Talking at 14 Google DevFests in 14 Cities

December 29, 2019

I feel so honored to be invited to speak at Google DevFest events in 14 different cities in Turkey. It all happened pretty much in a month, 34 days to be exact. It was crazy!

My most popular session that was selected by event organizers was “Implementing AI without Learning AI”. GDG Ankara took a beautiful recording of the session. Here is the full video of my talk.

And the presentation itself;

Finally, the source code of the samples I used during my talk is here https://drn.fyi/2SzEkxF on github.

The other session that got selected was about Serverless. Below is the deck I used for my Serverless session.

Where have you been?

What would be the best way to show off all the locations I have been to? :) A map?

That looks beautiful, but I can’t stop there. It is just not fair :) Here are some souvenir shots from all locations. Show off level 2 :)

Ankara

Izmir

Istanbul

Denizli

Edirne

Mersin

Sivas

Bursa

Kayseri

Duzce

Trabzon

Burdur

Manisa

Isparta

I don’t know how I can thank enough to everyone who worked, making these organizations happen! It is sooo much effort, so many volunteers working their a**es off to get things running. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

Huge thanks to Google as well. I’m amazed at the amount of investment they are putting into communities in Turkey. I have been in the software communities in Turkey for about 15 years now. What they are doing is second to none! Thank you Google!

Sleep

Were you not expecting this, right? This is fun! After completing the 14 cities marathon in a month, I was wondering how it affected my sleep! :) To be honest, I was expecting a more dramatic result :) Nevertheless, here are my findings.

Before the tour

During the tour

On average, there is a one hour sleep missing in there :) Interestingly, my REM sleep is the same. Not sure how to interpret this, but one-hour lost sleep is nothing compared to reaching 2000 people around the country and having the ability to have a conversation with them. Worth the sacrifice if it counts :)

Thanks

Let me thank you again! Thanks to all volunteers who helped to organize these events and inviting me to stage. Thanks to everyone who attended my sessions! Without you, none of this makes sense at all. Finally, huge thanks to Google for making this happen all over the country! What a perfect way to close out the year! See you at the next one!