Codebeast brings international developer conference to Nigeria
The mountain is coming to Mohammed even as Codebeast partners with friends at Microsoft to bring international developer conference to Nigeria - Concatenate
Developer Christian "Codebeast" Nwamba partners with Microsoft Senior Developer, Sarah Drasner and Cloud Developer Advocate, Brian Holt to bring Concatenate, a free Developer Conference to Nigeria.
🌈 After months of planning, it's happening! @codebeast @holtbt & I are putting together a free conference for Nigerian developers. Food, giveaways & speakers, both on location and remote
— Sarah Drasner (@sarah_edo) July 16, 2018
❣️If you're interested in sponsoring, please let me or Christian know! https://t.co/BaiSowC5fA
Last month, I wrote extensively about the fate of many Nigerian developers looking to expand their network and knowledge by attending conferences, typically situated outside the county. Codebeast's sorry experience was the case-in-point.
We are fighting just the police for mistaking techies and related careers as fraudsters when we have a much bigger problem #thread
— Christian Nwamba (@codebeast) June 3, 2018
As part of the conversation, Brian and Sarah offered to help amongst all the other sympathisers - many of which were employees of Microsoft.
💯 I'd happily write a letter of endorsement.
— Brian Holt (@holtbt) June 3, 2018
We should get him to speak at a Microsoft event.
I'm also happy to write a letter! We can get more, too.
— Sarah Drasner (@sarah_edo) June 3, 2018
I believe this conversation is what has now spiralled into an international developer conference hosted in Codebeast's host country, Nigeria.
He talks about it here:
A few months ago, I was frustrated at not being able to attend developer events because of visa challenges. Some really awesome engineers from Microsoft came up with an idea that can help build learning bridges for Africans #thread
— Christian Nwamba (@codebeast) July 16, 2018
Also, I reached out to a few developers to get their pulse on how the promise of such a global event makes them feel.
"Yo fam!!!. It's super lit lol" said Adewale 'AceKYD' Abati, who is a Developer Advocate at Ingressive. He also mentions that there are might be two more of such conferences later in they year. He submits by saying:
"Lot of folks putting in the work and moving us forward"
Speaking to former HotelsNG developer intern, Adetona Abiodun on how the event made him feel, he had this to say:
Great. It helps change the narrative that we are just a 'Nigerian prince'
He has a point there. For a while, Nigeria has been regarded as the haven of online scams. So bad that the popular advance-fee scam is named after the country, Nigerian Prince scam.
So, for the likes of Abiodun, getting the world to recognise us for something other than scam is a step in the right direction.
About Concatenate
Concatenate conference is a two-day developer conference event spotting topics on frameworks, design systems, performance and animation.
The event will feature world-class speakers around the globe. Albeit, due to constraints, some of the speakers will be participating remotely.
The event details are below.
Date: August 10 - 11, 2018
Venue: ZoneTech park, Lagos (The space is beautiful!)
This first edition will be anchored by no other than, Prosper Otemuyiwa, one of the biggest developers out of Nigeria. There are 23 speakers from around the world including Ire Aderinokun, Sean Thomas Larkin and Wesbos. Other perks of attending the events include; free stickers, books and online subscriptions from the likes of Cloudinary, Scotch school, and ABookApart.
Visit concatenate.io to learn more.
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