G-Jordan (Update)
So, the morning came and to my surprise it had snowed the night before. It was a very lovely morning.
Related: G-Jordan
I Went through my usual morning routine and was on the way to Grand Hayat for Day 2 of Google's developers event.
The venue was OK but didn't have enough parking spaces around which was a bit annoying, I eventually managed to find a spot safe enough not to get a parking ticket and not get the car hit!
Once inside the hotel, I went to the where they were holding the event, and to my surprise, they had turned the whole area into a Google office like environment, pretty cool.
The event started with an all attendees welcome address, keynote and a presentation on Google in the Middle East, they got us in the mood and informed us of what to expect ahead as well as being inspiring. They aimed at motivating people into being creative and bottom line was that the sky's the limit :)
Afterwards, you had to choose among the several parallel sessions (See the full schedule below*).
Among the sessions I chose to attend were 'Work in Open Source' presented by 'Chris DiBona', 'Google AppEngine & Google Web Toolkit' presented by 'Timothy Jordan and Paa Kwesi Imbeah' and 'Introduction to MapReduce' by 'Boulos Harb'.
At the beginning of the 'Google AppEngine & Google Web Toolkit' session they presented the Google App Engine coding challenge (I didn't win in case you're wondering, it's a shame cause the prize was a brand new Samsung Android phone, don't know model though!) and the Google quiz.
I don't wanna bore you with the details about every session, so let me tell you about the ones that I really enjoyed and why as well as my perspective on the event over all.
Finally, to summarize, I think it was a very successful day and I'm really looking forward to attending next year's event. and to be honest, that day ignited some motivation in me to become more creative and get things done quick. who know's will I come up with a new system in 3 to 4 months! I sure hope so myself ;)
Related: G-Jordan
I Went through my usual morning routine and was on the way to Grand Hayat for Day 2 of Google's developers event.
The venue was OK but didn't have enough parking spaces around which was a bit annoying, I eventually managed to find a spot safe enough not to get a parking ticket and not get the car hit!
Once inside the hotel, I went to the where they were holding the event, and to my surprise, they had turned the whole area into a Google office like environment, pretty cool.
The event started with an all attendees welcome address, keynote and a presentation on Google in the Middle East, they got us in the mood and informed us of what to expect ahead as well as being inspiring. They aimed at motivating people into being creative and bottom line was that the sky's the limit :)
Afterwards, you had to choose among the several parallel sessions (See the full schedule below*).
Among the sessions I chose to attend were 'Work in Open Source' presented by 'Chris DiBona', 'Google AppEngine & Google Web Toolkit' presented by 'Timothy Jordan and Paa Kwesi Imbeah' and 'Introduction to MapReduce' by 'Boulos Harb'.
At the beginning of the 'Google AppEngine & Google Web Toolkit' session they presented the Google App Engine coding challenge (I didn't win in case you're wondering, it's a shame cause the prize was a brand new Samsung Android phone, don't know model though!) and the Google quiz.
I don't wanna bore you with the details about every session, so let me tell you about the ones that I really enjoyed and why as well as my perspective on the event over all.
- Work in Open Source by Chris DeBona, this session covered many aspects of the open source community and the motivations behind it, I believe that it was an eye opener for most of the audience.
Chris also highlighted some Google open source initiatives such as GTUG which I hadn't heard about prior to the event! - Google AppEngine & Google Web Toolkit, loved the introductory part, but I didn't enjoy the coding part as much, perhaps I didn't come in prepared enough, but I don't think most of the audience got the chance to capture enough information!
- Introduction to MapReduce, among all the sessions I had attended, this was the geekiest :p, and to be honest, this is how I had expected the whole event to be!
- I was hoping they'd cover more topics in depth, but I guess they wanted this event to be a purely introductory one, being the first official public presence of Google in Jordan, I guess future events will be more focused and more technical. Reflecting back on the registration form I had to fill, I guess many people preferred not to see more deep technical subjects, who knows, we'll find out in the next event.. Google, we're waiting :)
- Loved the fact the everything was very organized and you were told exactly how to make the best out of the day according to your needs.
- Most of the speakers were Arab natives, and to some extent, most of the audience didn't possess enough English fluency, so it would've been more effective had the speakers used Arabic during the presentations.
Finally, to summarize, I think it was a very successful day and I'm really looking forward to attending next year's event. and to be honest, that day ignited some motivation in me to become more creative and get things done quick. who know's will I come up with a new system in 3 to 4 months! I sure hope so myself ;)
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