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Virtual reality: Where did it all go wrong?

Virtual reality: where did it all go wrong

In this article, I’m going to talk about how I perceive the mainstream consumer audience to have rejected virtual reality, and suggest that its child, augmented reality, may be the Slope of Enlightenment that convinces us to buy in. While these are my views alone, towards the end of the piece, I’ve dug out some data from software developers around the world who are working with AR and VR. Even if you don’t care about my views, you may find what they have to say interesting. And, if you’d like to express your own thoughts, I’ve included a link to a survey that’s open right now, which will help key players in the industry to  draw their own conclusions.

Virtual reality: Tomorrow’s world, today

I worked in the smartphone industry before it came of age. Our mission was “a smartphone in every pocket” at a time when simple feature phones like the Motorola RAZR were the must-have communications device. Within a few years of our early projects, the competitor, Apple, launched the iPhone. The rest is history. The App Store opened its doors, the stars aligned, the technology dream was realised and smartphones went on to rule the world.

I grew up in a time of change. We had a BBC microcomputer before I was ten years old. As a teenager, I sashayed along to the sounds of the eighties on a tape Walkman, and later mobile CD players and minidiscs. Then Napster, now Spotify. Change. The cadence of technological evolution was a rapid heartbeat, sounded out by the Internet, mobile phones and a maturing software development industry, which I joined enthusiastically.

Maybe I just got used to an unrealistic pace of change? But whatever happened to virtual reality (VR)? Its heartbeat seems to have flatlined. Nothing much has changed in the years that have passed since the “year of VR” (pick your year, we’ve had a few of them), which turned out to be nothing much of the sort. When I look at my mobile phone of a few years ago, or my website developed in 2004, I think how clunky and quaint they look compared to the sleek form factor and execution possible today. But when I look at the VR headsets of yesteryear and today and compare what they deliver? Not so much.

Take a look at this slideshow of legacy VR hardware. Sure, we’ve come some way since the Sensorama, but the Sega VR of 1993 wasn’t significantly more dorky than today’s HTC Vive Cosmos, was it?

Does anybody really want to strap a heavy, nerdy headset on that makes you suffer motion sickness after a few minutes use, tethers you to a PC, dulls your senses to the real world outside the headset and causes you to trip over your furniture?

Sure, expensive and shiny, next generation VR devices, are coming. But much of the hardware available is unchanged from when it came to the stores two or more years ago, which means hard-core early adopter audiences aren’t shelling out again.  While availability of more cost-accessible hardware for casual users has increased, e.g. the Oculus Go, the handsets are still expensive enough to give mainstream consumers pause, and typically compromise on aspects of quality that mean the VR experience is somewhat flawed.

Convince people that you’ll change their lives

In the consumer world, expectations for VR were raised early and sadly led to disappointment as it became clear that the ambitions went far beyond what was possible given the technology available. Overpromised, VR lost the attention of mainstream audiences, as it simply could not deliver. In part, this was down to problems with the hardware, such as cumbersome headsets, inadequate processors, poor displays and weak audio. Then there’s the secondary reason: there is no “must-have” killer app that convinces sufficient people that you’ll change their lives.

The two issues go hand in hand (the ‘chicken and egg’ situation) since if technology is inadequate, the content creators see no justification for investing heavily in VR. In turn, this means insufficient buyers and revenue to justify the investment in improving the technology. (It’s worth pointing out that secondary uses for VR, such as in industry, education, healthcare, have a very different uptake/content model, and as such, I’m considering just the mainstream here).

And, as such, entertainment content is the key to unlocking adoption by persuading consumers that VR devices are a must-have item. Like 3D TV, VR has thus far failed to deliver a sufficiently convincing experience that sends people rushing to shops to buy the hardware, despite its costs and the limitations involved.

What’s more, VR content isn’t coming along as fast it used to. Hollywood used it for marketing, e.g. to promote films such as 2016’s Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and TV shows including Game of Thrones. But this has dropped back as consumer uptake and gratification was found to be negligible.

Venture funding for consumer VR software companies may drop by more than half this year, to $265 million from $576 million a year ago, SuperData says. And this isn’t surprising. According to the SiliconANGLE. VR headset sales have dropped nearly 34% since Q2 2017. Even committed hardware manufacturers are showing signs of taking their foot off the gas. Samsung, which was one of the first to market with its Gear VR mobile headset, didn’t say anything about VR in its major announcements at CES this year.

Is AR the way out of the trough of despair?

Experts predict that new kids on the block, Augmented Reality (AR) on smartphones and Mixed Reality (MR) headsets, such as Microsoft’s HoloLens. will pick up the audience that VR failed to serve. In terms of the Gartner Hype Cycle, AR and MR — the children of VR — look to serve as the Slope of Enlightenment.

AR can be delivered by the hardware already in your pocket. It doesn’t need the level of resolution or processor power demanded by VR. AR is also far less cumbersome than VR and can be used on the go since it doesn’t require total immersion in the experience. The software brings in a virtual element without losing the real world.  

Certainly, analysts report adoption of augmented reality and mixed reality to be on the up, with earnings expected to come from mobile AR apps, particularly games. Google and Apple have strongly embraced this market with ARCore and ARKit, enabling developers to access AR services on more than 500 million devices in the wild today. Both Apple and Google envisage third-party apps and services that use AR as valuable additions to their app stores. Successful apps add billions to the top line (Apple was expected to make $3 billion revenue over 2 years from in-app purchases within the best known AR title to date, Pokémon Go) and high-profile AR apps also strengthen the ecosystems of both companies, boosting other revenue streams.

The smart money is now shifting to companies working on AR and MR. Apple have a rumoured research project to build a headset for delivery next year. Investment in companies working on MR is expected to jump by nearly 50 percent this year, according to SuperData, with sales of MR headsets expected to ramp up significantly and surpass earnings of VR headsets within the next two years.

The above is purely my opinion, based on observations of the tech industry over a number of years and a healthy degree of skepticism when it comes to inflated expectations. It’s uninformed by experience at the coalface of development however. So, what do software developers working with AR and VR, have to say?

Software developers working in VR and AR told us…

Here at SlashData we run regular surveys of software developers around the world to uncover valuable insights from those working in mobile, desktop, IoT, cloud, web, game, AR/VR, data science and machine learning.

In our Developer Economics 14th edition report, which is based on a large-scale online developer survey that ran over a period of eight weeks between November and December 2017, we reached over 21,700 respondents in 169 countries. We studied the data returned from developers working in AR/VR and found the following:

  • 25% of professional game developers say they are targeting AR and/or VR. This figure falls slightly to 19% across the entire corpus of developers surveyed.
  • Dedicated VR hardware, such as Oculus Rift, is attractive to games developers (61% report using it), but across all developers working on VR projects, we see a much lower uptake (33%), reflecting its early adopter status in fields other than games.
  • Across all developers working on VR projects, 32% are targeting smartphone hardware using Google’s Cardboard, and 19% are using Daydream View, built into Android Nougat and beyond, reflecting that developers, and consumers, are still experimenting with the technology on their existing hardware.
  • A similar picture emerges for AR, with Android and iOS taking the lead in most popular AR platforms across all developers targeting AR.
  • Of the dedicated AR hardware available, Microsoft HoloLens leads the pack, with Google Glass at Work and MagicLeap trailing behind when the survey ran in late 2017.

We are currently running another survey and we would value your input. If you’re a software developer working in the field of AR or VR, or considering doing so, please consider answering the questions. If you’re not a developer but are working in the AR/VR field, pass the link on to your developer friends and colleagues.

Every survey completed has a chance to win Oculus Rift +Touch Virtual Reality System to test your creations (or simply play around), Samsung S9 PLus, $200 towards the software subscription of your choice, or other prizes from the prize pool worth $12,000!

Plus, if you refer other developers to take the survey, you may win up to $1,000 in cash. Just don’t forget to sign up before you take the survey, so that we know you want to be included in the prize draw!

What do you say, are you in?

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Business

Evolving technology helps game developers make money

game developers make money

Game economics are changing with streaming

Before gaming consoles hit the market in the 80’s, gamers had to visit the arcade and wait for a machine to be available for their turn to play. This created a sense of community and players watched more games than they played, especially if their supply of coins was low. The emergence of streaming is bringing this experience back and watching games has become its own form of entertainment. But how has it affected game developers?

What will working on game development look like in 2019 and beyond? Where should you brush up your skills? Take the Developer Economics survey and get to shape the future of game development.

One of the reasons Fortnite has become so popular is because it is so watchable. Streaming is creating a new channel for developers to promote their games and generate revenues. Gamers can actually watch experts play a game before trying it themselves. The trend is also bringing new capital into the space. Streamers can make big money attracting subscribers to follow them on their channels and sponsors are paying to promote to these audiences. Ninja, the most successful streamer, is reported to make $500,000 a month from his streams. While this revenue does not go directly to developers it does bring a new source of capital into the ecosystem, introducing new opportunities.

This new revenue source is helping spread more money across the industry. In the first half of 2017 only 29% of game developers were making more than $100 a month. In the first half of 2018 that jumped to 48%. While many factors may be influencing revenue growth, streaming is providing a new way to engage with video games, passively, providing opportunities to innovate new business models.

game developers generate more revenue

One dominant trend in game developer business models is that developers are focusing on a fewer number of them, and the more popular ones such as advertising and in-app purchases are getting significantly less popular. Presumably this is due to developers focusing only on revenue sources that are producing for their apps. However, the use of a few less popular approaches is growing. This can be traced back to a growing communal and collaborative environment in the gaming space. Symbiotic relationships are emerging among streamers, developers and gamers that are beginning to change the economics of the industry.

The challenge of developing a game and attracting users has proven too expensive for small developers so they are focusing on leveraging ecosystems and platforms that enable them to help each other instead of relying on launching their own game. Our data shows a small but steady increase in the

number of developers making money through selling services, assets and plugins to other developers. The communal effect fueled by streaming is also leading to increases in subscription games such as World of Warcraft which keep players engaged in the community. Developers are also making money through subscriptions to their own live streams of their development process.

As the rock stars of streaming create a new entertainment experience, development and streaming platforms are innovating new ways to provide opportunities. Twitch has launched extensions which enable viewers to engage with the game stream through web overlay extensions developed by third parties. Developers can create stats views or side games and split profits with the streamers who are attracting the audience. Unity content store is providing a channel for developers to deliver plugins to other developers, another channel for delivering game software. As games are passively consumed, it also provides more opportunity to sell merchandise. We are seeing an uptick in developers generating revenues this way.

Cryptocurrencies are another trend that is helping spread the wealth across the industry by enabling developers, streamers and gamers to make micropayments to influence behaviours. Gamers can tip streamers when they are entertained and developers can pay streamers to promote their games, all through cryptocurrencies. Bits, the cryptocurrency within the Twitch platform which allows viewers to tip streamers, generated $12 million in the service’s first 10 months.

game developers business models

Game developers are moving to the web

As developers promote and distribute games outside of app stores through streams, they are also moving to the web. This fact and the constantly improving performance of JavaScript is reducing the percentage of developers focusing on mobile, desktop and tablets.

As gamers congregate in communities around streamers, developers can reach these prospects without having to go through an app store. Moreover, smaller developer teams don’t have to build for each platform and can have more control of their app and engagement with their audience via the web. New Twitch extensions are also web based, providing a new product category for web developers.

The improving performance enabled by JavaScript JIT compiling engines and frameworks such as React are enabling web developers to create superior game performance over what was possible in the past. With greater performance and distribution options, it is not surprising that the web is becoming more popular with game developers.

game developers moving to web

As the opportunity to make money becomes more democratised, the chance for real innovation grows. When more resources are spread around the industry, fledgling ideas have the economic viability early on and stand a better chance to get out of the starting gate.

We are currently running another survey and we would value your input. If you’re a software developer working in the field of game development, or considering doing so, please consider answering the questions.  Plus, if you refer other developers to take the survey, you may win up to $1,000 in cash.

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Community

The largest developer community: a critical view

largest developer community

When developers evaluate new technologies, one of the elements they often look at is the size and strength of the developer community surrounding that technology. “Can I get help and support from peers when needed?” It’s one of the reasons why open source technologies tend to be so popular. Conversely, technology vendors regularly signal their virtue with community numbers: “Our product is used by millions of developers, choose us!”

However, there is reason to be critical of this line of thinking. The activity of a core group, or indeed the vendor itself, may matter more to get great support than the sheer number of users. Most technologies are not subject to network effects: they don’t become inherently more valuable when more developers adopt them. Even in open source projects, there is often only a small number of core contributors. Furthermore, vendors may bloat the numbers they report: deliberately, or simply because they don’t have good data available.

At /Data, we’ve been maintaining and publishing estimates on the global developer community for a few years now. Our biannual survey also gives us a solid idea of how those developers are spread across various communities. So let’s see where some of the largest developer communities can be found and how powerful those communities may really be.

What do you mean by: community?

The largest regions in terms of developer population are North America, with an estimated 4 million active software developers in mid 2018, and Europe (3.8M in the EU28). However, calling these communities is a bit of a stretch. Developers in these regions are fragmented across countries and cities, as well as technologies and languages. North America includes the relatively homogenous USA, but also various Latin American countries. Europe includes software powerhouses like the United Kingdom, but also smaller Eastern European countries. From the perspective of finding peers to support you (or talent to recruit), looking at small groups gathered in cities around specific technologies is more useful than considering the wider geography.

The largest developer program in our research, with over 10 million active users globally, is Google. Google is great at empowering and supporting their community through forums and the likes. This said, they also have excellent developer satisfaction scores when it comes to vendor-driven support of developers with documentation, tutorials and training, tooling, and so on. Google is the default choice for many developers; it’s not clear whether that is due to the strength of their community or due to the value they provide themselves. They of course offer a multitude of technologies, where experience in one product doesn’t necessarily translate into another. Perhaps it’s more correct to view them as a collection of communities.

What about different sectors of the software industry? More than 14 million developers are involved in creating web apps. Once again, we can wonder about the fragmentation in this community across technologies. A sector view may not be the right level of analysis.

Finally, we can look at a technology. There are over 10 million active Javascript developers, making it the most popular programming language in the world today. Here we may see a stronger sense of community, with forums, real-life groups, learning institutions and more being organised specifically around the language.

In short, when we say “community”, it’s not trivially clear what we mean by that. (Neither is “developer” for that matter, but that’s a story for another blog post). Community size is not necessarily an indicator of homogeneity, coherence or level of activity. That makes it less than straightforward to assess the value of a developer community.

largest developer community

How (not) to count developers

If you’re interested in estimates of developer communities, you will have no doubt seen very high numbers being floated. Developer tools routinely reports user numbers in the millions; communities who claim a broad reach, like Stack Overflow or Github, will report tens of millions of developers. At /Data, we are skeptical of such numbers, in particular if you intend to use them to make adoption decisions.

First, because it is not clear where each source draws the line in what they consider to be an (active) developer. Are IT professionals, DevOps, or sysadmins included? What about people who once made an account, but never actively used the product?

However, the bigger issue seems to be where such numbers are sourced. Most estimates floating around the internet are based on (unique) pageviews, downloads, IP addresses, and the likes. All of these are susceptible to a multiplier effect, not in the least due to multi-machine and multi-browser software testing, frequent cleaning of caches and cookies for testing, repeat downloads of developer tools, and development automation (e.g. build servers). Abandoned accounts may significantly skew the estimates as well. Sometimes, numbers we’ve come across seem to be based on nothing at all.

Measurements like that are only a vague indication of the number of actual active developers and therefore of the strength of the community. They tend to be not comparable across vendors. Not to mention that it is in the self-interest of the vendor to report the biggest number they can find. Indicators that indicate actual developer activity, like Monthly Active Users, are exceedingly rare.

Conclusion

Whether you’re a developer thinking about the direction of your career, or someone who is deciding on which technology to adopt, the question of how strong the supporting community is, is perfectly legitimate. To asses the true benefit of community, however, make sure to use the right scope and reliable, meaningful numbers.

On our part, we will continue to provide you with our best estimates of active software developers, using sources that are direct evidence of recent coding activity. To do that, we would value your input. We are currently running another survey in our Developer Economics series. If you’re a software developer, please consider answering the questions. If you’re not a developer but are working in the software industry, pass the link on to your developer friends and colleagues.

Every survey completed has a chance to win Oculus Rift +Touch Virtual Reality System to test your creations (or simply play around), Samsung S9 PLus, $200 towards the software subscription of your choice, or other prizes from the prize pool worth $12,000!

Plus, if you refer other developers to take the survey, you may win up to $1,000 in cash. Just don’t forget to sign up before you take the survey, so that we know you want to be included in the prize draw!

We’ll also donate $2,000 to Raspberry Pi Foundation, helping young ones learn how to code, so the more developers take the survey, the closer we are to helping the community grow!

What do you say, are you in?

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Community

Live now – new Developer Economics Survey Q4 2018!

developer economics survey, developer economics q4 2018, developer economics 16 edition, developer survey, software developers survey

Whether you’re a professional dev with years of coding experience under your belt, curious weekend hobbyists or still a student sharpening your skills, it’s always a good idea to test your standing with the latest technologies. Our brand new Developer Economics survey is now open for all devs who want to check how well you know tools, technologies, and vendors. Curious if you’re going in the right direction? Start now to find out!

What’s new in Developer Economics Q4 2018 survey?

Let’s start by telling you about our new survey feature! Now you can sign up for the survey using your email and easily save your answers (if you wish to pause and resume later where you left off) and receive updates. Plus, you can access our Referral Program and share the survey with other developers with just a few clicks.

developer economics survey, developer economics q4 2018, signup feature, survey signup, survey account, developer economics community

To make the journey just a little bit more exciting, there’s a fresh sci-fi theme waiting for you. Find out which one out of our 5 new characters is your secret AI alter-ego. Are you Brainops or Intellecta? Only one way to find out!

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We also want to use this survey as an opportunity to give back to the dev community. For each completed response to the survey, we’ll donate a small amount of money to the Raspberry Pi Foundation which supports young coders in the making. The idea is simple – the more responses we get, the more money we’ll donate. So it’s really up to you to help us make an impact and support a good cause!

What do you get for participating?

We cherish each and every new developer response, and want you to get something back! We’ve prepared pretty cool perks for everyone who takes part. Here’s what you can get our hands on.

We have a whopping $12,000 worth of amazing prizes up for grabs:  Samsung S9 Plus, Oculus Rift + Touch Virtual Reality System, Filco Ninja Majestouch-2 Tenkeyless NKR Tactile Action Keyboard, developer licenses, Udemy vouchers, and more! Want to hear a secret? There are extra surprise prizes that you may win if you complete additional questions in your area of expertise. If you’re specialising in development for mobile, web, cloud, desktop, AI, AR/VR, IoT, machine learning or data science, we have a few hidden perks for you.

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Feeling competitive? You can win up to $700 USD cash if you refer other developers to take the survey. Our goal is to reach 23,000 responses from all over the world – help us get there! Share our Tweets, banners, and texts with developers you know, collect points and you may be the lucky one! Just go to the survey, sign up and game on!

We also give to the survey participants an early access to key findings from the survey via our State of the Developer Nation 16th edition report (coming up in Q1 2019). The previous 15th edition got over 3k downloads since its release in September, and there’s a reason why people love it! It’s packed with stats and latest trends to help guide your career and skill building. And the best thing? You’ll get it first if you take the survey! Plus, you will get access to the Developer Benchmarks with key graphs illustrating global trends. Comes in handy when you want to prove to your boss or project pals that your ideas are solid and actually supported by data!

Last but not least, after you have answered all the questions, you get your own AI character at the end of the survey. Want to you feel superior to all the mortals out there? You know you do, so jump in and find out who your AI alter ego is!

Take the survey now!

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Community

Donations, social good and tech: a modern placement for developers

coding charities, donation

Social good & donation has many forms and thankfully there are several resources in the tech arena to support people and projects that most of us have not thought to do. Aiming to put the voluntary effort of developers in perspective, we realise there are important questions that someone has been answering for some time now:

How will we integrate technology into activities for social benefit, whether building an interactive map for an international humanitarian movement, or communication platform for a charity organisation?

And how can knowledge and tech skills be developed among people who don’t readily have access to it, like refugees stuck in a country due to heavy disputes in their homeland?

Continue reading “Donations, social good and tech: a modern placement for developers”
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Business

Data scientists need to make sense of the big picture, rather than the big data

The web echoes with cries for help with learning data science. “How do I get started?”. “Which are the must-know algorithms?”. “Can someone point me to best resources for deep learning?”. In response, a bustling ecosystem has sprung to life around learning resources of all shapes and sizes. Are the skills to unlock the deepest secrets of deep learning what emerging data scientists truly need though? Our research has consistently shown that only a minority of data scientists are in need of highly performing predictive models, while most would benefit from learning how to decide whether to build an algorithm or not and how to make sense of it, rather than how to actually build one.  

Continue reading “Data scientists need to make sense of the big picture, rather than the big data”
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Business

Infographic: What are developers up to in the State of the Developer Nation 15th Edition?

State of the Developer Nation 15 edition

Did you get a free copy of our latest State of the Developer Nation 15 edition? If you haven’t yet, you should! It highlights the most interesting findings from our Developer Economics survey which ran this summer in May-June this and reached over 20,500+ devs in 167 countries.

What’s new in the State of the Developer Nation 15 edition?


We asked developers, among other things, what kind of skills they’d like to learn or improve in 2019. We compared developer interest in twelve different skill sets, spanning from data science and machine learning to business/marketing skills to cloud-native development, DevOps, and hardware-level coding. The results were somewhat surprising. Data science and machine learning will be the most highly sought after skills in the next year – 45% of developers want to gain expertise in these fields. 33% of developers want to learn UI design, 25% cloud-native development. Other common tech skills, such as learning a new programming language, rank lower.

When it comes to programming language communities, JavaScript still reigns as the most popular language, with over 10M users globally. Python has reached 7M active developers and is climbing up the ranks.  62% of machine learning developers and data scientists now use Python.

Big data has been hyped for several years. In addition, a race has begun to design processors capable of crunching large sets of often unstructured data and to produce real-time predictions. The question is, to how many in the rapidly growing Data Science and Machine Learning (ML) community are large datasets and real-time predictions relevant? Scroll down to find all the highlights in the infographic!

Don’t forget to share the infographic & download the full report!

The Developer Economics 17th Edition is now LIVE. Take the survey and shape tomorrow’s trends.

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Liked it? Take the survey and share with us your ideas for the future of development.

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Business Interviews

Dev Evolution: Meet Fernando from Yeeply!

project platform, yeeply, developer economics, developer platforms, slashdata

Developing new software or an app is no small task. It takes a whole team of dedicated people working across different departments. How do you make sure you create value as a project platform startup that brings all these people together to work in sync? Our partner, Yeeply, shares a few challenges and how to overcome them.

Who?

Fernando Ballester, Business Development Manager at Yeeply

fernando ballester, yeeply, developer interview, developer tips, developer career, developer platform

Tell us a little bit more about Yeeply

Yeeply is a platform bundling certified developers – focused on the development of webs and apps as well as additional marketing and design services. Our network includes on one side our developers, marketing specialists, and design experts. And on the other side, we work with startups, SMEs and big companies. Our platform simply brings these two parties (clients and professionals) together in a quick and easy way.

Currently, we have over 150 certified teams spread over more than 40 countries worldwide, who carried out over 600 technical projects. We make sure that our developers, only receive projects that are truly matching their knowledge and experience.

What challenges have you faced as a company?

As a marketplace business, one of the main challenges we faced was to conceptualize Yeeply as a platform that provides value to two kinds of users – both clients and developers. Without highly qualitative development teams, clients have no incentive to use our project platform and to pursue a tech-project with us. And, without a quality list of clients, we cannot convince the developers to get on board either – the typical “chicken and egg problem”. In order to provide both sides with the service that they needed we noticed we had to focus on quality, trust, support, and the direct relation between saving time and costs.

Secondly, as a startup, it wasn’t enough for Yeeply just to be profitable in the first place. We needed to be scalable. Finding a niche market and differentiating ourselves from our competitors was the first step – covering the demand for a customised platform in the sector of mobile applications, focusing on the quality and objectivity of our projects.

Besides, technology moves at an incredible speed, and keeping up with the changes can be a challenge for startups. Facing rapid growth, one of our next challenges was to find and hire new talents with new profiles and experience to help tackle the startup’s growing needs.

How do you make sure only the best professionals are included in your project platform?

We created our own certification method in order to validate the quality of professionals that are included in our network – freelancers, agencies, development companies, and large technology enterprises.

They all have to pass a verification process to prove their knowledge and experience before getting certified. After filtering and validating the applicants’ profiles we conduct an interview with them to verify their technical and professional skills.

Previous projects, references, and language skills are evaluated. The last one depends on the markets they want to work for. In the next phase, we validate their references by contacting previous clients. At least one valid reference from a previous client is required to proceed with the process. Finally, the experts get officially certified after they completed one of our smaller projects to prove their skills and abilities.

Only 1% of the certification requests are eventually accepted to the platform. We are looking for teams and professionals with technical skills and experience in the development of mobile applications, both native and hybrid, websites and mobile games.

What are the reasons for developers to work with Yeeply?

Our current network of developers decided to work with us based on several reasons. The most common ones are:

  • The quality of the projects;
  • The ability to decide your own prices;
  • The freedom to accept or reject an assigned project;
  • The support provided by Yeeply to solve doubts or commercial issues;
  • The possibility to communicate openly and transparently with the customer.

What about the salaries and professional growth developers get out of the projects?

As mentioned before, there are no fixed salaries for our professionals. We only check 5% of the established prices. Besides, Yeeply is free for our developers/professionals. Because of this, they are able to focus completely on creating high-quality developments for clients. By cooperating with us, they do not only gain technical experience in the implementation of full-stack projects, but also in customizing the development to client’s needs.

As our certified developers are able to decide independently whether they want to accept or reject a project, they can define their expertise and reputation in specific fields further and grow their skills in the tech-area of their preference.

With our technical support and guidance provided to back complex projects, our experts also trade their team-working-skills and networking. Partnering with us, they can benefit from the synergy effects of being part of a network as opposed to competing on the market alone.

What are some of the best / favourite technologies devs work with and why?

Our experts are specialized in native and hybrid mobile app development, such as Swift for iOS and Kotlin for Android. To cover the full Web-app / Mobile-app / Backend-CMS ecosystem, many of them expanded their field of expertise to Django/Python and React / React-native as well.

For now, IoT mobile Apps, 3D applications, AR and VR are the most popular technologies, simply due to their increasing popularity and future potential in digitalisation. For the same reason, more and more devs are looking into potential Artificial intelligence (AI) and Blockchain applications for the mobile ecosystem.

What would you advise developers looking for work and working in web or app development services, as an expert in the industry?

In my opinion, the most important thing to do as a web or app developer is to take care of your personal branding. As teleworking is very common in this type of industry it’s significant to be present online. With this I mean being active on social networks, having a strong portfolio, and giving your opinions in forums for example.

It could also help to create articles or videos about specific topics in order to show people your expertise. Sharing this type of content on your LinkedIn, for example, could help to encourage others to work with you. If you want to take it a step further, you could even try to ask tech blogs if you could write a guest post for them.

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Community

Developer Economics survey Q2 2018 prize draw winners

Developer Economics survey Q2 2018 prize draw winners
Developer Economics Q2 2018 prize draw winners

Welcome to the full rundown of the Developer Economics survey Q2 2018 prize draw winners. Below you’ll find a table comprised of the winners. We’ve listed the name and countries of all the people that have won and given us permission to share their details. For those where we are awaiting permission, their emails are displayed (but obfuscated for security reasons) and finally those who’d prefer not to share their details, we’ve simply displayed their initials and country.

Winners have already been notified by email – if you recognise the email fragment as yours and we haven’t contacted you, please drop us an email at survey@slashdata.co.

Please note that the list only includes prize-draw winners and not runner-ups. If the prize draw winners do not claim their prizes within the timeframe mentioned in the respective e-mail they received, then runner-ups will be asked to claim them instead.

Congratulations to all the winners!

===

Exclusive Community Member prize-draw

This exclusive prize was open to all existing members of our Community. Not yet a Community Member? Join here.

Prize Draw Winner Country Prize
P.K. Russia $1000 credit towards a software subscription of your choice

randomdraws.co.uk/cert/uhxfb

Community Member prize-draw

Prize Draw Winner Country Prize
*us**n@j**st**.us United States $500 credit towards a software subscription of your choice
Vincenzo. M Italy $250 credit towards a software subscription of your choice
hi***dr**m@gmail.com Italy a Lenovo tablet Yoga Tab 3 10
e**cle**om**a@gmail.com Brazil a Corsair STRAFE RGB Mechanical Gaming Keyboard – Cherry brown
Lucas P. Brazil a Corsair STRAFE RGB Mechanical Gaming Keyboard – Cherry brown
lu**tw@gmail.com Taiwan a Tile Sport bluetooth tracker
a.**ra**@gmail.com Latvia a Tile Sport bluetooth tracker
Titus B. The Netherlands a Tile Sport bluetooth tracker
***oru**@hotmail.com Spain a Tile Sport bluetooth tracker
Matias M. Argentina a Tile Sport bluetooth tracker

randomdraws.co.uk/cert/urkyg

General prize-draw

Prize Draw Winner Country Prize
i**o@ja***.com.ar Argentina an iPhone X
**nta**or@**nta**or.me United States a Samsung S9 Plus
m**o82*@gmail.com Japan a GitHub 12 month Developer plan
David B. United Kingdom a GitHub 12 month Developer plan
**ltion**@gmail.com United States a GitHub 12 month Developer plan
***es**dio@me.com Italy a Codeacademy Pro subscription (12 months)
**nda2*@hotmail.com United States a $100 USD Alibaba Cloud voucher
*in**ong3*@gmail.com Hong Kong a $100 USD Alibaba Cloud voucher
**ra**i@gmail.com United States Udemy vouchers worth $80
b**aro@gmail.com Ireland a $20 Redbubble voucher
**bloh8*@gmail.com Spain a $20 Redbubble voucher
ma**.**rna**@hotmail.com Canada a $20 Redbubble voucher
ju**itad**k*au*@gmail.com United States a $20 Redbubble voucher
Alex L. Israel a $20 Redbubble voucher

randomdraws.co.uk/cert/ekxmj

Surprise prize-draw

Prize Draw Winner Country Prize
S.S India a book of your choice up to $50 – please let us know what book you’d like
Michael T. Japan a Sublime Text 3 license
Lewis T. Malaysia a HyperX Cloud Revolver S Binaural Head-band Black headset
do**las**i*a1@gmail.com Brazil a UK Filco Majestouch-2, Tenkeyless, NKR, Tactile Action keyboard
L.T Spain a Tessel 2
**mar**tsho*@gmail.com Canada a $200 Amazon voucher
Swapnil A. India a T-shirt, mug and sticker bundle of your choice (up to $100 value) through Redbubble.com
d**ia*d**ian@gmail.com Argentina a PlayStation 1 pendulum wall clock
Mi***nya28**08@mail.ru Russia an Apple TV 4 Digital Multimedia receiver 32GB
afi**ml@gmail.com Malaysia a Gunnar Crystalline Vinyl Gaming Eyewear – Onyx/Crystalline

randomdraws.co.uk/cert/mkgqf

Categories
Events

Roundup of Developer Events in September – November 2018

developer events

Conferences, events and workshops are a great way to connect face to face with professionals who share the same passion as you. We’ve featured below a selection of developer events from around the world.

Europe
APAC
North America
South America
Middle East & Africa

Europe

London, UK – ODSC Europe: One of the largest applied data science conferences in Europe. Speakers include some of the core contributors to many open source tools, libraries, and languages.
September 19 – 22
Silver pass £429 GBP

London, UK – Rework Deep Learning Summit: Bridging the gap between the latest technological research advancements and real world applications in business and society.
September 20 – 21
Standard pass £795 GBP, Student / Academic pass £395 GBP

Hamburg, Germany – Next: Be there, when international digital minds share their knowledge about digital trends and their impact on human behaviour (find out more below).
September 21 – 22
€890 EUR (needs permission for application)

Riga, Latvia – Baltic Honeybadger: The Baltic Honeybadger conference is the first major event in Latvia dedicated to Bitcoin and the technologies built around it.
September 22 – 23
Late bird ticket price €399 EUR

Barcelona, Spain – OpenMPCon: The OpenMP Developers Conference is the annual forum for the discussion of all aspects of parallel programming with OpenMP. It is the premier forum to present and discuss applications, tools, techniques, libraries and trends relating to parallel programming with OpenMP.
September 24 – 26
OpenMPCon + Tutorial + IWOMP €700 EUR

London, UK – IP Expo Europe: With six top IT events under ONE roof, 300+ exhibitors and 300+ free to attend seminar sessions, IP EXPO Europe is the must-attend IT event of the year for CIOs, heads of IT, security specialists, heads of insight and tech experts. The event showcases brand new exclusive content and senior level insights from across the industry, as well as unveiling the latest developments in IT. IP EXPO Europe now incorporates IP EXPO, Cyber Security X, Developer X, AI-Analytics X, Internet of Things X and Blockchain X.
October 3 – 4
Access Plus Pass £650 GBP

Madrid, Spain – South Summit: South Summit is the leading Innovation Global Platform which connects top innovators from Southern Europe and Latin America to the world´s most powerful investors, and corporations, who are searching for the next big thing.
October 3 – 5
Attendee pass €198 EUR

London, UK – O’Reilly AI Conference: breakthroughs, best practices, and business transformation.
October 8 – 11
Bronze pass £1,195 GBP

London, UK – JAX London: The Conference for Java & Software Innovation. A four-day conference for cutting-edge software engineers and enterprise-level professionals. JAX brings together the world’s leading innovators in the fields of JAVA, microservices, continuous delivery and DevOps.
October 8 – 11
Four day pass £849 GBP

London, UK – Artificial Intelligence Conference: The Artificial Intelligence Conference brings the growing AI community together to explore the most essential issues and innovations in applied AI. We’ll delve into practical business applications, compelling use cases, rock-solid technical skills, tear-downs of successful AI projects, and dissections of failures in key topic areas.
October 9 – 11
Bronze Pass £1,195 GBP

Basel, Switzerland – Cloud Foundry Summit Europe 2018: From startups to the Fortune 500, Cloud Foundry is used by enterprises around the globe to automate, scale and manage cloud apps throughout their lifecycle. Cloud Foundry Summit Europe is the premier event for end users to learn the platform from those who build and use it every day. Join hundreds of developers in Basel to learn how to run apps at scale – using a platform or containers on multiple clouds.
October 10 – 11
Attendee registration € 549 EUR, or €494  + €285 registration plus Certified Developer Exam

Edinburgh, UK – The Linux Security Summit (LSS): a technical forum aiming to foster community efforts in analyzing and solving Linux security challenges.
October 25 – 26
Attendee ticket $100 USD

Lisbon, Portugal – PGConf.EU: PostgreSQL Conference Europe 2018 will be held on October 23-26 in Lisbon, Portugal at the Lisbon Marriott Hotel. At the biggest PostgreSQL event in Europe, you can expect three days packed with presentations about PostgreSQL and related technologies, one day of extended training classes, and the usual hallway and social tracks!
October 13 – 16
Standard ticket €270 EUR

Malta – Malta Blockchain Summit: Malta, with its new regulatory framework, is leading the pack. The Malta Blockchain Summit is a reflection of this momentum. Expect a buzzing expo and riveting discussions about the world-changing potential applications of the Blockchain as well as AI, Big Data, Quantum Technology and IoT. The Summit anticipates 5,000 delegates and will also feature a Hackathon as well as an ICO Pitch with hundreds of investors.
November 1 – 2
On-time ticket €129 EUR

Lisbon, Portugal – Web Summit 2018: Web Summit started as a simple idea in 2010: Let’s connect the technology community with all industries, both old and new. It seemed to resonate. Web Summit has grown to become the “largest technology conference in the world”.
November 5 – 8
Full attendee, early bird €675 EUR

Antwerp, Belgium – Devoxx Belgium 2018: The Deep Dive days is a chance to get heavily under the skin of a subject. There are several types of sessions running during these two days. Then Conference days provide a variety of session formats for attendees to enjoy.
November 12 – 16
Deep Dive tickets €350 EUR

Berlin, Germany – OpenStack Summit Berlin: Join the people building and operating open infrastructure, with over 200 sessions and workshops on Container Infrastructure, CI/CD, Telecom + NFV, Public Cloud, Private & Hybrid Cloud and members of open source communities like Kubernetes, Docker, OPNFV, Ansible, Ceph, ONAP, Open vSwitch , and OpenStack.
November 13 – 15
Tickets at $999 USD

Berlin, Germany – Disrupt Berlin 2018: If you’re serious about startups, we’re still keeping it as real as ever. At Disrupt, everyone is a startupper – no matter if you’re a founder, investor, hacker or tech leader. So much more than just on-stage interviews, Disrupt is where you’ll find the renowned Startup Battlefield competition, hundreds of startups in Startup Alley, Workshops and legendary networking at our After Parties… and we’re in Berlin, right where many startup dreams begin.
November 29 – 30
Tickets €745 EUR

APAC

Tokyo, Japan – TechInAsia Tokyo: Learn from the world’s tech leaders – Tech in Asia Tokyo 2018 expects to showcase over 120 exciting startups.
Sep 20 – 21
General Pass ¥49,000 YEN

Shanghai, China – Google Developer Days China 2018: Google Developer Days China 2018 will be held on Sep. 20th and Sep. 21st in Shanghai, with topics covering Machine Learning, ARCore, Android, Play, WearOS, Accessibility, the Mobile Web, Firebase, Assistant, IoT, Cloud, Flutter, Ads, Design and so on.
September 20 – 21

Singapore – PHP Conference Asia 2018: spreading the adoption, knowledge and professionalism of PHP and its derivative technologies.
September 26 – 29
Super early bird (conference only) $198 SGD

Singapore – Startup Weekend Singapore Mega 2018: Turn your ideas to reality in just 54 hours! Join forces with smart, passionate individuals to brainstorm, design products and validate your ideas with high caliber mentors and judges.
September 28 – 30
Ticket cost $104 USD

Bengaluru, India – Red Hat Forum Bengaluru 2018: Automation, AI, machine learning–these are a gift we gave ourselves, the luxury of reclaimed time to wonder. To ask not only “What if?” but also “What for?” and “With whom?”
October 4

Tokyo, Japan – Scaling Bitcoin Tokyo: Scaling Bitcoin ‘Kaizen’, focuses on the systematic identification of portions of the Bitcoin protocol that best lend themselves to continuous, non-’consensus layer’ improvement.
October 6 – 7
General attendance $300 USD

Shanghai, China – Huawei Connect 2018: To create new opportunities and boost efficiency, organizations must embrace digital platforms that are open, agile, and equipped with state-of-the-art AI capabilities. Join us at HUAWEI CONNECT 2018, and let’s explore new opportunities together.
October 10 – 12
Ordinary pass $120 USD

Beijing, China – Xilinx Developer Forum: XDF connects software developers and system designers to the deep expertise of Xilinx engineers, partners, and industry leaders. You will leave the forum with insights and inspiration to tackle your next breakthrough in application or system design.
October 16

Sydney, Australia – FutureStack18 Sydney: Accelerate to the Future. An intensive and informative day for modern technology professionals. Modern IT perspectives, Inspiring speakers, Success Stories, Meet our Software Engineers, New Relic University training, Demos and networking.
October 17

Shandong Sheng, China – National High Performance Computing Annual Conference: The industry leaders, scientific research scholars, program design, software development, engineering simulation, equipment procurement, operation and maintenance services, etc., as well as university teachers and students, government and media personnel are welcome to attend. For the first time, the world’s latest high-performance computing, cloud computing, big data, storage, system integration and other hardware manufacturing, software development, design and service of cutting-edge dynamics and technology trends!
October 18 – 20

Multiple locations – ARM Tech Symposia APAC: The Arm Tech Symposia is a global annual event designed to share with audience the first-hand market observation, the latest Arm technology roadmap, the up-to-date diverse Arm based devices and applications. This is also a platform where partners from over 1,000 Arm Community and ecosystem gather together demonstrating their products & solutions based on Arm, exchanging market intelligence and tackling the challenges.

China: Shanghai Oct 22 /  Beijing, Oct 24/ Shenzhen, Oct 26 ——- India: Bangalore, Nov 20 ——- Taiwan: Taipei, Nov 1 / Hsinchu, Nov 2 ——- Korea: Seoul, Nov 13 ——- Japan: Tokyo, Dec 6

Jakarta, Indonesia – Tech in Asia Jakarta 2018: helps your business stay ahead of the curve by uncovering the latest trends and building connections with industry leaders and passionate individuals in the tech community.
October 23 – 24
General pass $197 USD

Tokyo, Japan – LoRa Alliance Members Meeting and LoRaWAN™ LIVE – Tokyo LoRa: The LoRa Alliance will host our next Members Meeting from the October 23 – 25 2018 at the Hilton Tokyo.
October 23 – 25
Sponsor, Contributor, Institutional Members $250 USD

Shanghai, China – Cloud Foundry Day China 2018: KubeCon + CloudNativeCon is the place for the cloud-native community, and Cloud Foundry is synonymous with cloud-native.
November 13
Attendee All-Access Standard Early Bird ￥1,500 YEN

Singapore – BlockShow: attend to learn something new & meet a whole community of like-minded professionals.
November 27 – December 1
Standard ticket $988 USD (until Oct 8)

Sanya, China – 2018 International Conference on Algorithms, Computing and Artificial Intelligence: ACAI 2018 is to bring together innovative academics and industrial experts in the field of Algorithms, Computing and Artificial Intelligence to a common forum. ACAI 2018, aims to bring together researchers, engineers, developers and practitioners from academia and industry working in all major areas and interdisciplinary areas of Algorithms, Computing and Artificial Intelligence.
December 21 – 23
Regular author ticket $500 USD

North America

New York, NY – O’Reilly Strata Data Conference: dissect case studies, develop new skills through in-depth tutorials, share emerging best practices in data science, and imagine the future.
September 12 – 13
Bronze pass $1,795 USD (until Sept 10).

Los Angeles, CA – Mobile World Conference Americas: Mobile World Congress Americas is the premiere event where industry leaders come to progress business. Attendees will gain valuable insights on trends and future predictions for the mobile technology industry.
September 12 – 14
Silver Pass $300 USD

Los Angeles, CA – Data Science Salon: a destination conference which brings together specialists face-to-face to educate each other, illuminate best practices, and innovate new solutions in a casual atmosphere.
September 13
Individual pass $350 USD.

San Francisco, CA – The AI Summit: now in its 3rd year, The AI Summit is the world’s first and largest conference & exhibition to look at the practical implications of AI for enterprise organisations, the actual solutions that are transforming business productivity.
September 19 – 20
Full price conference pass $1,999 USD.

Multiple locations in USA – Domino Data Science Pop-up: These day-long events bring together the data science leaders of today and tomorrow who are passionate about asking the right questions, identifying problems worth solving, and connecting the dots between quantitative research and business value. Our goal is to present model management methodologies, techniques, and real stories that will improve the way data science work happens.
Austin, Sept 19 / NY, Oct 16 / Chicago, Oct 30 / Boston, Nov 6.

San Francisco, CA – Crypto Economics Security Conference (CESC) 2018: This conference will explore the economic security aspects of blockchain protocols, including game theory, incentive design, mechanism design and market design along with other topics related to crypto-economics security, and to foster collaborations among researchers and practitioners working on these topics.
October 10 – 11
Early admission, general pass $125 USD

Boston, MA – International Conference on Predictive APIs and Apps (PAPIs): the 1st series of international conferences dedicated to real-world Machine Learning applications, and the innovations, techniques and tools that power them.
October 15 – 17
Passes from $25 USD

Las Vegas, NV – AI Deep Dive at Money 2020: bringing together the artificial intelligence (AI) thought leaders who are disrupting the way in which consumers and businesses manage, spend and borrow money.
October 21 – 24
Attendee pass $3,200 USD (until Sept 7)

Toronto, Canada – Rework Deep Learning Summit: bridging the gap between the latest technological research advancements and real world applications in business and society.
October 25 – 26
Standard pass C$1,995, Student / Academic pass C$695

San Francisco, CA – Open Data Science Conference: Attend ODSC West 2018 and learn the latest AI & data science topics, tools, and languages from some of the best and brightest minds in the field.
October 31 – November 3
Silver ticket $599 USD

Las Vegas, NV – World Crypto Con: World Crypto Con (WCC) is a global stage for industry leaders to share their projects and technologies with thousands of investors, experts, developers, businesses and attendees who are using blockchain and cryptocurrency to redefine our everyday lives.
October 31 – November 2
General admission (discounted ticket) $899 USD

Miami, FL – Data Science Salon: a destination conference which brings together specialists face-to-face to educate each other, illuminate best practices, and innovate new solutions in a casual atmosphere.
November 6 – 7
Individual pass $285 USD.

Los Angeles, CA – RubyConf Los Angeles 2018: RubyConf has been the main annual gathering of Rubyists from around the world since 2001.RubyConf is brought to you by the team at Ruby Central, as well as a small but dedicated corps of volunteers. While we depend on the awesomeness of the whole Ruby community to contribute to a terrific experience every year, there are a few individuals that work especially hard to produce RubyConf.
November 13 – 15
$400 USD

San Francisco, CA – MLconf: This single-day, single-track event will host a variety of relevant presentations of today’s application of machine learning techniques and algorithms from experts from Google Brain, Uber, Facebook, Baidu, Tesla, & More. The event will host presentations on novel applications of machine learning within real-world arenas such as: geospatial data, cancer metastasis detection, various NLP challenges, and more to be announced soon.
November 14
Starting price $250 USD

Houston, TX – RE•WORK Applied AI Summit Houston: Real-life AI applications, case studies, business insights & results from leading companies leveraging AI to solve problems in enterprise. Attendees including CTOs & CEOs, Chief Data Scientists, Technology Transformation Manager, Applied Data Scientist, Business Strategists, Innovation Leaders, Chief AI Officer & CIOs, Head, Enterprise Architecture, Founders.
November 29 – 30
Early Bird Pass (exp. Oct 5) $1,095 USD

Las Vegas, NV – AWS re:Invent: Join us for deeper technical content, more hands-on learning opportunities, keynote announcements, a bigger and better Partner Expo, exciting after-hours events, and the best party in technology—re:Play.
November 26 – 30
Full conference pass $1,799 USD

Montreal, Canada – NIPS 2018: The Thirty-second Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS) is a multi-track machine learning and computational neuroscience conference that includes invited talks, demonstrations, symposia and oral and poster presentations of refereed papers. Following the conference, there are workshops which provide a less formal setting.
December 3 – 8
Regular registration $400 USD

South America

Bogota , Colombia – TecnoMultimedia InfoComm Colombia: The TecnoMultimedia InfoComm Colombia is the main fair of the Audio, Video, Lighting, Domotics, Networks, Voice and Data industry held in Colombia. It will be representing the commercial audiovisual industry worldwide.
October 3 – 5
Free

Buenos Aires, Argentina – LatinCorr: The LatinCorr provide a space conducive to networking and business among the leading global companies, technology providers and their users directly. It focuses on the activities developed in Latin America. It will bring together professionals from different countries of the world, especially from Central and South America, to discuss topics ranging from microbiological corrosion to corrosion in the nuclear industry.
October 23 – 25
Full ticket price $450 USD

S.L.P., Mexico – Conisoft 2018: The 6th edition of the International Conference in Software Engineering Research and Innovation (CONISOFT’18) aims to bring together practitioners and researchers from academia, industry and government to advance the state of the art in Software Engineering, as well as generate synergy between academia and industry to define an agenda for collaboration to support and promote the development of the software industry in Mexico and at the international level.
October 24 – 26
One-paper author, ticket price $3,000.00 pesos

Buenos Aires, Argentina – International Symposium on Experimental Robotics: ISER is a single-track symposium focusing on presentations of the latest experimental research in robotics. The goal of ISER symposia is providing a forum for research in robotics that focuses on the novelty of theoretical contributions validated by experimental results.Each ISER Symposium also features outreach activities to the young generations of scientists and engineers in the host region and culture activities to facilitate understanding and appreciation of the unique heritage of the host region.
November 5 – 8
$970 USD

Fortaleza, Brazil – Bitconf (Summer Edition): The BitConf is the most traditional event about cryptocurrencies and blockchain. Participate and engage with leading solution providers in blockchain and crypto-coins in Brazil.
November 16 – 17
General Pass 450 BRL

Middle East & Africa

Cape Town, South Africa – AI Expo Africa: AI Expo Africa 2018 is focusing on real world applications & trends driving the AI Economy in Africa and creating the largest business focused AI Community across the region.  With an expected footfall of 800 people, delegates will enjoy a packed 2 day agenda.
September 9 – 11
Ticket R6,500

Cape Town, South Africa – RedHat Forum South Africa 2018: Join us on September 13th to learn more from leading enterprises and partners as they share success stories of their digital journeys.
September 13

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia – Red Hat Forum Riyadh 2018: The Red Hat Forum in Riyadh is the premier open source technology event to showcase the latest in cloud computing, platform, virtualization, middleware, storage, and systems management technologies. The event brings together CxOs, IT decision makers, architects and developers amongst others to discuss topics such as DevOps, hybrid cloud, containers, SAP Migration to SAP HANA, and many more topics that are driving innovation.
September 25

Johannesburg, South Africa – PostgreS Conf South Africa 2018: The second South African PostgresConf will take place in Johannesburg on 9 October 2018, with attendees representing a diverse class of professionals and companies from around the country and across the continent. This is an opportunity for the database administration and developer community who use PostgreSQL to get to know each other, exchange ideas and learn about the current features and upcoming trends within PostgreSQL.
October 9
Full ticket cost incl meals, R2 475

Challenge! Dubai, UAE & Lagos, Nigeria – Innov8Agric Challenge: the online application for MTFC’ 2018 Agric Innovation Challenge.
The MTFC Agric Challenge is aimed at promoting innovative ideas and enterprises that focus on food production, agro processing, farmers’ education, soil protection, agri-technology, and any other service in the agriculture value chain. USD 5,000 Grand Prize in grants to the winning team.

Cape Town, South Africa – Africacom 2018: AfricaCom is the largest and most influential Africa-focused technology event in the world – the meeting place for those driving Africa’s digital transformation. It is a vibrant learning and networking platform for everybody involved in powering Africa’s digital economy.
November 13 – 15

Cape Town, South Africa – AfricArena: A conference that showcases Africa’s best startups and innovators in front of an audience of local and international investors looking for world-class talent.
November 15 – 16
AfricArena 2-day pass, Early Bird, R3999

We hope that you find this list useful, if so don’t forget to share it with your friends. Are you running or attending an event that we’ve not featured above? Let us know!

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