Posted by Erica Hanson, Global Program Manager, Google Developer Student Clubs
Stevens Institute of Technology’s Google Developer Student Club. Names left to right: Tim Leonard, Will Escamilla, Rich Bilotti, Justin O'Boyle, Luke Mizus, and Rachael Kondra
The Google Developer Student Club at the Stevens Institute of Technology built their own website that makes local government data user friendly for voters in local districts. The goal: Take obscure budget and transportation information, display it via an easy-to-understand UI, and help voters become more easily informed.
When Tim Leonard first moved to Hoboken, New Jersey to start school at the Stevens Institute of Technology, he was interested in anything but government. A computer science major with a deep interest in startups, one was more likely to find him at a lecture on computational structures than on political science.
However, as the founder of the Google Developer Student Club (DSC) chapter at his university, Tim and his fellow classmates had the opportunity to make the trip into New York City to attend a developer community meetup with Ralph Yozzo, a community organizer from Google Developer Groups (GDG) NYC. While Ralph had given several talks on different technologies and programming techniques, this time he decided to try something new: Government budgets.
A slide from Ralph’s presentation
Titled “Why we should care about budgets,” Ralph’s talk to the young programmers focused on why tracking government spending in their community matters. He further explained how public budgets fund many parts of our lives - from getting to work, to taking care of our health, to going to a good school. However, Ralph informed them that while there are currently laws that attempt to make this data public, a platform that makes this information truly accessible didn’t exist. Instead, most of this information is tucked away in different corners of the internet; unorganized, and hard to understand.
Tim soon realized programming could be the solution and that his team had the chance to grow in a whole new way, outside of the traditional classroom setting. With Ralph’s encouragement, Tim and his team started thinking about how they could build a platform to collect all of this data, and provide a UI that’s easy for any user to interact with. By creating a well-organized website that could pull all of this local information, streamline it, and produce easy-to-understand graphics, the DSC Stevens team imagined they could have an impact on how voters inform themselves before casting their ballots at local elections.
“What if we had a technical approach to local government? Where our site would have actionable metrics that held us accountable for getting information out to the public.”
Tim thought if local voters could easily understand how their representatives were spending their community’s money, they could use it as a new framework to decide how to vote. The next step was to figure out the best way to get started.
An image from the demo site
The DSC Stevens team quickly agreed that their goal should be to build a website about their own city, Hoboken. They named it “Project Crystal” and started taking Google App Engine courses and conducting Node.js server run throughs. With the data they would eventually store and organize, they also dove into Google Cloud demos and workshops on Google Charts. They were determined to build something that would store public information in a different way.
“Bounce rates and click through metrics ensure we evaluate our site like a startup. Instead of selling a product, our platform would focus on getting people to interact with the data that shapes their everyday lives.”
After participating in different courses on how to use Google Cloud, Maps, and Charts, they finally put it all together and created the first version of their idea - an MVP site, built to drive user engagement, that would serve as their prototype.
A video explaining the Project Crystal website
Complete with easy-to-understand budget charts, contact information for different public officials, and maps to help users locate important services, the prototype site has been their first major step in turning complicated data into actionable voting information. Excited about their progress, Tim wants to eventually host the site on Google Cloud so his team can store more data and offer the platform to local governments across the country.
Image of the DSC Steven's team adding Google Charts to their demo site
The DSC Stevens team agrees, access to resources like Project Crystal could change how we vote. They hope with the right technical solutions around data, voters will be better informed, eager to ask more of their representatives, and more willing to participate in the day-to-day work of building their communities, together.
“Our advice to other student developers is to find outlets, like DSC, that enable you to think about helping others. For us, it was figuring out how to use our Google Cloud credits for good.”
Want to start a project of your own? If you’re a university student, join a Developer Student Club near you. If you’re a professional, find the right Google Developer Group for you.
Posted by Jennifer Kohl, Google Developers Global Communities Program Manager
Luiza in her hometown, Magas
Magas is the capital of the Republic of Ingushetia, the smallest region in Russia. Centered between Chechnya and North Ossetia, the area is no stranger to conflict. Even as it rebuilds, the region has seen its unemployment numbers rise to as high as 50 percent. Magas, a mostly rural area, is home to a small population of just under six-thousand people - it’s estimated that under 100 of them are developers.
Yet one day that small group of developers decided to take their first step towards becoming a community. These founders heard of Google Developer Groups (GDG) and had seen their community meetups in action on trips to other larger cities in Russia. Inspired by how GDG brought developers together, they believed starting a community in Magas was just what they all needed to grow.
GDG Magas was up and running immediately, hosting small community events in classrooms and meeting spaces across town. And it was there, at a local meetup, where GDG Magas met Luiza.
Luiza speaking at a University competition
At the time, Luiza was a student at a local university. Equipped with a curious mind, she was hungry to learn more. She often challenged herself to think about how women could grow professionally and personally within traditional cultures. Luiza was interested in technology, a mostly unheard of career path in this small town. At the same time, Women Techmakers, a Google program that provides resources for women in technology, started collaborating with GDG chapters around the world to help women like Luiza get started on their journey.
So together, GDG Magas and Women Techmakers started hosting talks and workshops for women in the community. Eventually, they began running a programming class for beginners, and that’s where Luiza realized she had the space to truly explore her interest in code. The community organized thirteen classes, and each Saturday Luiza would join GDG Magas to learn everything from arrays, to Python, to JavaScript, and more.
“I learned everything a beginner needs: numeral systems, loops, algorithms, and even the basics of web development. I was able to work with GDG mentors to improve my skills both in the backend and frontend. Someone was always there to answer my questions.”
With GDG Magas providing Luiza with this access to learning materials and mentorship, there has been no turning back. Luiza landed a competitive role working for an internet company, will soon give her own talks at GDG events, and is even starting her own Google Developer Student Club as she completes her studies in Magas. Luiza is now at the forefront of helping a rural town become a growing tech scene, taking the lead to shape her future and that of many young developers around her.
GDG Magas and similar developer communities are growing faster than ever, thanks to determined developers just like Luiza.
Ready to find a developer community near you? Join a local Google Developer Group, here.
Calling all student developers: If you’re someone who wants to lead, is passionate about technology, loves problem-solving, and is driven to give back to your community, then Developer Student Clubs has a home for you. Interest forms for the upcoming 2020-2021 academic year are now available. Ready to dive in? Get started at goo.gle/dsc-leads.
Want to know more? Check out these details below.
What are Developer Student Clubs?
Developer Student Clubs (DSC) are university based community groups for students interested in Google developer technologies. With programs that meet in person and online, students from all undergraduate and graduate programs with an interest in growing as a developer are welcome. By joining a DSC, students grow their knowledge in a peer-to-peer learning environment and build solutions for local businesses and their community.
Why should I join?
- Grow your skills as a developer with training content from Google.
- Think of your own project, then lead a team of your peers to scale it.
- Build prototypes and solutions for local problems.
- Participate in a global developer competition.
- Receive access to select Google events and conferences.
- Gain valuable experience
Is there a Developer Student Club near me?
Developer Student Clubs are now in 68+ countries with 860+ groups. Find a club near you or learn how to start your own, here.
When do I need to submit the interest form?
You may express interest through the form until May 15th, 11:59pm PST. Get started here.
Make sure to learn more about our program criteria.
Our DSC Leads are working on meaningful projects around the world. Watch this video of how one lead worked to protect her community from dangerous floods in Indonesia. Similarly, read this story of how another lead helped modernize healthcare in Uganda.
We’re looking forward to welcoming a new group of leads to Developer Student Clubs. Have a friend who you think is a good fit? Pass this article along. Wishing all developer students the best on the path towards building great products and community.
*Developer Student Clubs are student-led independent organizations, and their presence does not indicate a relationship between Google and the students' universities.
Posted by Google Developer Studio
Today is International Women’s Day and we’re kicking off the celebration with a profile series featuring 20 tech trailblazers who have made significant contributions to the developer community. Many of the women we spoke to work directly with some of our educational outreach and inclusivity programs like Google Developer Groups and Women Techmakers, while others are Google Developers Experts or Googlers who do amazing work around the globe. One thing they all have in common is a dedication to making the developer community more approachable and inclusive for generations of women to come.
Read the interviews below to learn more about these amazing individuals whose passion and drive contribute to a better workplace and world.
We’re proud to celebrate #IWD2020 with them.
Google Pay is now available on Stripe Checkout. Businesses with Stripe Checkout on their websites can now provide an optimized checkout experience to Google Pay users.
Google Pay is available directly from Stripe Checkout
Refer to Stripe’s Checkout documentation for more information.
Stripe merchants that aren’t using Stripe Checkout can integrate directly with Google Pay using the Google Pay Setup Guide.
Google Pay is the fast, simple and secure way to pay on sites, in apps, and in stores using the payment options saved to your Google Account.
See Google Pay Developer documentation for information on additional integration options.
Who doesn’t love finding a good shortcut? A year ago, G Suite created a handful of shortcuts: docs.new, sheets.new, and slides.new. You can easily pull up a new document, spreadsheet or presentation by typing those shortcuts into your address bar.
This inspired Google Registry to release the .new domain extension as a way for people to perform online actions in one quick step. And now any company or organization can register its own .new domain to help people get things done faster, too. Here are some of our favorite shortcuts that you can use:
OpenTable’s reservation.new, eBay’s sell.new and Github’s repo.new are also handy time-savers. Similar to .app, .page, and .dev, .new will be secure because all domains will be served over HTTPS connections. Through January 14, 2020, trademark owners can register their trademarked .new domains. Starting December 2, 2019, anyone can apply for a .new domain during the Limited Registration Period. If you’ve got an idea for a .new domain, you can learn more about our policies and how to register at whats.new.
With .new, you can help people take action faster. We hope to see .new shortcuts for all the things people frequently do online.
DevFest season is always full of lively surprises with enchanting adventures right around the corner. Sometimes these adventures are big: attending a DevFest in the Caribbean, in the heart of the amazon jungle, or traveling more than 3,000 meters above sea level to discover the beautiful South American highlands. Other times they are small but precious: unlocking a new way of thinking that completely shifts how you code.
October marks the beginning of our DevFest 2019 season in Latin America, where all of these experiences become a reality thanks to the efforts of our communities.
What makes DevFests in LATAM different? Our community is free spirited, eager to explore the natural landscapes we call home, proud of our deep cultural diversity, and energized by our big cities. At the same time, we are connected to the tranquil spirit of our small towns. This year, we hope to reflect this way of life through our 55 official Latin America DevFests.
During the season, Latin America will open its doors to Google Developer Experts, Women Techmakers, Googlers, and other renowned speakers, to exchange ideas on Google products such as Android, TensorFlow, Flutter, Google Cloud Platform. Activities include, hackathons, codelabs and training sessions. This season, we will be joined by Googlers Grant Timmerman and Mete Atamel.
Grant is a Developer Programs Engineer at Google where he works on Cloud Functions, Cloud Run, and other serverless technologies on Google Cloud Platform. He loves open source, Node, and plays the alto saxophone in his spare time. During his time in Latin America, he'll be discussing all things serverless at DevFests and Cloud Summits in Chile, Argentina, Peru, Colombia, and Mexico.
Mete is a Developer Advocate based in London. He focuses on helping developers with Google Cloud. At DevFest Sul in Floripa and other conferences and meetups throughout Brazil in October, he’ll be talking about serverless containers using Knative and Cloud Run. He first visited the region back in 2017 when he visited Sao Paulo
Afterwards, he went to Rio de Janeiro and immediately fell in love with the city, its friendly people and its positive vibe. Since then, he spoke at a number of conferences and meetups in Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil, and always has been impressed with the eagerness of people to learn more.
This year we will be visiting new countries such as Jamaica, Haiti, Guyana, Honduras, Venezuela and Ecuador that have created their first GDG (Google Developer Group) communities. Most of these new communities are celebrating their first DevFest! We'll also be hosting diversity and inclusion events, so keep an eye out for more details!
We thank everyone for being a part of DevFest and our community.
We hope you join us!
#DevFest
#DevFestLATAM
Find a DevFest near you at g.co/dev/fest/sa
If you wanted to send a secret message by mail, would you rather send it in an envelope, or on a postcard? If you send it on a postcard, anyone who saw the postcard on its way to the recipient could read the message, or even make changes to what’s written.
Encryption on a website functions like an envelope, protecting information passed between your website and its visitors so it can’t be snooped on or changed. It’s what keeps your visitors safe from bad actors who may try to alter your site’s content, misdirect traffic, spy on open Wi-Fi networks, and inject malware or tracking. You achieve encryption on a website by installing an SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificate. This certificate ensures that the data passed between a web server and a browser remains private.
To kick off National Cyber Security Awareness Month, we’re highlighting something that many website owners don’t realize—a single page that isn’t encrypted could potentially be used to gain access to the rest of the website. To avoid this, you need encryption on your entire website, not just for pages that are collecting credit card numbers or log-in info. Even unencrypted landing pages that redirect to an HTTPS page can pose risks. A single unprotected page can become a backdoor for bad actors to snoop on the rest of the site. How do you ensure your entire website is encrypted?
Use a top-level domain that is HSTS preloaded.
The HSTS preload list tells modern browsers which websites to only load over an encrypted connection. The fastest way to get on this list is to use a top-level domain that’s already on the HSTS preload list, such as .app, .dev, or .page. Any website on those extensions gets the security benefits of HSTS preloading from day one, so all you need to do is install your SSL certificate.
Add your website to the HSTS preload list yourself.
Websites can be individually added to the HSTS preload list by the website owner at hstspreload.org. Keep in mind this can be a slow process because the list is manually built into the browser. That means updates to the list are made as new browser releases come out, which can take months to occur for all browsers.
More people are creating websites than ever before, with 48 percent of the U.S. population planning to create one. To help make building your secure website a bit easier, we’ve teamed up with some of our registrar partners, who are offering a discount on .dev, .app, and .page domains plus free SSL certificates during the month of October. We’re also kicking off a video series where existing creators will share their tips for launching a website. You can check them out at safe.page/buildsecurely.
Stephanie Duchesneau, Domains Security Expert, explains the importance of website encryption and the benefits of HSTS-preloading.
Ricardo Costeira is a Software Engineer from Coimbra, Portugal. For the first time last year, he attended DevFest, the largest developer community-led movement hosted by Google Developer Groups across the world. To celebrate DevFest 2019, we want to share with you Ricardo’s story and how he went from writing code to finding community.
Ricardo (left) and a fellow GDG Lead plan DevFest Coimbra.
1. How did you first hear about DevFest? What inspired you to join?
2. Can you tell us about your first experience at DevFest?
It was exhilarating - out of this world. When I first walked in, everyone talked to me as if we had known each other for years. Big smiles, loud laughs, and deep kindness were all around me. As someone who is relatively shy and a loner by nature, I was stunned when I felt myself saying, "I belong here, I'm home." That very same night, I looked up the next event I could attend. Since then, I have attended 2 other events, signed up for 6 more, and have become a GDG Lead. In other words, I’m hooked.
So how did this all change me? To be honest, DevFest brought forward a shift in my personality. I now want to be part of a community - that is a new feeling in my life.
3. What from DevFest 2018 are you looking forward to seeing again this year?
The booths. DevFest Coimbra has booths where you can talk with different companies. It’s exciting to learn about all the opportunities to grow so close to home. In my case, it was thrilling to see just how quickly Portugal is scaling and how so many companies come to DevFest eager to talk with the best talent. Forming these relationships is what can make the difference when finding the right opportunity for you.
4. Leading up to DevFest 2019, what are you most excited for?
Lighting a spark in new attendees. I recently joined the organizational staff and I’m excited to give new attendees that feeling I had when I first walked into DevFest. I’ve found such meaning in working with my fellow GDG Leads to bring together attendees in a sense of shared awe.
5. Any advice for those attending DevFest 2019?
Just say hi. You will be surprised with how far it will take you. DevFest is not only about the talks or workshops, it’s also about the people. This community knows the extrovert and understands the introvert, and warmly welcomes both. That is to say, no matter who you are or how you code, there is a place for you here.
Want to find a DevFest event near you? Check out devfest.withgoogle.com to join our community, meet other developers and learn about Cloud, Android, Flutter, Machine Learning and more.
This week is a big one for Flutter! Today, at Google Developer Days, our flagship conference for Chinese developers, we used the keynote to announce our latest stable release: Flutter 1.9. This release is our biggest update yet with more than 1,500 PRs from more than 100 contributors. The new features and updates span a wide range, from support for macOS Catalina and iOS 13 to improved tooling support, as well as new Dart language features and new Material widgets.
At the keynote, we also announced a major milestone for Flutter’s web support, with the successful integration of Flutter’s web support into the main Flutter repository, allowing developers to write for mobile, desktop and web with the same codebase. And we showcased Tencent, one of the largest worldwide internet brands, who are using Flutter in a growing number of their mobile apps.
Let’s take a deeper look at this week’s news, starting with what’s new in Flutter 1.9.
As Apple prepares to release Catalina, the latest version of macOS, we’ve worked hard to make sure that Flutter is ready for you to upgrade. We’ve updated the end-to-end tooling experience to ensure it works well on Catalina and with Xcode 11. This includes adding support for the new Xcode build system, enabling 64-bit support throughout the toolchain, and simplifying platform dependencies.
With iOS 13 on the way, we’ve also been working to ensure your Flutter apps look great on the latest iPhone release. Flutter 1.9 includes an implementation of the iOS 13 draggable toolbar, with both long-press and drag-from-right, and supports vibration feedback. Work on iOS dark mode is also well underway with a number of pull requests already merged.
Finally, in the latest development builds, you can now turn on experimental support for Bitcode, which is Apple’s platform-independent intermediate representation of a compiled program. Submitting your app as Bitcode allows Apple to optimize your binary in the future without resubmission, and opens the door to Flutter potentially supporting platforms like watchOS and tvOS that require Bitcode for app submission.
The Material components and features also get an upgrade in Flutter 1.9. Material is one of the world’s leading open-source design systems, providing a comprehensive, flexible set of building blocks for implementing interactive user experiences across many platforms.
In this release, we provide several new widgets including ToggleButtons (left) and ColorFiltered (right).
ToggleButtons
ColorFiltered
The ToggleButtons widget bundles a row of ToggleButton widgets together, often composed of a set of Icon and Text widgets, to form a set of buttons with fully customizable look and behavior. Do you want single selection or multi-select? Do you want to require at least one selection or allow none? Do you want square or rounded edges, thick or thin borders, icons or text, etc? You can see some of these options above on the left and see how they’re implemented in the ToggleButtons sample.
ToggleButton
Icon
Text
As shown in the image above on the right, the ColorFiltered widget allows you to recolor a tree of child widgets just like you can recolor an image using one of several different algorithms (some of which are shown in the example screenshot above). This has many uses, for example, handling color blindness accessibility issues for your users. To see this in action, check out the ColorFiltered sample.
We’ve also added support for 24 new languages, from Afrikaans to Zulu.
The end-to-end developer experience depends not just on the features of Flutter but also on the underlying language itself. As part of the Flutter 1.9 release, we are also releasing Dart 2.5. Dart 2.5 includes a pre-release of Foreign Function Interface (FFI) support, providing native extensions so Dart can call directly into code written in C. It also introduces machine learning-powered code completions for the IDE. You can learn about both of these and more in the Dart 2.5 announcement.
With this release, new projects default to Swift instead of Objective-C and Kotlin instead of Java for iOS and Android projects respectively. Since many packages are written with Swift, making it the default language removes manual work for adding those packages to an app created with the default options. Swift 5 is ABI stable, and thanks to app thinning work Apple has done in recent releases, the Swift dynamic libraries no longer need to be included in the distribution package for iOS 12.2 or greater, reducing the size of Swift applications compared to previous releases.
And as Kotlin is now the default language for new projects in Android Studio, it seems natural to make the language switch for Android also. These options are now the default for both the flutter CLI tool and the IntelliJ/Android Studio and VS Code plugins for Flutter, but you can always switch back to Objective-C or Java if you prefer.
flutter
Additionally, we’ve been working to improve Flutter’s error messages by making them more readable, more concise and more actionable.
The Flutter User Experience team has led the charge on this project; you can read the details in a separate blog post covering the work on structured error display. We’ve just started to apply these new patterns, and you can expect more error messages to take advantage of this work in coming releases.
And finally, we are very happy to announce that the flutter_web repository is deprecated now that web support has been merged into the main flutter repository! What this means is that if you have the latest builds of Flutter from the master or dev channel, you can target the web with the latest experimental version of Flutter by running flutter run -d chrome.
flutter run -d chrome
When you create a project, Flutter now creates a web runner via a minimal web/index.html file that bootstraps your web-compiled Flutter code. With that file in place, you can use the Flutter CLI tool or the IDE plugins to edit and run Flutter apps on the web.
web/index.html
Above is a screenshot of VS Code with web support enabled for Flutter. Notice the web/index.html file, along with the dropdown list allowing you to choose Chrome as your target development device. Support for web output with Flutter is still at an early phase, but this release represents a major step forward towards enabling production support for web development with Flutter.
At the end of July, we announced an early adopter program designed to get a group of select Flutter applications deployed to production on the web over the next six to twelve months. We received over 1,000 submissions to the program. Unfortunately, we don’t have the capacity to support everyone who applied to join the program, but now web support is merged into the Flutter framework, we’re excited that everyone can now experiment with this capability.
Some community experiments have already showcased Flutter’s web output:
Flutter Widget Livebook (left) is built with Flutter for web and shows Flutter widgets running live in your browser. Panache (right) is a tool for creating themes for Flutter which you can then download and drop directly into your code.
Please give this updated experimental support for Flutter on the web a try and let us know if you have any feedback.
We’re thrilled to see continuing fast growth and adoption of for Flutter. Here at Google, hundreds of developers are working on more than twenty projects using Flutter, including some that are released and many that are still in development. At GDD China this week, we highlighted how Tencent, one of the largest internet brands, is using Flutter pervasively for a wide variety of projects:
Switching gears to something just for fun, if you have Google Assistant on your phone or one of the Google Nest Hub devices, try saying “OK Google. Talk to Flutter Widget Quiz.” We loved seeing this community-powered quiz that tests your knowledge of Flutter.
We love the support we’ve received from the developer community, whether in the form of blogs and articles, published apps or issues and code contributions. For more details on upgrading to Flutter 1.9, including details on how to fix any breaking changes that you might experience as you migrate your code, check out the detailed Flutter 1.9 release notes.
There’s a ton for you to try with this release, from trying out the new dart:ffi or ML-based code completion features to experimenting with Flutter for web; from the new support for Catalina and iOS 13 and new ToggleButtons and ColorFilter widgets to testing yourself on your Flutter widget knowledge.
Now that you’ve got Flutter 1.9 in your hands, we’re excited to see what you will build with it!
Whether you're a city planner, a small business owner, or a software developer, gaining useful insights from data can help make services work better and answer important questions. But, without strong privacy protections, you risk losing the trust of your citizens, customers, and users.
Differentially-private data analysis is a principled approach that enables organizations to learn from the majority of their data while simultaneously ensuring that those results do not allow any individual's data to be distinguished or re-identified. This type of analysis can be implemented in a wide variety of ways and for many different purposes. For example, if you are a health researcher, you may want to compare the average amount of time patients remain admitted across various hospitals in order to determine if there are differences in care. Differential privacy is a high-assurance, analytic means of ensuring that use cases like this are addressed in a privacy-preserving manner.
Today, we’re rolling out the open-source version of the differential privacy library that helps power some of Google’s core products. To make the library easy for developers to use, we’re focusing on features that can be particularly difficult to execute from scratch, like automatically calculating bounds on user contributions. It is now freely available to any organization or developer that wants to use it.
A deeper look at the technology
Our open source library was designed to meet the needs of developers. In addition to being freely accessible, we wanted it to be easy to deploy and useful.
Here are some of the key features of the library:
Investing in new privacy technologies
We have driven the research and development of practical, differentially-private techniques since we released RAPPOR to help improve Chrome in 2014, and continue to spearhead their real-world application.
We’ve used differentially private methods to create helpful features in our products, like how busy a business is over the course of a day or how popular a particular restaurant’s dish is in Google Maps, and improve Google Fi.
This year, we’ve announced several open-source, privacy technologies—Tensorflow Privacy, Tensorflow Federated, Private Join and Compute—and today’s launch adds to this growing list. We're excited to make this library broadly available and hope developers will consider leveraging it as they build out their comprehensive data privacy strategies. From medicine, to government, to business, and beyond, it’s our hope that these open-source tools will help produce insights that benefit everyone.
Acknowledgements
Software Engineers: Alain Forget, Bryant Gipson, Celia Zhang, Damien Desfontaines, Daniel Simmons-Marengo, Ian Pudney, Jin Fu, Michael Daub, Priyanka Sehgal, Royce Wilson, William Lam
Posted by Erica Hanson, Program Manager
ARUA, UGANDA - Samuel Mugisha is a 23 year old university student with a laugh that echoes off every wall and a mind determined to make change. Recently he heard from a healthcare worker that many children at a local clinic were missing vaccinations, so he decided to take a walk. He toured his community, neighbor to neighbor, and asked one simple question: “Can I see your vaccination card?”
In response he was given dirt stained, wrinkled, torn pieces of paper, holding life or death information - all written in scribble.
He squinted, held the cards to the light, rubbed them on his pant leg, but for no use. They were impossible to read. As Samuel put it, “They were broken.”
From the few cards he could read, Samuel noted children who had missed several vaccinations - they were unknowingly playing the odds, waiting to see if disease would find them.
Without hesitation, Samuel got right to work, determined to fix the healthcare system with technology.
He first brought together his closest friends from Developer Student Clubs (DSC), a program supporting students impacting their communities through tech. He asked them: “Why can’t technology solve our problem?”
This newly formed team, including Samuel, Joshwa Benkya and Norman Acidri, came up with a twofold plan:
The idea came together right as Developer Student Clubs launched its first Solution Challenge, an open call for all members to submit projects they recently imagined. These young developers had to give it a shot. They created a model, filled out an application, and pitched the idea. After waiting a month, they heard back - their team won the competition! Their idea was selected from a pool of 170 applicants across India, Africa, and Indonesia. In other words, everything was about to change.
In a country where talent can go unnoticed and problems often go unsolved, this new team had pushed through the odds. Developer Student Clubs is a platform for these types of bold thinkers. Students who view the issues of their region not simply as obstacles to overcome, but chances to mend their home, build a better life for themselves, and transform the experiences of their people.
The goal of the Solution Challenge, and all other DSC programs, is to educate young developers early and equip them with the right skills to make an impact in their community.
In this case, office space in Uganda was expensive and hard to find. Samuel’s team previously had few chances to all work under the same roof. After winning the challenge, Developer Student Clubs helped them find a physical space of their own to come together and collaborate - a simple tool, but one that led to a turning point. As Samuel described it,
With this new space to work, DSC then brought some of Africa’s best Google Developer Group Leads directly to the young developers. In these meetings, the students were given high-level insights on how to best leverage Android, Firebase, and Presto to propel their product forward. As Samuel put it:
As a result, the team realized that with the scarcity of internet in Uganda, Firebase was the perfect technology to build with - allowing healthcare workers to use the app offline but “check in” and receive updates when they were able to find internet.
Although the app has made impressive strides since winning the competition, this young team knows they can make it even better. They want to improve its usability by implementing more visuals and are working to create a version for parents, so families can track the status of their child’s vaccination on their own.
While there is plenty of work ahead, with these gifted students and Developer Student Clubs taking each step forward together, any challenge seems solvable.
What has the team been up to recently? From August 5th-9th they attended the Startup Africa Roadtrip, an intensive training week on how best to refine a startup business model.
Posted by Justin Juul, Social Media Manager
We’re excited to announce the official launch of @googledevs, a new hub for developer culture where we’ll shine a spotlight on communities around the world and make new friends at events like Google I/O, The Android Dev Summit, Flutter Live, and more.
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Posted by Roy Glasberg, Founder of Launchpad Accelerator
For the past six years, Launchpad has connected startups from around the world with the best of Google - its people, network, methodologies, and technologies. We have worked with market leaders in over 40 countries across 6 regional programs (San Francisco, Brazil, Africa, Israel, India, and Tokyo). Launchpad also includes a new program in Mexico announced earlier this year, along with our Indie Games Accelerator and Google.org AI for Social Good Accelerator programs.
We are pleased to announce that the next cohort of startups has been selected for our upcoming programs in Africa, Brazil, and India. We reviewed over 1,000 applications for these programs, and were thoroughly impressed with the quality of startups that indicated their interest. The startups chosen represent those using technology to create a positive impact on key industries in their region and we look forward to supporting them and connecting them with startup ecosystems around the world.
In Africa, we have selected 12 startups from 6 African countries for our 3rd class in this region:
In India, for our 2nd class, we are focused on seed to growth-stage startups that operate across a number of sectors using ML and AI to solve for India-specific problems:
In Brazil, we have chosen startups that are applying ML in interesting ways and are solving for local challenges.
Applications are still open for Launchpad Accelerator Mexico - if you are a LATAM-based startup using technology to solve big challenges for that region, please apply to the program here.
As with all of our previous regional classes, these startups will benefit from customized programs, access to partners and mentors on the ground, and Google's support and dedication to their success.
Stay updated on developments and future opportunities by subscribing to the Google Developers newsletter, as well as The Launchpad Blog.
Posted by Peter Lubbers, Senior Program Manager, Google Developer Training
In January, as a part of Grow with Google’s ongoing commitment to create economic opportunities for Americans, the Google Developer Scholarship Challenge—hosted in partnership with Udacity—awarded nearly 50,000 scholarships to aspiring developers from a wide range of backgrounds and experience levels.
In April, the 5,000 top performers in the Scholarship Challenge earned scholarships for a full Udacity Nanodegree program. These scholars come from every part of the United States, range in age from the late teens to the late sixties, and vary in experience from beginning to advanced. Despite these differences, they share a desire to strengthen their web and Android development skills, and to grow professionally.
Together, they’ve created nearly 18,000 web and Android apps, and exchanged over 2 million messages on the support channels. Students all across the country have reported new jobs, career advancement, and engagement in community programs as a result of their scholarships.
We’d share every story if we could, as they’re all remarkable. But today, we introduce you to five scholars in particular. Because of their hard work, and what they’ve made of the scholarship opportunity, their lives and careers have changed in dramatic ways. Let’s meet them now.
Kansas City, MO
From Missouri Long-Haul Trucker to Web Developer
Tony Boswell was a long-haul truck driver for 14 years. He covered over 1.5 million miles, drove through almost every state in the US, and hauled everything from fresh produce to crude oil. It was steady work, but it required being away from home 320 days out of every year. Tony told us “My wife was home alone and we were living two entirely separate lives.”
Last year, at age 48, Tony decided he had to make a change. Despite not having any transferable skills or relevant work history, he believed he could become a developer. He applied to the Grow with Google Developer program, and earned the Nanodegree scholarship. It was the right move. Tony completed his Nanodegree program in September, and recently found a full-time position focused on front-end web development. Thanks to the career lessons included in his program, he was able to confidently negotiate a $10,000+ increase in his starting salary offer.
“I am happy to say, thanks to the education, training, and coaching that I received from this program, I have finally completed my transition from the open road and a steering wheel, to accepting the title of Technical Support Specialist — Web Developer. I can truly say that my whole life has changed because of coding.”
Virginia Beach, VA
From Virginia Homemaker to Technology Apprentice
Kimberly McCaffery applied for the Grow with Google scholarship to acquire new skills that would help her transition back to the workforce. She is a mother of four, and has been a military spouse and homemaker for over 20 years. She was motivated to apply because she recognized the need to contribute financially to her family:
“Since 1999, we’ve moved 10 times; in the US and overseas. When we got back to Virginia, I returned to the workforce as a substitute teacher. The W2 I received was my first one this century, but, my total pay was less than $500! As my husband approaches retirement, I knew it would help us all if I could shoulder more of the load.“
After completing her Front-End Nanodegree program earlier this fall, Kimberly got a job as a Technology Apprentice at MAXX Potential in Norfolk, Virginia. “I’m so pleased and proud! It's 10 minutes from the kid's school, very flexible, and full of challenges with IT as a service. And there is plenty of room within the company to grow as fast as I want!”
Glendive, MT
From unemployed to Software Engineer
After being laid off from a job in Pennsylvania, Charles and his family moved back to his wife’s hometown in rural Montana, where he struggled to find work as a freelancer. It was a very difficult time, and his confidence suffered.
“I fell into major depression. When my phone rang, I had panic attacks because it was people asking for money. Job-wise, there was nothing in our small town.”
Charles had applied for, and earned, a Grow with Google Scholarship, but there didn’t seem to be a single place where he could apply his skills. He was desperate, but one interview changed everything for him:
“In June I applied for a job at the local cable company to do cable installation. In August I finally got called in for an interview. Immediately the CEO asked me why I didn’t apply for their programming position. I never actually saw it. Instead of an interview for an installer job it turned into the first of 2 interviews for a programming job. For the 2nd interview, I loaded up my phone with all the apps I had made during the Android Basics program. In the interview I answered all the standard questions but it was when I pulled my phone out and showed off the applications I made in the Nanodegree program, that I could tell that I nailed it.“
Two days later, they called and offered Charles the job.
“I never imagined I’d end up doing a job like this. My first day was on September 24.”
Tularosa, NM
Working with Students to Build an Apache Language App
Anna is a Special Education teacher and STEM program coordinator for a middle school in New Mexico. She has a passion for technology, and applied for the Google Developer Scholarship to gain new knowledge and be more helpful to her students and her community.
Anna lives and works near the Mescalero Apache Tribal lands and is now working with her students to develop an Apache language app.
“Students are collecting Apache words and phrases as raw data for the app, and have been working closely with our Apache Language teacher, who is a member of the tribe. Students are designing artwork for the app and are consulting their elders to make it meaningful for Apache people.”
Anna is also having a school-wide drawing contest for the launching icon. During the STEM meetings, students work with Android Studio—they learn how to change the look of their app with XML, and make it do things with Java. “My students are really motivated by this project!”
Castine, ME
Building A Website for African Widows and Orphans
Lourdes Wellington worked in the information technology field, but in the back of her mind, she harbored a desire to learn software development. She was gearing up to make that transition, when a serious health crisis put a hold on her plans—it was cancer, and survival meant having part of her right arm amputated. Despite the challenge, she was determined to move forward both physically and mentally:
“Losing my arm was a small price to pay considering I did not lose my life. My mental aptitude became stronger and I began to consider how I wanted to move forward in the future with my life.”
Lourdes successfully applied for the Grow with Google scholarship, and with the new skills she learned in her Front-End Nanodegree program, she went looking for a meaningful way to make an impact. She learned about an organization that benefits African widows and orphans, and decided to get involved. She created a website to help increase visibility for the organization, calling attention to their efforts to raise funds so a fish hatchery and fish ponds can be constructed to feed small villages.
“Taking programming classes with Udacity for website development has motivated me to create even more websites for charity.”
It has been an honor and a pleasure to play a small part in the remarkable journeys each of these scholarship students has undertaken since we first met them back in January. We look forward to seeing how each and every graduate puts their new skills to work to advance their lives, their careers, and the world around them!
