We are so thrilled to announce that we are getting ready for Google DevFest 2021 which will be held at the Middlesex University on the 4th of December 2021.

What is DevFest?

DevFest (Developers Festival) Mauritius is a single-day, dual-track, inclusive conference for all developers using Google technology stack. It is an annual community-run event gathering developers and technology enthusiasts covering multiple product areas such as Android, Firebase, Android Things, Kotlin, Flutter, Google Cloud Platform, ARCore, Google Assistant, Design Sprint, IoT, Machine Learning, Mobile Web, Artificial intelligence and more.

Like previous years, DevFest will be held on one day, with two tracks of multiple sessions for all developers using Google technologies. Joining us for the event will be our fellow Google Developer Student Club (DSCs), Women Techmakers Ambassador, some local user groups and tech enthusiasts.

Call for papers!

You are most welcome to submit your talks and share your knowledge and experience with the community. We look forward to meet new speakers every year. This year it could be you. You can do it! The force is with you!

Call for papers is now open: https://sessionize.com/google-devfest-2021---mauritius/ The deadline is on the 20th of November 2021.

Sanitary Protocols

Following the recent development and respecting the Covid-19 protocol, Middlesex University will allow only 100 attendees at a time on premises. Entrance to the event will be on a first come basis. Moreover, you will need to abide by these precautionary measures as your safety matters.

• Vaccination Card or Digital Pass for fully vaccinated people required
• Or a valid negative PCR test of minimum 3 days old to be shown at entrance for non vaccinated people
• Temperature check will be done before entering the campus
• Face mask is compulsory
• Attendees details will be taken at the entrance & at the registration desk for contact tracing if need be
• Keep your mask at all time except for drinking or eating
• Social distancing is highly recommended

In case of any safety protocol breach, attendees will be requested to leave the campus immediately.

We thank you all for your usual cooperation and we look forward to seeing you at the Google DevFest 2021!

Save the dates! We are changing venue! The 2022 edition of the Developers Conference will be held at the Caudan Arts Centre, Port Louis on the 17th, 18th & 19th of February 2022.

As usual, three whole days of networking, technical exchange and lots of career opportunities. Oh yes, and of course evening get-togethers with entertainment are on the agenda, along with a few more surprises...

The Developers Conference 2020 was cancelled approximately a month before the event was supposed to take place due to COVID-19. Since then, we have held the Virtual Developers Conference. However, we have missed the human touch even if a virtual event proved to be safer... But now with the re-opening of the Mauritian borders and the majority of the population being inoculated we have decided to go forward with an in-person event again!

Safety Protocols

In compliance with our government's recommendations and those of the Caudan Arts Centre we are looking forward to a safe environment. More information will soon be available on the conference website.

Call for Papers

Our call for papers has been open since the 1st of October 2021. It will be open until the end of November 2021. You are most welcome to submit your talks on Sessionize. You are not limited to one session and can submit as many papers as you want.

User Groups

As usual, a whole track and room will be dedicated to User Groups during those 3 days. This is your chance to come and meet people with the same interests! Join the User Groups!

Despite all the obstacles and recent development caused by the pandemic we, the GDG Mauritius chapter, can call us extremely lucky living on a remote island. Sometimes these perks come handy...

DevFests are community-led developer events hosted by Google Developer  Groups around the globe. GDGs are focused on community building and   learning about Google’s technologies.

Given our remote location and the circumstances that the government shut down borders earlier this year Mauritius has isolated itself quite successfully from any COVID-19 cases. In continuous exchange with our local partners we discussed the possibility of running a physical event compared to all those virtual events world-wide, including the Virtual Developers Conference 2020 back in September.

Safety in mind

Last year's DevFest Mauritius 2019 host Uniciti Education Hub kindly offered to provide their location once again to welcome anyone interested in Google technologies, products and services. Because of the ongoing concerns of the pandemic we put several constraints into action:

• Campus security does a temperature for anyone coming to the event
• Number of attendees accepted was limited to 100 people
• Wearing a face mask all the time, except to eat & drink, is compulsory
• Dispensers with hand sanitizing solution are available across the campus
• Social (physical) distancing shall be respected
• Finally, we logged phone numbers of every attendee for tracing purpose

All information has been communicated ahead of the event on our social medias channels and event update emails to all registrants.

Handing out GDG branded face masks was part of our swag pack, aka goodies. ;-)

What happened at DevFest Mauritius?

Based on the lower number of attendees we also decided to limit the number of tracks, hence the number of sessions and speakers. In total there had been eight (8) speakers providing eight (8) technical presentations and the usual opening and closing ceremonies. Unfortunately two (2) sessions had to be cancelled on the day because both speakers informed us the night before that they are struggling with health issues and won't be able to come and speak. Saddening thing for sure but honestly better to skip a slot in place for networking than risking any kind of infection or other maladies.

On the better side, compared to last year's edition we have to report two major improvements! First, the organizers of GDG Mauritius worked closely with the delegates of the four (4) active Developer Student Clubs (DSC) in the preparation and execution of the event. And second, we can proudly mention that Mauritius has its own Google Developer Expert (GDE) - Jochen Kirstätter - GDE for Google Cloud Platform.

Here are some more statistics of DevFest 2020 in Mauritius

• 8 Sessions (out of 10)
• 8 Speakers (out of 10) including 1 GDE
• 372 registrations (as we kept it open despite limit of 100 seats)
• 101 attendees (counting 40 female attendees) that came
• Numerous pictures in our Photos album

Excitement among attendees was present without further saying, offline on campus as well as online on social media.

Some impressions of an offline DevFest edition

As usual attendees took pictures and we invited them to upload them to our dedicated album on Google Photos. Below a few clicks to get an idea and impressions about what happened in Mauritius.

More details on the agenda of sessions and the associated speakers can be found on our DevFest conference site.

One  of our long-standing community members, Sandeep, got inspired to write a blog article since a very long time. Read about his views of Mauritius Google DevFest 2020.

Do you have an article about DevFest? Kindly send the URL to me via Twitter. Don't forget the hashtag #DevFest.

What about COVID-19?

At the time of writing this article there are less than 30 active cases of COVID-19 in Mauritius and all are either in designated quarantine centres or in isolated treatment at one of the hospitals.

Virtual conferences were and are still everywhere. Many big in-person events which were running on for years suddenly switched to online mode. PyCon Us, EuroPython, PyData (the world's premier data science conference), to name a few. And these are big events, the second batch of accepted talks for EuroPython had 100+ talks. And to crown it all, they opened the CFP worldwide which means that for the same number of accepted talks (112 after 1st batch 2019), you had to battle against worldwide competitors. I remember taking one hour just to rate this year's talks.

Organising conferences is NOT a piece of cake

Conferences are mentally draining for organisers. For community events, even if they are paid, run on precious volunteer labour. Just imagine, if you accepted 100s of talks, you had some 500 submissions. For EuroPy you had to write a 500 words summary and a 200 words summary (if i remember well) for places where 500 words don't fit. The description of my EuroPython talk is actually the 500 words abstract i submitted. Each reviewer had to read some (500 * (500+200)) words which is 350, 000. Given that the average reading time is 200 words per minute, that gives us 350, 000 / 200 ~ 1750 minutes which is around 29 hours. Being a reviewer is a trust. You can't just play around with it. 200 words per minute is for non-technical documents, for technical reads, it's less.

For organizers, it's not a 3-days event. It's a months-long event. Being one of FlaskCon's organisers, we did weekly meetings. We had micro teams on marketing, helpdesk and planning. It being online in no way means no work. Some tasks take longer to be completed. Sometimes, they never complete. Our marketing's team time was spent looking for the 100+ user groups' mails. In many cases we did not find it at all. The result was that this task was less than halfway finished. It's also an ongoing watch. We extended CFP twice. One to get more submissions, one to increase submissions' diversity. Extending CFP means more pressure on your team to finish preparations. You take painful decisions. When you think of it, you drain yourself emotionally why? For the community, so that some folks can enjoy an event. Btw volunteer training is also a thing.

Another issue is cohabitation. In global conferences you have global teams, this means people from different cultures, languages and ... time zones. Yes, time zones always find a way to pull your leg. It goes anything from people misunderstanding the time to folks who could have made it to the meeting if it was 3omins after. The last time someone got confused about the time we decided to speak only GMT. As for the time, we set two weekly chats, one in the morning, one in the evening. We had volunteers from Russia, Europe, China to America. It was a nice solution. As for getting along, you have to make sure to find your way as everybody has a way of doing things.

Did we talk about politics? If from the start you take some wrong decisions, and build upon those, reality can slap you further on. A soon as finances come into play, your movements are being watched.Unless you are doing something for you, you have to be careful not to give a wrong impression of the tech you are representing. You can be a Microsoft hater, skipping Windows support on tools you release, but, if you are organizing an Angular or React conference, you can't push anti-uncle Bill agendas forward in the clear. You also cannot show favoritism to your favorite multinational corporation. It's not about having unlimited sponsors, booth spaces in online conferences are limited. You also have to tone your severity. Let's say for the same framework/language, a certain package is better than another one. You can't cross out what you don't like on sight. You also have to decide the diversity proportion. The Django foundation for example does not fund events which has less than 1:2 ratio of women speakers, last time i checked their funding conditions. You also have to decide the proportion of levels. Do we consider only intermediate talks and above, or we add in some beginner talks as well? There are also hosts of issues like these. For FlaskCon, the chair of PythonIreland, Mr Nicolas Lawrance decided a good many of these and we sailed on those happily. That's what the policies section of my recommendation to him on LinkedIn means.

Last but not least it's about dealing with speakers. This part is full of surprises. You have to onboard speakers, invest in their training to use your setup. The EuroPy trainings amazed me. I mean, for you to be present in the session means that your talk was good enough to be accepted. You had people from Europe and the world but, 50% of the people in my session was looking for Zoom's share screen button and looking around to understand Zoom's features. You also have to decide what happens when speakers cannot show up, or don't show up. You also have to deal with cases of misconduct and plagiarism if any. The last case might get people to knock at your doors and threaten to give your event a bad reputation for publishing plagiarized works. It's a deception as an organizer for you to let the fact that you managed to accept a bad apple sink in.

And on for the most obvious part: coordination. Imagine you have to check and use 5 WhatsApp-like apps everyday. That's what you find yourself with. Calendars, excels, documents, Trellos, Slacks, you name it! You have to swim your way around those without sinking. Real-time coordination is also essential when the event goes live. You need to have backups in place to complete vital tasks. Some day someone might be busy, the next time it's someone else, you have to make sure that deadlines are respected. If you have great and enthusiastic people around, this part is fairly easy to get going, not that it is easy, it means less worry. Volunteers are not employees. You have to accommodate different speeds. But i maintain that a great team aces it well! Choose your team well, it pays here.

DevCon's setup this year: AMAZING

Looking back, DevCon always choose the right setup. I don't say Sessionize for CFP is good but i am talking about the website. Auto-updating the website from Sessionize's API for accepted talks is great. And static websites are really cool in the JAMStack spirit. I don't say that DevCon is the first event to do it, but i am commenting on the choice of tech. Let me detail in brief the 3 conferences i had the opportunity to have a fairly good insider's view viz: EuroPython where i was a Speaker (Free for speakers), FlaskCon as an organiser (Free event) and PyCon India as a volunteer (Paid for every non-speaker, including volunteers).

EuroPython used Zoom for speakers, YouTube for streaming, Discord for QnA & Speaker onboarding. For selling tickets, CFP and schedule, they used a host of Python-powered homegrown software. The speaker experience was not so cool as you had to switch from a Discord voice chat which is used as a waiting room to join the Zoom. CFP was great. FlaskCon used sessionize for CFP and schedule. Zoom via ReStream for YouTube. The Pallet's opened few channels on their Discord specially for the event for QnA and discussions. It was a straightforward event with as little overhead as possible as we had to buckle everything in a short time. PyCon India used the legendary homegrown Junction. They used townscript for payments. For managing the event, it was hopin.to. The streaming service i don't remember. QnA and helpdesk: Zulip. Being on the managing side of Hopin was nice. You get to put in banners in-between talks and help speakers start. It has a lot of options, no complaints. Multiple tracks are also accounted for. EuroPy paid for Zoom and PyCon India paid for Hopin at the very least. For FlaskCon, especially the first edition we decided a 100% policy of by the community, for the community. And we managed it without sponsors, but still getting speakers from the US government and Google.

When I asked Mr Jochen on one of the MSCC virtual code and coffees the setup, he amazed me. I mean, a painless experience nearly for free? He detailed the setup in an article. The mix of cloud, VM, Skype and lightweight bill was mind blowing, bold and daring. The article explained who implemented it first etc. Again it's the right choice of tech which stood out. I prepared this article so that you can get more insights on what organizing a conference entails, commonly-used solutions and being grateful to the team behind DevCon. As you read Mr Jochen's article, think how does it solve some of the aforementioned points. It's an article to read another article. The event also showed once more the capabilities of our small island-state. DevCon's setup beats many a giant à plat! Hats off to the team!

Sad Days

And the world is not smiling. Being on the Python-events team since sometimes, we saw the number of events just decline. Many switched to online, but it's not the same enthusiasm as in-person ones. One point which we discussed but still eludes us is "How to make online conferences as real as possible". One thing is sure, you won't get free coffees via your inbox anytime soon.

Whew, we did it! And it was an awesome rollercoaster. The Virtual Developers Conference has been a first-time experience for us, and we had to face a good number of obstacles this time. Apart from the general situation of the pandemic and its implications in regards to distancing there had been technical challenges to work out.

As mentioned in Newsletter: Developers Conference 2020 is being postponed we had no other choice than to skip the idea of running DevCon back in April. After a number of meetings and discussions among the community and with all our partners we then announced in July that Newsletter: Developers Conference 2020 is going virtual.

Since then we had endless online conference calls to work out the details of the website, get back in touch with confirmed speakers to see whether they would be still interested to run their talks and with a number of previously declined speakers (mainly due to cost of air tickets) to check if they would be available and consider to be part of the virtual event.

Thank You!

Big thanks to our event partners and sponsors to trust the MSCC and the organising team behind the conference, and to be open to our suggestions of running a virtual event during these difficult times.

Shout out to all the speakers switching to the online experience and offering their time and knowledge during the numerous emails, attending the test runs and finally presenting their content in one of the live streams.

Thanks to all the community volunteers in the making of this event. You all did an amazing job and we want to thank you for the endless amount of hours attending online meetings in preparation for the Virtual Developers Conference.

Prize giveaway winners

Finally, we were able to add a long-anticipated activity to our conference: Prize Giveaways. The rules were pretty simple and we announced them early on social media.

Category 1: The Influencer
Giveaway: iPad
Reach a minimum of 20 registrations from your squad and qualify for the race! Make sure they enter your email address in the question “How did you hear about this event?”
May the geek with most referrals win!

Category 2: The Social Media Guru
Giveaway: An MSCC approved kit with headphones, keyboard and mouse
Like our MSCC page and this post and share it to qualify. Make sure to use the hashtag #DevConMu to let us know when sharing.
A random winner will be picked from the pool.

Category 3: The Lucky Raffle
Giveaway: A Google Smart TV kit
A lucky winner will be picked at random from the registered attendees during our DevCon Closing Ceremony.
Register now to add your name to the goblet!

And the winners are...

Category 1: unfortunately nobody achieved the qualification criteria and the prize will be brought forward to the next event.

Category 2: Arvind Balgobin

Category 3: Beebeejaun Moossa

Congratulations to all winners!
The organisation team is going to reach out to you to discuss the handover of the prizes.

Some statistics...

The number of registrations went up again compared to the previous conference. We noticed a total of 668 unique registrations. Although it was not compulsory to register for the online event itself.

To promote the conference we constantly published multiple posts per day to announce partners and speakers. Additionally, we ran several paid campaigns on various social media channels with targeted audience.

Twitter has buzzing based on our promoted hashtag: #DevConMU and there is great engagement from some of the speakers, too.

Just to link a few...

Our YouTube channel had already surpassed the critical mass of at least 100 subscribers ahead of time, and this allowed us to promote it easily, too. Publishing the live streams ahead of time allowed us to promote them and you had the chance to set reminders.

Following are a few charts provided by YouTube during the period of 8th September and 12th September. We had to choose an extended period due to the nature of different time zones between us and YouTube.

The majority of viewers is located in Mauritius. However there been a good number of guests from different parts of the world who joined the live streams. Thanks for taking the time and viewing the talks.

Below are a few charts on activities and demographics that happened during same period. Personally, I'm happy to see a female participation of over 22% although that number needs to increase more.

Highest view count was on Wednesday, the first day of the conference. We managed to keep viewers engaged during the following two days. Eventually, this drop might have been related to the technical hiccup(s) we had on the first day - echo in the audio track and devastating lag in Kryptone.

We learned our lessons from that and the technology stack had been improved over night. More on the architecture and software we used in the following paragraph.

The technical setup used

In order to provide a distraction-free modus operandi for the speaker(s), easy application of our MSCC branding, and the ability to switch between multiple layouts, we looked into various possibilities of running the conference.

First, we checked out the established conference call systems, ie. Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, Zoom (not really because of security and privacy concerns), and our own installation of Jitsi Meet running on Google Cloud Platform. Those systems work perfectly. However we had multiple concerns in regards to this approach:

• We had no idea about the number of participants and there are limits for the maximum number of participants
• Peers in such meeting rooms are kind of equal, meaning everyone can open the microphone and start talking
• Choice of pre-defined layouts is very limited
• Hard to apply exposure of our partners and MSCC / DevCon branding

Given those constraints we looked into other possibilities and craftsman Ish suggested to look into BigBlueButton and he organised a test run on a system. It went well and the ad hoc interaction to annotate notes is really cool. But again, everyone in the same room causing a high level of distraction.

Lastly, we came across a solution based on OBS Studio and Skype using its built-in the NDI technology. This seemed to provide us with the maximum flexibility and handling of speakers as well as recording and streaming options.

Craftsman JoKi wrote a more detailed article about How did we run the Virtual Developers Conference 2020? and described the whole setup behind the scenes.

Announcements during the Closing Ceremony

Apart from the information described above and similar statistics we also announced a few more novelties during the Closing session of the Virtual Developers Conference. As we are growing as a community in Mauritius we noticed a growing interest of interaction among peers.

With the handling of filling gaps in the conference agenda the organisation team came up with the idea to run kind of podcast like sessions between the track hosts and guests. The concept of having a community-driven podcast was already lingering and evolving behind the scenes and now with the recordings from the event we officially announced Talks on Software Craftsmanship.

It's all about software craftsmanship and tangible topics. Each week craftsmen of the MSCC are going to have a conversation with a guest to shed some light on their experience in modern software development. A commute-time podcast that promotes new voices from the community.

Another observation over the past months and to counter-act during these difficult times we also noticed an increasing demand from our partners in regards to recruitment. You might have seen numerous postings in previous newsletters.

The second announcement during the closing talk is the official launch of Jobs in Tech - our job portal specialised in job listings and positions in the IT sector. Over the coming weeks we are going to reach out to conference partners and other companies to advertise their open job positions on our portal. And we are looking forward to advertise other businesses.

If you would be interested to know more, kindly reach out to the team per email: sales@agilemedia.mu

Developers Conference 2021 is coming...

Last but least it shall be mentioned that the organisation and execution of the Virtual Developers Conference has been a top-up for the "postponed" physical Developer Conference. All partners and supporters are automatically enlisted for 2021, and we used a part of the funds already raised for this virtual event. No additional funding had been requested although existing partners generously offered more.

Running a virtual conference over three days is excited and exhausting! We are really looking forward to our next offline conference around March / April 2021...

Stay safe and healthy!
The Organisation Team

PS: Subscribe to our YouTube channel and you will be automatically notified as soon as we upload a post-processed talk.

Yes, you read that correctly...

The Virtual Developers Conference 2020 is here!!!

This time of the year that we have all been waiting for… We have 4 different tracks over 3 consecutive days to learn, share and network with an international audience. We have awesome topics like Artificial Intelligence, Kubernetes, Cloud, Azure amongst others… Despite the COVID-19 Pandemic, our aim is to bring the IT Community and passionate people all around the world together!

All information and registration on our conference site. Don't forget to register on https://conference.mscc.mu/

All sessions will be recorded and uploaded after a quick post-processing after the conference.Big Thanks to all our Partners for the event:

• Liquid Telecom
• MCB
• Providus Technologies Limited
• SD Worx
• Teamonite
• 9thbit
• Event Store
• Synthesis Software Technologies
• IQera IO
• SWAN Mauritius
• Corsham Science Limited
• Nettobe Group
• Spoon Consulting Ltd.
• Uniciti Mauritius
• SUPINFO International University - Mauritius Campus
• Aerow ECM World Ltd.
• National Computer Board Mauritius
• Astek Mauritius Ltd.
• IOS Indian Ocean Software Ltd.
• FRCI
• Graphics Temple
• Ceridian Mauritius
• Ringier AG
• LSL Digital
• ict.io
• Rogers Capital

Special thanks to all the Volunteers for rocking the show and making this Event a success!

Following the devastating information about the COVID-19 pandemic back in March our team has been busy to look into alternative solutions. And we think that we found something really interesting and appealing for all parties involved... our partners, our speakers and of course you, our audience.

Drumroll... Developers Conference 2020 is going virtual! Welcome Virtual Developers Conference 2020. We kept the original idea of super hero / comic branding and discussed a couple of options during the past months. And we hope you are going to love it.

The Virtual Developers Conference 2020 is going to remain a 3-day, multiple track event. Major difference will be that we are going to live stream all sessions on our MSCC Youtube channel instead. All sessions will be recorded and uploaded after a quick post-processing after the conference.

More information to follow very soon. Stay tuned...

Stay safe,
JoKi and the conference organisation team.

Job opportunities

One of our long-year partner has a number of open positions to fill. Kindly check them out and perhaps there is an interesting option for a career change...

SD Worx - Senior/ Lead Full Stack Web Developer

• Proficiency with fundamental front-end languages such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript, TypeScript.
• Familiarity with JavaScript frameworks such as Angular JS or React or Vue
• Proficiency with server-side languages such as .Net (C#).
• Familiarity with database technology such as SQL Server or MySQL or Oracle or Postgre SQL  
• Work with development teams and product owners to ideate software solutions
• Build the front-end of applications through appealing visual design
• Develop and manage well-functioning databases and applications
• Write effective APIs
• 4-5 Years’ experience in a similar role

Link to apply: https://careers.sdworx.com/job/Full-Stack-Web-Developer/519179802/

SD Worx - Database Administrator

• Create database systems of high availability and quality depending on each end user’s specialised role  
• Ensure data distribution to the right user, in appropriate format and in a timely manner
• Utilize high-speed transaction recovery techniques and backup data
• Ensure minimal database downtime, manage parameters and recommend index changes to provide fast query responses
• Monitor database performance, implement changes and apply new patches and versions when required
• 3+ years' experience of working on a Database Administrator position
• Solid experience with data backup, recovery, security, integrity and SQL
• Experience with DBA case tools (frontend or backend) and third-party tool

Link to apply: https://careers.sdworx.com/job/Ebene-Customer-Coach-Level-2-Optimise/519042702/

SD Worx - Server Systems Engineer

• In depth technical knowledge of one or more of the following: Windows Server, Active Directory, VMWare, SCCM, Server Monitoring, Backups, Azure
• Minimum of 5 years’ experiences in a related technical support role
• Technical resource for Server Operations related Problems
• Good technical knowledge of Microsoft Server OS and associated software components

Link to apply: https://careers.sdworx.com/job/Ebene/519003502/

SD Worx - Senior Software Developer (Full Stack) - Black Ops

• Team-oriented collaboration in the agile software development process of our German HR software
• Design and development of databases, software modules and business process logic
• Considerable experience in the field of application development
• Substantial knowledge of software development with the common programming language C# by using Visual Studio & Azure DevOps
• 6+ Years of experience in a similar role

Link to apply: https://careers.sdworx.com/job/Ebene-Senior-Software-Developer-Black-Ops/519132802/

Hi everyone,

Good news for our GDG chapter: The Google Cloud  learning team has just released another learning offer for the month of  June that includes a path to earning an Associate Cloud Engineer  Certification at a 30% discount.

Here’s how it works:

• Sign up at goo.gle/gcp-certoffer
• Choose  the Associate Cloud Engineer path. You will receive instructions on how  to enroll in Qwiklabs gaining 30 days of access and a suggested  learning path to prepare for the exam
• When you complete the Cloud Engineer quest, you will receive a 30% discount for the certification exam
• When  you are ready, take the certification exam ONLINE! Yes, no need to go to  a testing center. The only caveat is that the on-line exam is currently  only being offered in English

Note  that the offer also includes a free month of access to Pluralsight, but  that signup requires a credit card. Also, if you have already claimed a  free month of Pluralsight access via goo.gle/cloud-training you are NOT eligible for an additional month.

If  certification is not what you are interested in at this time, but you  still want to do some learning on Google Cloud via Qwiklabs, there is  still good news, because the offering at goo.gle/cloud-training will continue to be refreshed so you can gain an additional month of access!

Enjoy!

Hello.

Making the right decision isn't the easiest. However difficult it still is the right thing to do.

COVID-19 & Developers Conference 2020

As you are aware, we are at the moment going through a very hard time with the pandemic, COVID-19 (novel Coronavirus) all over the world. Due to various lock downs and travel bans, we have no choice than to postpone the Developers Conference 2020 at a later stage this year.

This decision came out from the organising team after having duly examined all possibilities in every aspect and angle. In order to have the Developers Conference 2020 be the success that we have promised you, we have reached the conclusion that we will therefore delay the Event until this pandemic is cleared out for the safety of each and every one of us. It is better to be prudent than sorry.

Flatten the curve

Although you might have seen several articles on this topic I would like to highlight the main reason for our decision to postpone the Developers Conference.

The spread of the COVID-19 can hardly be prevented but surely be slowed down. Some days earlier NPR published an article on Flattening A Pandemic's Curve: Why Staying Home Now Can Save Lives. The main take-away is to slow the spread and to keep the capacity of the health care system intact.

Hence it would be irresponsible to run the Developers Conference with over 530 registration as of today.

Additionally I recommend you to read: The Korean clusters - How coronavirus cases exploded in South Korean churches and hospitals

Please don't be "Patient 31" and stay safe!

Kind Regards,
The Organising Team

Registration for the Developers Conference 2020 is open since Saturday, 29th February, and we are looking forward to welcome you all to attend the event.

Check your calendar for 2-4 April and register for the Developers Conference 2020: https://conference.mscc.mu/

Alternatively, use the direct link to Meetup.

We received almost 400 registrations already, more than 200 within the first 48 hours since opening the RSVP period. We are super excited about this development. As mentioned in previous newsletters the general topic of the conference is "Comics & Super Heroes". If you're into cosplay feel free to suit up and release your inner super hero!

Speakers & Schedule

Since a few days the speakers and the agenda have been added to the conference website and there are new additions almost daily. However due to ongoing conversations between the organising team and the speakers there are still modifications on the schedule to be expected. It's all very liquid and flexible. We are going to inform you in form of another newsletter as soon as the agenda of talks has been finalised and frozen.

More information for you is in the pipe. Stay tuned and watch out for our next newsletter in a couple of days...

Cheers, JoKi

Statement on Coronavirus (COVID-19)

With the recent evolution of the COVID-19 (Coronavirus) we would like to have your confirmation that you and your team will still be present at the event. Rest assured that the Mauritian authorities are closely monitoring the situation and as of today no cases have been reported in the country.

Any foreign national having resided in China, Republic of Korea, Italy and the Islamic Republic of Iran or with a history of travel to and from China, Republic of Korea, Italy and the Islamic Republic of Iran within the last 14 days will not be allowed entry or transit in the Republic of Mauritius.”

Based on this we can only insist on our security measures according to the WHO recommendations. Please see the link below:

https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/advice-for-public

We request you follow the precautionary measures for the good planning of the event.

Also note that in this respect, the Daycare Facility that was originally advertised to you will unfortunately not be made available under these circumstances to minimise any risk.

Finally, we launched the website of the Developers Conference 2020. It was about high-time and we are very pleased and proud to have incorporated the theme: "Comics & Super Heroes" this year.

Check it out here: https://conference.mscc.mu/

Right now, we are happy to announce all conference partners in their associated tier. Kindly take this opportunity to visit their websites and maybe see whether there are any open positions offered that you might be interested in.

Registration is going to open on 29th February noon

During the next couple days the organising team is working hard on the remaining submissions and we are looking forward to add more and more content in a timely fashion.

Next, we are going to publish all accepted speakers with a few featured on the front page. Then we will be providing a first draft of the session agenda and probably by the begin of March we will be able to present you with the finalised schedule and conference details.

Job opportunities

It seems that more and more companies are having open positions at the moment. Here are a few job opportunities that we received recently from our community partners. Perhaps there are interesting choices for you among them. Kindly let them know that you're a member of the MSCC.

Without further ado, kindly see below.

Cheers, JoKi

Providus Technologies Ltd – Developers (Multiple Positions)

We are looking for diligent and fast learning developers (intermediate and senior level) to join our dynamic team in the gaming industry. Multiple open positions for:

• JAVA Developers
• PHP Developers
• Frontend  React Developer
• HTML/ CSS Template Developers
• IT Systems/ Network Cloud Engineer

Please contact us on hr@providus.mu or visit us on www.providus.mu

Hello everyone,

Developers Conference 2020

Yes, we are getting more and more excited about the event. Probably you might have already seen a few of our partner announcements, either on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. The line-up of partners is fantastic!

Thankfully we have long-term partners that agreed to support the conference again, and there are new names popping up here and there. Lots of love, energy and ideas flying around. Definitely more details to come...

Speaking of details. Our recent, open Call for Speakers (CfS) / Call for Papers (CfP) was a success. The content team is currently reviewing over 400 submissions that we received until 31st January.

The quantity and also the quality of the majority of proposals is a bit overwhelming and we are looking forward to inform all applicants during the coming week.

Positive note: This year we received more submissions from female IT people than in previous years. Something we are very happy and excited about.

With merely 80 slots for presentations it isn't an easy job for the organisation team to choose from this such of fascinating submissions. Stay tuned for more.

Call to Action: Help to build the conference site

Not sure whether you are actually aware of this or not. All of our conference websites have been built by volunteers and contributors in their spare time.

The source code repositories are hosted on GitHub and we are welcoming anyone to provide their feedback, their ideas and more interesting to get involved in building the best Developers Conference site.

https://github.com/mscraftsman/devcon2020/

The README instructions are very clear and informative about the technology used, how to join the squad of coders, and how to contribute to the project.

There is a dedicated channel in our MSCC Slack workspace to exchange and elaborate topics as a team.

We are counting on you!

Monthly meetings

Although we skipped January the meetings are rolling in. In general, MSCC meetings are set to happen on the last Saturday of the month, with few occasional exceptions.

Next up, is a jointed event with the Python Mauritius UserGroup at the Digital Factory in Port Louis. Various speakers will provide some overview of Python and interesting use case of Python.

RSVP here: https://www.meetup.com/MauritiusSoftwareCraftsmanshipCommunity/events/268501581/

BTW, did you know that you can add our schedule to your preferred calendar. Meetup offers a feed of appointments that you integrate in  your calendar, eg. Outlook, Google, iCloud, etc. The procedure is  described in their help: Exporting a group or personal event calendar

PS: Next meeting is already set for 21st of March and going to held at the Middlesex University in Cascavelle. Topic is still open. Send us your suggestions!

More events and meetings are already in the making. 2020 is going to be awesome!

Cheers, JoKi

Hi everyone,

And welcome to 2020!

Developers Conference 2020

Preparations for the Developers Conference 2020 are in full swing and the organisation team is very busy reaching out to new local and international partners and speakers.

Check your calendar for the period of 2-4 April 2020. It's going to be fun to meet at the Caudan Arts Centre. Work on the conference website is in progress. Latest news will be located here:

https://conference.mscc.mu/

Interested to speak at the Developers Conference? Our Call for Papers is still open until the end of January. Either use the link of the conference site or the direct one here:

https://sessionize.com/devconmu2020/

We are counting on you!

Monthly meetings

This year we are trying a new concept for the monthly meetings: Securing the locations and dates first, then looking into the topics to present and discuss. Perhaps this brings us an improvement in regards to planning. So, if you know a cool location that would be able to host 25 to 50 people let us know and we'll fix a date for an MSCC meeting in 2020.

BTW, did you know that you can add our schedule to your preferred calendar. Meetup offers a feed of appointments that you integrate in your calendar, eg. Outlook, Google, iCloud, etc. The procedure is described in their help: Exporting a group or personal event calendar

Job opportunities

Again, here are a few job opportunities that we received recently from our community partners. Perhaps there are interesting choices for you among them. Kindly let them know that you're a member of the MSCC.

Without further ado, kindly see below.

Cheers, JoKi

Liquid Telecom - Software Developer

Reporting to the POS Development Manager, in this customer focused role you will be responsible for providing payments projects software development, implementation, support and training services. You will be a quick learner, highly motivated and be able to use your initiative to hit the ground running to achieve results and targets.

We are looking for someone who has:

• Minimum of a degree in Software Engineering/Computer Science or an equivalent qualification.
• At least one year’s software design, development and support experience.
  Strong Software development skills in object-oriented programming languages.
• A good working knowledge of the latest development tools and methodologies.
• A customer (end-user) focus.
• Excellent communication skills and can work well in a team-based environment.
• Strong Analytical and Problem-solving skills.
• A passion for high quality work and who can work with the minimum of supervision.
• The ability to produce reports and meet deadlines.

Contact: Prithiviraj Auckloo

Spoon Consulting - Application Developers

We are active in innovation watch to remain at the forefront of technological developments and to constantly improve our competitiveness and better satisfy our customers.

To support our steady growth, we are seeking software engineers, with 2 to 5 years of relevant experience.

Academic Qualifications and process skills

• BSc Degree in IT or Computer Science or any other qualifications related to IT
• 2 to 5 years of proven working experience with Applications Development in technologies like JAVA, APEX, .NET, Ruby On Rails, Lightning, JavaScript (with any framework), Mobile Technologies (Cordova, Swift, Android Java), Oracle PaaS
• Experience in the following integration tools would be an advantage: Oracle ODI, Talend, Mulesoft, StreamJet, Oracle Integration Cloud,
• Knowledge in the following solutions will be highly valued: Salesforce, Oracle Cloud, ElasticSearch, Microsoft Dynamics, WalkMe, PostgreSQL
• Technical autonomy, with capability to develop backend programs, front-end interface or integration packages
• Good knowledge of projects implementation methodology and experience in documenting deliverables
• Experience in projects with offshore delivery
• Ability to envision application structure to meet client business requirements
• Familiar with Agile Methodology

Get in touch with Vania Meemea, Executive Assistant  | Tel. +230 433 34 77 |

Spoon Consulting - Application Consultants

We are active in innovation watch to remain at the forefront of technological developments and to constantly improve our competitiveness and better satisfy customers.

To support our steady growth, we are seeking software engineers and consultants with 2 to 7 years of relevant experience.

A previous experience as a part of large implementations and roll out projects including client solutions design and prototypes, specific developments, user training will be highly valued.

Academic Qualifications and process skills

• BSc Degree in IT or Computer Science or any other qualifications related to IT
• 2 to 7 years of proven working experience with an Applications such as Oracle ERP Cloud, Salesforce, Ms Dynamics, Infor, WalkMe
• Excellent knowledge of Standard business process flows in Customer Relationship Management, Human Capital Management, or Financials suite and related modules
• Technical autonomy, with capability to develop backend programs, front-end interface or integration packages
• Good knowledge of projects implementation methodology and experience in documenting deliverables
• Experience in projects with offshore delivery
• Ability to envision application structure to meet client business requirements
• Familiar with Agile Methodology

Get in touch with Vania Meemea, Executive Assistant  | Tel. +230 433 34 77 |