GDG community at Google Developer Days

Author: Elena Fedorova, Head of Human Resource Marketing, DataArt, Voronezh

On September 5–6, a large GDD conference took place in Krakow - a global event, analogous to the annual Google I / O conference in San Francisco, where the latest technology innovations from Google are announced.
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This year, more than two thousand developers and other IT-specialists from different countries of the world gathered at GDD. For two full days, the participants listened to the reports together, talked in thematic sections, development meetings and in community zones.


Azzurra Ragon - Community Specialist, Google - talked about community development.

In addition to the main conference, more than sixty local events took place around the world - GDD Extended events organized by Google Developer groups: live video broadcasts, hackathons, master classes, etc.

Watch all the video key reports here .

We asked familiar developers and leaders of different communities to share impressions about the conference.

Leonid Kalneus, the leader of GDG Novosibirsk:


“Google Developer Days can be rated almost perfectly. On a five-point scale, I gave the event a 4+ rating. The reports were not too deeply technical, as expected, but during both days there were workshops and other practical classes. But most importantly, the conference provided unlimited opportunities for networking! You could meet colleagues from all over the world in special community zones.

In general, we now have an international conference in Europe where we can meet a lot of new people, chat with the guys from Google and have a great time. I definitely recommend visiting GDD next year. ”


Denis Neklyudov, Google Developer, Android & IoT, Singapore, the leading podcast about Android development.

Elena Fedorova, leader of the GDG and WTM communities in Voronezh:
“GDD is not only a great event for developers and anyone directly involved in technology. It inspires the community of managers and those who develop the IT community in different cities and countries. These are two full days full of reports, kinouta, meetings, discussions and, of course, pure pleasure! Members of numerous communities were able to meet in person, share experiences, share best practices and agree on future joint conferences and meetings. I am sure that even in this age of high technologies, the best events and ideas are obtained only through direct contacts and personal meetings! ”


Anna Pavlova and Elena Fedorova (center).

Anna Pavlova, co-organizer of the GDG and WTM communities in Voronezh:
“Google Developer Days is a great opportunity to meet and talk with a huge number of developers, Google Developer Experts from all over the world, to learn about the most relevant in the IT world. For the development of the community, of course, it was useful to take part in the sessions for community organizers, to learn even more about their promotion and expansion, about meeting formats and holding quality meetings. It was also valuable for me that we were able to meet and personally get acquainted with the GDE, who after the GDD conference went to Voronezh to speak at the GDG DevFest Voronezh on September 9 ”.




Alexey Korovyansky, Google Developer Expert on Android, leader of GDG Omsk.

Maria Kruglova, leader of the GDG community in Kaliningrad:

“It's cool that a conference of this level is being held in Europe. Only when you find yourself in such a concentration of smart and extremely interested people, do you understand that GDD is not so much an event for developers as a comfortable place for communication and exchange of opinions, where you can calmly approach someone from Google’s department heads and ask you question. Just for the sake of it is worth participating in conferences. ”


Konstantin Mars, one of the leaders of the GDG community in Dnipro, Android Senior Developer, DataArt.

Evgeny Galoshin, Senior Android Developer, DataArt Wroclaw, Poland:
“The conference was well organized, both from the technical side - the reports were diverse, on various topics, there were no specific topics behind the halls and pavilions, so people had to ply more often throughout the conference area - and in terms of logistics - great food, enough for everyone, no queues for registration or to the speakers. An interesting point was that at the special racks you could ask questions to Google engineers. There were also classes of codelabs, where you could quickly learn something new under the guidance of experienced professionals, specifying something in the process. At the end of the first day there was a good afterparty with live music, where you could communicate with everyone in a more relaxed rhythm, when no one else runs to listen to the reports.

Even in spite of the fact that Google I \ O recently passed through, GDD found a couple of things that have not yet been shown, like ARCore or several new requests to Google Assistant. In general, everything turned out just fine. "


Photo by @ Dan Franc .

Svetlana Vasilyeva, Senior QA, DataArt Lublin, Poland:
“Before the trip, I was very worried that as a tester, I did not understand anything and would just lose time. But now I can state with confidence that I absolutely do not regret that I went, many performances inspired me greatly. It was very nice to be among so many professionals. Although I still didn’t understand 65 percent because of gaps in technical knowledge, those 35 percent that I managed to understand were so easily demonstrated that it seemed to be worth trying - and everything will work out for sure. Of course, I was especially pleased to learn about the latest innovations in the world of Android and Google. We live in a really great time! ”


The conference is an ideal opportunity to talk with the coolest speakers. After the report, we managed to catch Dan Galpin, Developer Advocate from Google. He was very simple and pleasant to talk to.

Such large-scale events allow you to establish links between different communities and technical experts. Specially for this, sections are created for sharing experience, zones are opened where you can meet like-minded people and even find speakers for the upcoming GDG DevFest conferences from different countries.


In the evening of the first day of the conference, it was possible to communicate with colleagues from different countries in an informal setting, play air hockey, miniature golf, kicker or the Djenga tower.

Special thanks to Zviad Kardava , Google Developer Relations, and Katerina Pisanka, GDG Russia coordinator, for the tremendous efforts to develop the GDG community in Russia! Thanks to Zviad, a special summit was organized for all the GDG leaders in Eastern Europe in the finals of the conference. And it was very cool!