#googleio17

Ever had those mental trips when you’re watching a YouTube videos, especially the festival and event highlights and you picture yourself there? In crazy details, I mean what you’d pack, how you’d feel in the plane en route, the pictures, the people, the experiences? I had that moment a while back in my second year about Google I/O after attending Google I/O Extended at my university.  Watching Sundar and all the updates was great but seeing all the developers coming from all over the world coming together, united in their passion for technology took my heart. I got the ticket came in confirming my attendance in April, major déjà vu hit  me (I’m totally underplaying how excited I was here). I’ll definitely update you more in-depth on the more technical aspects of the sessions that I attended during I/O however this post is simply a first timer’s perspective on the event and all the mind blowing moments I had. Hoping this gives all my readers perspective on the event if you’re planning on attending and are wondering, “Is it all it’s pegged out to be? Is it worth the trip to San Francisco?

How to get there?

First thing’s first, tickets!

It’s always great to be on the lookout for the release of I/O tickets anytime from early April, the range for a couple of hundreds to a thousand dollars. This year’s tickets went for around $700 to $1200. It’s a three day event so when you get the dates, go ahead and sort out accommodation. This year’s was at Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View, so your best bet is to get a hotel in Mountain View or San Jose to avoid the commute you’d take if you were staying in San Francisco, it’s a pretty long drive. Besides, you have plenty of accommodation options, spend some time on Air BnB checking out shared living options especially if you’re on a budget. I’ll be putting up a separate post on finding a great space on Air BnB and the hostel options and experience.

Up, up and Away!

I’d say that simply put, for any developer, enthusiast or designer, Google I/O is our version of the pilgrimage to Mecca, except it’s mountain view. It’s a 8 to 9 hour trip to Amsterdam, Schipol Airport from Nairobi, Kenya for a 2 hour layover  (you already know how essential a neck pillow and a good playlist and book is for this type of trip). It’s a super busy airport so making your way to the other gates is a trip in itself especially if you have to pick up your luggage before the next flight. Then you hop on a flight from Amsterdam to San Francisco for 4 hours. There’s a whooping 10 hour difference between Nairobi and SFO so brace yourself my friend, THE JET LAG IS SO REAL.  Coming from a pretty predominantly hot country, the wind weather was calm but pretty chilly, have a light jumper in your carry on bag just to be safe.

Views at dusk or dawn from NBO to AMS.

Over the antarctic en route San Francisco from Amsterdam.

Checking In.

I was super blessed to have traveled with a large group of my friends and colleagues in the  developer ecosystem in Nairobi and Sub Saharan Africa. We got there two days prior to the main event because of the Global  Google Developer Summit which was luckily at the same hotel that we were staying at. The hotel was electric with hundreds of developers pumped up about the summit and I/O. That aside, checking in for Google I/O is pretty simple, you’re required to get to Shoreline Amphitheater with some form of identification. They give your tag which is NFC enabled. The tag gets you into practically everything. For the keynote, your sitting rows are on your tag and they’re actually super strict at the entrance, but only from the keynote (unless you have great friends like Anie does 🙂 *inside joke). To check in, you’ll need a form of official identification or the ticket that the send you a couple of weeks before the event.

Pro-tip: There’s a whole bunch of events on the night before I/O officially begins, so keep an eye out on email groups for them. Lots of great opportunities to mingle and network.

That Key Note though!

We happened to sit really really close to the main stage as GDG Leads so we had a really great view of the keynote. My biggest highlight had to be the animation before Sundar’s speech, the idea. An amazing story about collaboration, hard work and determination in making ideas happen. Super motivational, like Life of Pi kind of motivation. It set the tone for the rest of the day for me.

Biggest highlights from Sundar’s speech for me were:

There are over 2 billion Android users as at the day of the conference and the numbers are growing rapidly

He emphasized the use of machine learning in products such as street-view and smart replies in Google Allo. He announced the release of smart reply on Google Search and Gmail too for over 1 billion users. This was great to hear especially because a lot of local tech communities have redirected their efforts towards machine learning. In Nairobi, the Nairobi Women in Machine Learning and Data Science go all out on interactive sessions in the field. It’s exciting to think how they can use the current libraries and come up with other innovative uses of machine learning to solve African problems.

The improvement of the accuracy of voice recognition even in noisy environments. The use of deep learning to recognize multiple different sounds on Google home. This allows us to create very minimal infrastructure to have very accurate results even in Google photos.

He announce Google Lens, an epic feature on Google Photos and Assistant. It’s a computational vision based functionality that understands what you are looking at and allows you to make decisions on that information. So here’s how it works, let’s say you go to the dog show and see an interesting breed of dog that you don’t know. You can simply point your phone at it and it’ll be able to give you information on what it is and more! I couldn’t help but think how deep learning can be such a useful tool for developers to build accessibility functions and learning tools for communities. The potential is truly limitless.

Here’s the entire keynote, let me know what your favorite part was.

Codelabs.

For anyone who’s been to the Google Developers website, you know that codelabs are step by step tutorial on how to use certain functionalities on different Google technologies. Day 1 is definitely not the best day to do codelabs because the lines are outrageously long. I’d advice to go for office hours sessions and talks on day 1 then go for codelabs on day 2. Office hours are sessions where the amazing Googlers who work on specific technologies, take time to give you feedback on your projects and help on how you can make them better.

The best codelabs for me were the Android things codelab which after completing two, you would get a pico maker kit. The tensorflow codelab was also great. The best part about these codelab sessions is that even if you don’t attend all the ones you wanted to, you can access all of them on the codelabs website. You’d want to attend the codelabs that need special hardware or software to access. It’s also great to go for codelabs because you have professionals who can help you when you’re stuck.

Office Hours and Sandbox sessions.

I’d have to say my favorite sandbox was the Android Auto one and the IoT drink serving robot. There was a real life-sized and functioning car at the Android Auto sandbox where you could go and experience first hand the future of the automobile industry. There was also really nifty robots that used IoT and Machine Learning to make and dispense beverages. I got really inspired by on of the office hours sessions during the second day, thus the birth of my start-up Hypo. If you’re working on a project, you should definitely check out the office hours sessions for help and perspective.

Pro-tip. Download the I/O app on Playstore and the IoS Appstore and make sure your register for the sessions that you want to attend. Most of the talks have really long lines so if you want to be on the fast-tracked line, register in advance. They will turn you away if the sessions are absolutely full, which they are in most cases.

The Freebies.

You’ll have to be up super early if you want to beat the traffic on both days of I/O. Trust me the line can be super long. But worry not, breakfast is covered. There’s loads of coffees and teas when you get to the amphitheater, plus massive amounts of pastries and snacks. During the day, there’s snack stations all over the place so there’s really not a moment that you’ll be starving. Make sure you have your tag at all times. This year, we had NFC enabled tags that they scan when you pick you your freebies. Look at me getting ahead of myself with food when I was supposed to be talking about freebies, smh.

So this year, all attendees got a Google home, a nifty little bag and a steel water bottle. You might want to take your freebies towards the end of day one because it can be bulky carrying it around all day when you’re up and down in sessions.

Back to the food, hehe, if you’re a really picky and healthy eater, I’d advice you to sign up for the kosher meals. The breakfasts are super nutritious and healthy but the list is specific for people who are listed. So  pay attention to the regular emails and sign up for that list.

If you have some extra cash on you, you can bag cool merch there too. There’s a whole lot of other freebies on offer so keep an eye out. There was an Android Pay Givaway where you could get Android bot dolls and so much more.

Fun and Games.

There’s something for everybody at I/O. You’ll probably be exhausted after a long day but a great way to unwind is to stay for the after hours stuff. I can tell you for sure it’s completely worth it. You’ll get to play amazing games at the arcade, dance parties, concerts, live performances and drinks galore. It’s a great place to mingle with people across all fields and it’s just the right atmosphere to make friends for life.

The concert this year was by LCD Sound System and it was so mind blowing some people cried! Tears of joy guys, it was awesome!

Tips for new attendees.

Here’s everything I wish someone told me before Google I/O.

Uber and Lyft don’t take debit cards so either carry a credit card or buy a prepaid card. I used the American Express pre-paid card which was great fro the rest of my trip.

Never leave your valuables in the car. My friends and I had an incident on Folsom Street in San Francisco during a Google Launchpad event. We parked on the street and someone busted out the windows of the car and took my bag that had all my travel documents. Trust me, having to take a trip to the police station in the middle of the night isn’t a great start to the trip. It all turned out well in the end. But that’s a post for another day.

Bright and early. Be up at around 7 am and out by 7:30 am on day 1. I can tell you the traffic will be insane all the way to Shoreline. You can grab breakfast when you get to the venue.

Bring business cards! I had a whole stack of business cards but I left them at the hotel. Big mistake because I was stuck writing down my emails on peoples phones Smh.

Embrace cultural liquidity. It was my first time in such a big conference. I learned so much just by allowing myself to be curious about others careers, cultures and challenges. It’s a great thing to be able to do that in a selfless way, without thinking, “what’s in it for me?”.

Hope this article helps anyone getting ready to attend Google I/O in coming years. I know it’ll be changing every year but I’m hoping it’ll give you perspective.

Check out more highlights.

Thanks for reading.