DevFest Highlights: The Best of 2025 !

We invite you to GDG Cape Town's enlightening event titled "DevFest Highlights: The Best of 2025!" This gathering is all about diving deep into the remarkable highlights of DevFest Cape Town 2025.

Take a journey back to DevFest 2025 as we revisit the most memorable moments. This event is a celebration of standout sessions, groundbreaking ideas, and practical insights that were showcased at the festival, presented once more for our local tech community.

At this event, you will hear from our incredible speakers. Abed Matini, Senior Backend Developer at Ogilvy, specializes in building scalable backend systems and AI-powered applications. In his talk, “RAG vs Fine-Tuning: Choosing the Right Approach for Your GenAI Application,” Abed will guide you through the best approach for your large language models, exploring trade-offs in cost, scalability, and data freshness, along with a live Vertex AI demonstration.

Sylvia Dieckmann, Google Developer Expert in Flutter/Dart and Women Techmakers Ambassador, is passionate about building intelligent, interactive mobile applications. In her talk, “A Deep Dive into WineSom, an Agentic Flutter App,” Sylvia will showcase how the app leverages AI to enable dynamic, context-aware conversations and real-time data integration, creating a smarter and more engaging user experience.

Re-experience powerful talks, discover the latest trends in mobile development and artificial intelligence, and engage with fellow enthusiasts. Whether you're just getting started or are a seasoned professional, you'll gain valuable insights and a fresh dose of inspiration.

Come eager to learn, exchange ideas, and network—and be sure to RSVP so you don't miss this opportunity!

Agenda

5:30 PM: Grab a drink and some pizza

Grab a drink and some pizza

6:05 PM: Welcome & GDG Cape Town Introduction

Kick-off with a 5-minute presentation about GDG Cape Town

6:10 PM: Sinov8 Introduction

Greetings from our host, Sinov8.

6:15 PM: RAG vs Fine-Tuning: Choosing the Right Approach for Your GenAI Application by Abed Matini

First Talk

7:00 PM: A Deep Dive into WineSom, an Agentic Flutter App by Sylvia Dieckmann

Second talk

7:45 PM: Closing Remarks

Time to chat, connect, and network with our hosts and fellow attendees.

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Speakers

Sylvia Dieckmann

Sylvia is a seasoned software engineer with interests in mobile/web development, client/server architectures, and scalable systems. Most recently, her focus has been on Flutter and Firebase with some native Android work thrown in for good measure.
She has held many positions over the years, most recently as technical manager in the South African non-profit sector, but in 2020 she return…

Abed Matini - Ogilvy (Senior Backend Developer)

Abed Matini is a Senior Backend Developer with a strong background in information technology engineering. He specializes in building scalable backend systems and integrating artificial intelligence to create smarter, user-focused applications. His expertise includes generative AI, prompt engineering, and developing AI-powered applications. Abed is passionate about exploring the convergence of …

Host

Andrew Sithole - Sinov8 Software Solutions (Tech Lead)

I'm a software engineer who is passionate about digital capacity development. I love Node.js, MySQL, PHP, VueJs, Flutter and Google cloud.

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Partners

sinov8 (https://sinov8.net/)
We believe in using modern technologies that are both tried and tested, yet continue to push the boundaries of innovation. The advancements we’ve witnessed in our stacks (PHP/VueJS/Flutter/AWS etc.) over the last five years have been truly mind-blowing and constantly inspire us to build even better software.

Jetbrains (https://www.jetbrains.com/)
The World's Leading Vendor of Professional Development Tools. Creators of IntelliJ IDEA, ReSharper, PyCharm, TeamCity, Kotlin and more. The Drive to Develop.

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Complete your event RSVP here: https://gdg.community.dev/events/details/google-gdg-cape-town-presents-devfest-highlights-the-best-of-2025/.