots in India, similar events in Japan,
places in Europe.
And these were community-run large events.
So when we saw these kind of events coming up,
we did understand that this is something
that community is interested in, running larger events.
Around Google I/O last year, we had the big GDG summit
in Mountan View.
We shared this idea with the community,
in which Google Developer Groups run events called DevFests.
And the response that we got was terrific,
so this has been the idea.
DAVID MCLAUGHLIN: Very cool.
Yeah, it's really exciting that communities
want to run their own events, and put it together,
and arrange for all the speakers.
Very exciting.
So last year was the first year.
It was the pilot year.
And yet I would say that the results from it
were much bigger than any pilot that I ever anticipated.
How many events did we have last year?
UTTAM TRIPATHI: So last year we had close to 75 events.
DAVID MCLAUGHLIN: 75, yeah?
UTTAM TRIPATHI: Yeah, which was way
above the quota we anticipated.
We were expecting maybe a couple of dozen.
Because that was the number we had with the GDG
and DevFests back in the day.
But as you rightly said, the community
was really enthusiastic.
And they wanted to take these events to their chapters,
and to their regions.
So that was a big achievement in terms
of what the community achieved.
DAVID MCLAUGHLIN: Yeah, no, that's really awesome.
It was shocking to me the first few times I
was talking to Uttam and the registrations were just
coming in.
It was so exciting to see all of our GDG communities
wanting to do their own events.
And this year is even bigger, isn't it?
UTTAM TRIPATHI: Yeah, this year is even bigger.
So at Google I/O this year, when we
had all of the Developer Group organizers
from across the world at the Mountain View,
we talked about DevFests 2013.
And we shared the dates over the season,
and the response was much, much more than last year.
So we have committed to support more than 150 events
across the globe, which is more than double than what
we had last year.
And this year, we are touching over 60 countries,
touching close to 30,000 developers.
DAVID MCLAUGHLIN: 30,000 developers.
That is extremely impressive.
That is a massive community, and it's all
thanks to our wonderful developers around the world.
Just think, a program that, a couple of years ago,
was just a spark in your imagination now
touches over 30,000 developers.
Very impressive.
So tell me about this particular year.
We've divided it into two seasons?
UTTAM TRIPATHI: Yeah, so this year, we have two seasons.
Season one was mid of September till the end of September,
a couple of weeks there.
And now we are in the middle of season two.
We've started on 13th of October,
which will go until 10th of November.
So season two will probably see a lot
of events in Europe, Africa, and a few of them
in the Middle East.
There will be a handful of them in Southeast Asia and India,
but most of the Asia events were in season one.
DAVID MCLAUGHLIN: Right, in season one.
Now, I also know that this year, we
piloted another type of DevFest.
It was called DevFest W. Can you tell me
a little bit about that?
UTTAM TRIPATHI: Yeah, that's one, again,
an interesting experiment that we
did in partnership with the community.
So in February, March this year, we
had a series of events called DevFest
W. It's for DevFest Women.
These were primarily events to which
we wanted to increase diversity in our developer groups.
And again, the idea was to make sure
that we have strong and solid developer content being
discussed at these events.
At the same time, encouraging more women to come up,
more diversity at these events.
And almost all of these events had at least one lady organizer
managing the event, and a lot of speaker sessions
were delivered by ladies as well.
So that was a big push in terms of increasing diversity
in our user groups.
DAVID MCLAUGHLIN: That's really exciting.
I know I was talking a couple nights ago with some ladies who
had run DevFest W events here in India.
And just the level of their skill,
the level of their passion, was just so refreshing to me.
I really enjoyed seeing all the women
around the world very interested in joining up
in engineering and starting really awesome projects.
So let's talk about one of these events.
Tell me about the format.
Typically, it's a series of lectures
given by community members?
UTTAM TRIPATHI: So the format is each GDG organizer decides
what's the best for their event.
DAVID MCLAUGHLIN: So they are very
custom to each area of the world.
UTTAM TRIPATHI: Exactly.
That's the idea, because we have understood that organizers
understand what's best for their region,
and we let them do that.
The most popular format are speaker sessions,
because this is traditionally the way of sharing knowledge
with the developers.
So of course, almost all of the DevFests do have speaker
sessions as one of the primary things,
in which they talk about multiple Google technologies,
ranging from Android, App Engine, cloud stuff, Google+,
Chrome, HTML5, and a lot of other open source technologies
are being discussed because the communities are open and we
like that way.
DAVID MCLAUGHLIN: Very cool.
In addition to these talks, I know
I was talking to some folks the other night--
again, here in India-- and they were excited
that there were other parts of these,
too-- a bunch of hands-on type of sessions?
UTTAM TRIPATHI: Yeah, almost half of the DevFests
also have a hands-on component to it,
which can be either a code lab or a hackathon,
in which you implement, or you put to test,
what you just learned to the speaker sessions.
So code labs is one of the popular formats
in which there's an instructor who leads a class.
And they go through some of the code examples.
And then, some of the other cases, you
have hackathons, which culminates into pitches
by the developers on what they have built.
So these are the components of these events.
DAVID MCLAUGHLIN: Very cool.
And a lot of this content I know was developed by Google,
and distributed to the various DevFest organizers.
But a significant percentage of it
was developed by the organizers and by the speakers themselves.
UTTAM TRIPATHI: Exactly.
That's completely right.
So as you said, from Google side,
we did create some of the content
and gave it to the organizers, because almost 80%
of the speaker sessions last year,
DevFests, were by the community.
So we understood that community organizers
are coming up and speaking.
At the same, we wanted to help them
as much as possible through content and stuff like that.
But in a lot of other cases, a lot of content
was being generated by the community speakers themselves.
So this again.
The way DevFests are being run is
a lot of community initiatives.
Communities are really owning it.
And we are more in a support role
in terms of what we can do.
DAVID MCLAUGHLIN: Very cool.
So I was able to listen to a number of sessions.
And all of them were awesome.
All of them had excellent quality speakers.
The content was just very compelling.
I learned a tremendous amount.
What excited me also was the variety of content.
There were deep dives about products.
There were introductions to products.
They were topics on marketing, on taking your idea
into a business, and pretty much everything in between.
What were some of the sessions that stood out to you?
UTTAM TRIPATHI: So some of the sessions
that are really popular-- of course,
Android is a popular technology.
But some of the sessions that we saw
happening across multiple DevFests
is things like how do you improve your app quality.
With so many apps now on Play Store, what really makes
a difference is the quality of your app,
and the kind of ratings that you can generate.
So some of the sessions around following best practices,
both in terms of the UI, and getting high quality reviews
for your app was one of the popular sessions.
The other thing that was discussed multiple times
is using more than one Google technology
in a particular product.
For example, you build an Android app,
with a backend on App Engine, and you put in Google+ sign
in to it, which enables you to get more installs,
more downloads, and things like that.
So these were some of the popular sessions
that were at DevFests.
DAVID MCLAUGHLIN: Very cool.
And so a lot of the communities have taped their sessions.
And over the next few months, we'll be making as many
of these as we can available online
so that any of you who weren't able to attend
a DevFest in person will still be
able to enjoy some of the great content.
So if someone wants to participate
in one of the remaining DevFests of the second season this year,
how can they do it?
UTTAM TRIPATHI: So all the DevFest information
is at developers.google.com.
As soon as you go to the page, you'll
see a campaign link there which encourages
you to join a DevFest near you.
You either click on that campaign,
or you can directly go to the URL
developers.google.com/events/devfest.
That's where the whole calendar of this year's DevFest season
is put up.
DAVID MCLAUGHLIN: Cool.
So next year we hope there are even more events.
Let's say somebody wants to start their own event next year
in a city that we didn't have it at this year.
UTTAM TRIPATHI: Yeah, so DevFest, in the way
that it's running right now is being
run by Google Developer Groups.
So if you cannot find a DevFest near you,
and you're interested to run one,
I think the best bet is just get involved with the Google
Developer Group program and start a chapter in your region.
The way to do that is go to developers.google.com/groups,
which has all the program information.
It has a form, a very short form.
Just fill in that and send it.
Someone from our team will get back to you
and will set you up for starting a chapter.
That would be the first step for running a DevFest next year.
DAVID MCLAUGHLIN: Sounds great.
So we have GDGs all over the world.
We have DevFests all over the world.
There's probably one near you, but like Uttam said,
if there's not, we encourage you to start one.
We'd love to have Google Developer Groups everywhere
and to have as much involvement as possible.
So the DevFest season so far has been incredible.
It's been inspiring to me to watch the community talks,
to watch the level of passion and engagement.
I'm looking forward to the rest of the events in season two.
I'm looking forward to an even better 2014.
So I appreciate all the help of the communities that run this.
And I want to thank Uttam for his time today.
UTTAM TRIPATHI: Thanks, thanks David.
Thanks to all the GDG organizers for running
this awesome series of DevFests this year.
And I'm sure next year will be even grand.
DAVID MCLAUGHLIN: Cool.
Thank you.
UTTAM TRIPATHI: Thank a lot.