How to gather developers together: Mobile Developer Day. Interview with Misha Denisov and Yulya Basyrova

Today we will talk about the wonderful Mobile Developer Day event - a series of meetings for mobile application developers and sympathizers, taking place in different cities of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. We will not stretch the introduction and immediately proceed to a conversation with the creator of MDDay, Misha Denisov, and his charming assistant Julia Basyrova .


Question one: how long have you been, how did the idea come about, how did it all start?

Misha: We held the first festival for mobile developers near Nizhny Novgorod in the early autumn of 2009. Then we made our own project - a service for mobile devices (then on java) - and were puzzled by porting to iOS. Events for mobile applications at that time was not as a class. Then we decided to hold our own - Mobilefest. It was a glorious time when the event should be called “about mobile development” - and it was already a must visit. More than 200 people from different regions, including those from the Baltic States, came to Nizhny. In 2010, we repeated - in the same place at the same time - and went well again. We tried to create an atmosphere so that even the hint was not a boring event for nerds. Although pay attention, there are not so many classic nerds in mobile. At Mobilefest, in addition to the halls for seminars, which are often non-standard (for example, hookah or wigwam), the stage is surely staged and musicians perform. Often a sound check begins even before the last speaker utters the last phrase.
We had friends, regular participants, and we decided to try to make the event closer to the people, or farther from the people - as anyone. That is, in Moscow. In December 2010, we held the first Mobile Developer Day in the still unrepaired premises of the HSE Cultural Center. These are 2 halls and a hall - a space that seats up to 700 people. And the participants came and talked, and it was good.
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How did you define your audience? Did your expectations differ greatly from what came out of the result? Who comes to you?

Misha: Our audience is those who need something from this life, it is interesting for them to create, form new markets.

Yulia: People come with different backgrounds - industry experts, and young developers who are just starting their mobile business. But they are all open to communication, the exchange of information and ideas. For many, such events become a turning point - someone literally gets a job at a conference, and someone, inspired, begins to develop his project. We have a lot of such stories.

You hold events in various cities, not only in Russia. Why is that? Do you like to travel?

Misha: Yes, we love traveling and developers. Two in one.

Yulia: In addition, the wide geography of events allows us to see a more complete picture of the market - what are the minds of developers in one place, what is in demand in another, what they are working in the third.

In which cities have you been, in which would you like to hold events in the future?

Yulia: Most of the events take place in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Nizhny Novgorod, but the last summer was particularly “traveling” - Minsk, Odessa. Next year we plan to hold a conference in Europe, and in Russia, Kazan, Yekaterinburg and Novosibirsk are next in line.

How do you pick the speakers? Are there any clear selection criteria?

Misha: The speaker should do something, something to share. We do not like marketing presentations, the “raw” report is closer to us - but the one who tells something useful from his experience with glowing eyes, let him stammer or blush.

How do you plan to develop: to continue in the same spirit and improve or gradually change the format?

Misha: We will add new formats and adjust the current ones. The market is changing, changing requirements. We are already preparing a few surprises.

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