"Doing Cool Things That Matter," Ask any Google Student Ambassador what gives them the drive or motivation, and be sure to hear these words in their replies. As part of our role as GSAs, we introduce students to Google student programs and opportunities by creating awareness and holding training events for such events.
Saturday, 21st February 2015 is not just any other ordinary event day for Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology
(Kenya). It is the day we held our first ever Google Summer of Code 2015 awareness and training event. This was part of the JKUATDevFest that had over 150 attendees.
As a culture for most, developers and
other students streamed in carrying their laptops. (Developers are ready
to write code, anywhere anytime, so long as they have access to Internet/Free
Wifi). First step, check in by filling an online Google attendance form. The agenda for
the day: Android Wear, Polymer, Google Summer of Code awareness
session and a coding session on Google Cloud Platform.
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| Opening remarks by Dennis Riungu, GDG Lead, JKUAT |
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| Dennis Riungu, GDG Lead JKUAT presenting on Google Cardboard |
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| Joseph Sharia, the JKUAT Android Facilitator during the GSoC event |
Then came the teaser session and fun session. The best has to be the gorilla game.
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| Kammal & a participant playing the gorilla game |
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| Attendees asking questions on GSoC program |
At about 11 am, I did a presentation on GSoC 2015. Under this, I took the students through: the overview of the program, requirements to participate on the same, FAQs, benefits to students and the resource sites, including hangout videos. The session came to an end by requesting students to join
The other sessions that followed included talks on Polymer
by GDG Kenya Country Mentor, and industry insights by Andrew, an Alumni.
To grace the occasion, Kamal Budhabati, who was the Keynote
speaker, took the students
through his innovation and entrepreneurship path towards establishing one of the best IT companies in Kenya, Craft Silicon. You could see
the happy faces of the students as they listened to him, asked questions and
even shared their experiences with the CEO. “It is basically about seizing every opportunity that comes your way.
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| Kamal Budhabati interacting with participants |
Just before the coding session, students enjoyed the lunch break session as they interacted.
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| Ken leading developers during the coding session |
For developers, came the most interesting part, the coding session. For most of us, this was different from what we are used to: learning the Google Cloud Platform. Basically students were helped by Antony Nandaa, the "Prof", Ken, Andrew, Dennis and other lead developers to set up the installation resources before they could finally output (“Hello world, Welcome to JKUAT DevFest 2015”)
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| Prof Nandaa during the coding session - Google Cloud Platform |
As we came to the close of our event that day, we were happy to report that, out of the 150+ attendees:
- 81 students were able to join the SSA GSoC enthusiast mailing list (20 female students)
- 81 students joined the SSA GSoC Virtual classroom
- 87 students signed-up for GSoC by login into GSoC website
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| Token of appreciation to the speakers |
As a follow up, we
have been having weekly meet up sessions where students have been discussing
some of the projects they are working on based on the mentor organizations they
chose to work with.
Even
though it is the first time JKUAT is participating in the program, we hope this
will be the beginning of something really great.(Congrats to the 87 students who
have so far registered for the GSoC 2015)
Link to event photos:GSOC Event Photos
I appreciate the effort and support from the GSA program, GDG JKUAT Team, Google Students @ JKUAT and volunteers for making the event a success.
Isaac Jumba, GSA JKUAT.
- 4:01 PM
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