The Developers Conference, organised by the MSCC, is the BIGGEST tech event in Mauritius. DevCon brought together tech enthusiasts, hobbyists, numerous user groups, prestigious companies, students, and more!!! I was privileged to present as a Microsoft Student Partner.
My team(@dishaykissoon and me), presented on NodeBots: Using Javascript for hardware programming. The idea was to use NodeBots and Javascript as an entry point to get more people interested in hardware programming and DIY projects.
Here are a few things we covered during the session: 1. Giving a few examples of hardware programming and IoT 2. Introducing a few development boards such as the Arduino, Intel Edison and Esp8266. 3. Why use Javascript instead of traditional Arduino IDE, C/C++? 4. The Johnny-five framework 5. How NodeBots work? 6. A few Demos 7. What’s Next?
As I was making the case for promoting the maker culture in Mauritius, Yovan Fowdar seized the opportunity to reach out to the crowd and promote the Mauritius Maker Community. Indeed, I believe different communities in Mauritius should team up to get more people interested in tech, electronics, open source projects, etc.
I was amazed by the response we recieved from the audience. Also, I was convinced that many Mauritians are interested in hardware programming and we need to eliminate the barriers that exist.
After the presentation, I had a very interesting conversation with Yovan Fowdar and @NadeemDookhan. We discussed the need for reaching out into the community and inspire more people, whether from a technical background or not, to get started with hardware programming.
It was the first time I presented at DevCon. Presenting at DevCon IS scary, however the experience is worthwhile. I am grateful for @dishaykissoon, the Microsoft Student Partners Mauritius and all my friends and family for making the presentation a reality.
DevCon 2017 proved to be huge success. This is undeniably due to the hard work of the organising team, especially @JKirstaetter and the MSCC, and all the sponsors and volunteers. I am already looking forward for the next Developers Conference!