[Hack Session] AI for Devs: Crafting Creativity with Gemini 2.5, Imagen & Co

Tired of AI hype that sounds like it's straight out of a sci-fi movie? We are, too.

This talk-workshop is for anyone who wants to get their hands dirty and actually build something cool with cutting-edge AI. We're skipping the jargon and diving straight into the practical magic of Gemini 2.5, Google's latest models!

Join us for a fun, hands-on session where we’ll show you how to use Gemini, Imagen, Veo, and Lyria to create mind-blowing content - from images and videos to music and text. Forget just hearing about AI; it’s time to do AI.

What We'll Create Together:

• Gemini 2.5: The Multimodal Maestro. Go beyond simple text generation! We'll explore Gemini 2.5's incredible context window and multimodal capabilities, demonstrating how it can analyse and understand not just text, but also images, audio, and video. We'll show you how to get Gemini to truly "see" and "hear" your projects, unlocking possibilities for intelligent content creation.
• The Creative Suite: From Pixels to Playlists (and Podcasts)! We’ll demo the latest models that turn your wildest ideas into reality:
  - Imagen: Dream it, type it, see it! Create stunning, high-quality images from simple text descriptions. Imagen 4, for example, allows for high-fidelity images with text prompts. Perfect for custom art, marketing materials, or just having fun.
  - Veo: Bring your static ideas to life with dynamic, lifelike videos. Learn how to generate short video clips with just a few words. Veo 3, Google's latest video generation model, offers improved quality and the ability to generate videos with audio, understanding complex prompts and depicting real-world physics. It can also generate cinematic clips, scenes, and stories.
  - Lyria: Step into the future of music and sound creation. Lyria 2, for example, provides greater creative control over music generation with high-fidelity music across a range of styles from text prompts. This model helps you generate original music, sound effects, and even AI-generated vocals for your tracks, mimicking various styles.
  - Speech Generation (Powered by Gemini & Google TTS): Give your creations a voice! Discover how to transform text input into natural-sounding, single or multi-speaker audio with fine-grained control over style, accent, pace, and tone.
• Live Creation & Hands-on Magic: This isn't just a lecture – it's a creation party! We’ll run live demos showing off the power of these tools in action. The final part of the workshop will be a hands-on session, where you can follow along and begin building your own creations. Don’t forget to !!!bring your laptop!!! 💻

Who Should Attend?
This workshop is for everyone—from curious beginners to seasoned developers, data scientists, and AI enthusiasts. If you’ve ever wanted to turn your ideas into reality using AI, this is for you. No prior experience is needed, just an open mind and a laptop. We'll explain things in plain English (with a dash of tech jargon, of course).

Come Ready To:

• Unleash your inner AI artist and innovator.
• Discover how to apply these powerful tools to your own projects.
• Ask questions (we love questions!).
• Have your mind blown a little. 😉

Let's turn the "what if" into "what I made." We can't wait to see what you create!

Speaker / Facilitator:
Ilias Papachristos

Pizzas, beers and... socialising!
At the end of the meetup we will have the opportunity to discuss and socialise with some pizzas and beers! 🍕 🍺

Sponsors
As a final note - big thanks to our sponsors!

1. Science and Technology Park of Crete (Step-C) (venue)
2. Fairlo (Gold Sponsor, t-shirts sponsor)
3. Domeba (Gold Sponsor)

Sponsors keep the meetup free to attend, accessible and provide us with snacks and drinks that keep people around for discussions.
More information about our sponsorships and expenses can be found on DevStaff's Open Collective page.

Thank you! 👏 👏 👏

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Github: https://github.com/devstaff-crete/DevStaff-Heraklion