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DevCongress V9 just took place - here is what you should know

zooboole

Published By zooboole

In case you don't know what DevCongress V9 is, it's one of the greatest tech events in Ghana. DevCongress aims at unifying, guiding and encouraging the developers' community in Ghana. The event has been taking place for almost two years now. Its community has grown from just a few people to a community of thousands of participants.

We at phpocean have had the privilege to assist at its ninth edition which took place at the Marriott Hotel in Accra.

How did it go?

Well, amazing. We had Edem Kumodzi from Andela, Williams Adu also from Andela, and Eunice Obugyei from DreamOval. Eunice Spoke of converting Java to Kotlin.

Edem spoke about how developers can write great CVs. The idea actually occurred to him after recently he called for candidates for an internship. He had the chance to go through a lot of CVs and noticed how bad we developers can be in writing CVs. Besides, as also a developer, he's not exempt from writing his own CV. So, he used that opportunity to share a copy of his own CV. Among other things he said, here are a few aspects you need to look at when writing your CV:

  • Interviewers have less than 10 seconds to scrape your CV. So make sure you let them see a reason they should consider you quickly
  • Build your reputation through contributions to the OSS, building stuff yourself, organize or attend meetups.
  • Make sure your CV fits on just one page. Don't write a book. After all, 10 secs will not be enough to read it.
  • Hyperlink everything. This is like abstracting resources. When you mention a resource on your CV, make sure it links to that resource.
  • Highlight your achievement, not your job description. After all, it's what you can do people are interested in.
  • Summarize your tech stack. Be succinct and clear on the stacks you know and if possible grade your level of knowledge.
  • Have your website for your name. This will be your best reference for yourself. Search engines would index it before your social media profiles.
  • Avoid as possible as you can mentioning your high schools, references, and hobbies.

You can view the slides over here.

Then Williams took the mic to speak about how to be successful as a software developer. Although this question raises several possibilities of answers, he made his point clear: success is measured by the impact you have on your users. It's important that you build stuff that's useful. He also gave us a few steps one can follow to be a successful developer:

  • Learn the basics. You need a few skill before you can build.
  • Learn what skills are useful in the field. Do not learn what is no more used.
  • Contribute to Open Source and other possible projects you can meet.
  • Then, keep on practicing.

What about the participants?!

There were awesome and plenty. Look by yourself:

Conference DevCongressV9

Image by Francis Addai

You should participate in such events, and this is why

As the world is becoming more connected, human relations are getting more disconnected. It's, first of all, an opportunity for you to reconnect with real people. I was surprised to see the number of people who knew about phpocean but did not know the faces behind it. I know you love your code and your craft, but you got to get out there and let people see what you are working on and what you are capable of. If you are a startup, this also is opportunities for you to get in touch with developers. You can easily get the opportunity to access them. In addition, you will be followed on your social media by real people.

My take

Conferences are not new. This is isn't the first nor the last. It doesn't only happen in Ghana, it everywhere in the world. And, more is to come. If you are not among the speakers or the panelists today, you could be tomorrow in any of these conferences.

I just want every developer in Africa and the rest of the world to know that you can't be anything if you don't do something. Until you are capable of something, nothing will happen to you which you could call success. Stop dreaming your life and get to work. You must learn HARD. You won't be a coder by listening to a talk from a genius coder. You'll become a coder when you learn how to code, and there is no favor for it. Kill your laziness, and invite me to its funeral ;)

Moreover, there are lots of limitations our community suffers from compared to others like in Nigeria or in Kenya. Our community is a bit dormant and not much productive. I am pretty sure most of you might have noticed that. Here is my take on the reasons for the problem:

  • Limitations on our communication system. Communication around events is usually very low. Fewer people get to know about events or boot camps.
  • Lifestyle in Ghana is expensive. I know some of you may argue this with me, but it's a fact. I am certain many people couldn't make it just because of transportation. And many of us really struggled to make it.

Cover image credit to bubu