Developer Week Nairobi is a new tech event series where leading companies in the tech industry as well as local startups will showcase what their code jockeys are doing.
The event hopes to bring attention to the work of the CTOs and lead developers behind leading apps and services, who often get overlooked as the products they create go on to power game-changing technologies and innovations that achieve recognition and commercial success.
The week-long event will focus on technologies coming out of East Africa, with the people behind them taking part in developer workshops, keynote talks and networking mixers.
Developer Week is packed with events, with keynote sessions, lightning talks and panels covering web and mobile development, user thinking, culture, trends and diversity.
One of the main events is the Kenya leg of the Twitter #HelloWorld Tour. Twitter will bring a team of developers to Kenya for a cross cultural exchange in social media and culture. The keynote speaker will be Bear Douglas, who is in charge of Developer Advocacy at Twitter. Other key Twitter personnel in attendance will be Juliana Chahoud, Developer Advocate and Partner Engineer at Twitter, and Bindiya Shah, Head of Partnerships for Twitter in Africa.
AngelHack, the world’s largest and most diverse hacker community, will have a hackathon focusing on driving open innovation. This competition is Angelhack’s first event in Sub-Saharan Africa, and hackers will compete for sponsor cash, prizes and a chance to travel to Silicon Valley for the AngelHack HACKcelerator program.
VC fund DraperDarkFlow will also have a panel led by Nigerian investor Toro Orero, who is the managing partner. The Nairobi panel will focus on how African devs can seek investment for their products. Toro will also launch a new program, SpeedUP Africa, that will focus on investing in African startups.
For those looking to hire (or be hired), online recruitment platform Duma Works will be connecting local hiring managers with local talent at a mixer during Developer Week.
Developer Week Nairobi’s mission is to foster quality development originating from East Africa that is ready to scale around the world. The event will focus on connecting the talent in the region’s tech ecosystem with the resources necessary to grow and compete on the world stage.
For information on speakers and ticketing, go to developerweeknairobi.com. Applications and registration open on Monday 7th.
UPDATE: The event has since been cancelled.
