DevFest Bucharest 2024

We’re excited to announce DevFest Bucharest 2024! This is a community-run, one-day, in-person conference aimed to bring developers, students, tech-companies and awesome speakers together in one location, so they can learn about established or emerging technologies on topics such as Android, Flutter, Firebase, Mobile, Google Assistant, Kotlin, Cloud, AI, ML and more.

The presentations will be held on 3 different tracks

• Mobile Development

• Web

• Cloud Engineering

The event will take place in-person, on 13th of November 2024, at Novotel Hotel, down-town Bucharest and is part of the GDG DevFest series of events.

Communities of people who are passionate about a topic are a wonderful way to foster and drive innovation, creativity and opportunity. Plus it’s always fun to meet and socialize with like-minded people.

Your ticket includes:

• Access to all DevFest tracks

• Lunch & Coffee Breaks

• Networking

Agenda will be announced soon!

Agenda

9:00 AM: Registration

10:00 AM: Opening & Keynote

Welcome to GDG DevFest Bucharest 2024! We'll start the day with an inspiring session, going through the latest trends and news in the technology world.

10:30 AM: Coffee break

10:45 AM: [Mobile] - Alex Burdușel - 10 things we learned redesigning the Fitbit App

During the past 2 years the Fitbit app has gone through significant changes and improvements at all layers. In this talk we’re going to share some insights into our journey of evolving our Android Product.

10:45 AM: [Web] - Jasper Duizendstra - Building a DMS on top of Google Drive

In this session I will walk through a DMS based on Google Drive and Add-Ons. The documents are maintained by a group of document editors and the published documents are also available in a chat bot.

10:45 AM: [Cloud] - Gabriel Preda - Explore Gemma 2 features using Kaggle Models

In this session, we will became familiar with Gemma 2 by leveraging Kaggle resources: Models and Notebooks. We will go through few notebooks and explore Gemma 2 capabilities while using prompt engineering, RAG and fine-tuning to prototype applications with this compact and powerful model from Google

11:30 AM: [Mobile] - Ahmed Tikiwa - Channel me perfect: the importance of app notifications and delivering them via notification channels

Notifications play a pivotal role for any user-facing application as it gives your users the necessary updates when required. However, if they are not used correctly, they can end up being an annoyance for your users as opposed to something they need. Android has Notification Channels which assist in placing notifications into groups or categories, think of, "Urgent Notifications" vs "Promo Notifications". By placing notifications into channels, important notifications can be received into the right channel and non-trivial notifications can be optionally received and the user can decide to receive them, or not, without compromising receiving important notifications. This can be very beneficial for a delivery app for example - where delivery updates are the important notifications and promo notifications are the trivial, which can be turned off.

11:30 AM: [Web] - Paul Negoescu - Clean Code for Frontend AIs

What are AI chat-bots currently capable of? Will they help us be better developers or will they even replace us? As a trainer, engineer, and architect myself I wanted to explore to what degree will AI be able to mess with my job. Will it make evaluating students or job candidates impossible? What are the limits, how can I as an interviewer throw a wrench into the wheels of someone using AI to “beat” my interview questions? How can I ensure that students taking my courses will play fair? How can I get help from an AI and generate code that is not only relevant but also clean and efficient? During this presentation we will look together at some code examples, where and how AI failed to produce maintainable code and even how it can fail to produce working code. Let’s try to answer some of the above questions together, in the short time we have.

11:30 AM: [Cloud] - Natalie Godec - Balancing tight security with fluid devex, powered by GKE

The most secure server is one that is disconnected from the Internet and unplugged. And the most convenient environment for devs is where they have admin access to production and the freedom do what they want. How do you marry the two? Let's look at a real-world scenario where we built a cloud-native fintech platform on GKE. The vision? A robust, flexible, and secure foundation that supports SOC2-compliant deployments and empowers developers to be as productive as possible, contrary to the typical for the financial sector blown-out processes and approval chases. This solution is powered by Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) and the cloud's niftiest security tools from the Secure Supply Chain toolkit.

12:15 PM: Lunch break

1:15 PM: [Mobile] - Radu Radu Marin & Radu-Ioan Ciobanu - Watt’s Draining Your Battery?

There’s no worse feeling than your phone’s battery draining when you need it the most. As developers, in our quest to deliver the most exquisite mobile experiences, we often overlook the fact that our apps are running on battery-powered devices. The more we crank it up, the more we sacrifice battery life. And this is a compromise that users aren’t always willing to make, so we shouldn’t either. Let’s take a look under the hood of Android’s power management and better understand how it works, and, more importantly, how we can work with it. From idle states to Doze, we’ll uncover the mechanisms that are currently used to preserve battery life. We’ll see that performance doesn’t need to be compromised for extending battery life. From proper background behavior to smarter resource usage, you’ll learn best practices on how to measure and optimize the power consumption of your apps. You’ll also find out how you can keep your users more informed and engaged, and they’ll thank you for it!

1:15 PM: [Web] - Alex Gatu - AI & Security Testing - A double edged sword (30 min)

Introduction to Security Testing - Areas of security present in any entity, how to perform a security test on various levels AI current state review - Status of the AI technology at the date, models available that involve security Areas where AI helps in Security - Tools, practices, approaches enabled by AI Areas where AI introduces challenges to Security - New attack types, skills, impact that AI generates on security Future ahead of us - What is predicted to come in the near and long term future in regards to cybersecurity

1:15 PM: [Cloud] - Alexandru Ionescu - How to move 2PB of data in 3 days

This talk will take you from the lowest level where we got our hands dirty with networking infrastructure and hardware choice up to the highest level where we had a fully functional Kubernetes cluster capable of scaling to hundreds (possibly thousands) of nodes. In this session, I’ll walk you through the details of this migration process, the challenges we faced, and the major improvements we gained by moving to Kubernetes for managing both our compute and storage infrastructure.

2:00 PM: [Mobile] - Mangirdas Kazlauskas - Cat-like Development: Flutter for Efficiency

2:00 PM: [Web] - Adina-Teodora Marcu - TypeScript and API Development with GraphQL

In modern API development, ensuring type safety and preventing runtime errors is crucial, especially as applications scale. TypeScript and GraphQL are a perfect match for building robust, scalable, and type-safe APIs. With TypeScript’s static typing, developers can define precise data models that sync seamlessly with GraphQL schemas, eliminating inconsistencies between the front and back ends. By using tools like TypeGraphQL or Apollo, you can leverage TypeScript to auto-generate types, enforce data contracts, and improve overall developer experience, leading to faster development cycles and fewer bugs in production. Let’s explore how these two technologies streamline API development and create more maintainable, efficient codebases!

2:00 PM: [Cloud] - Rustam Mehmandarov - Serverless Java Apps in the Cloud: MicroProfile, Quarkus, and Cloud Run

So, you need to have your Java app deployed and available for your users fast, and you would like to do as little managing, wiring, and infrastrastructure work as possible. How can you achieve that? Well, you go serverless with your containers using supersonic Java in the Cloud! Join us exploring the possibilities with MicroProfile and Quarkus on Google Cloud Run. Bleeding edge Java!

2:45 PM: Coffee break

3:00 PM: [Mobile] - Adrian Mărgineanu - Building a Virtual Keyboard in Flutter: From Kiosk Solutions to Community Contribution

Join Senior Flutter Developer Adrian Mărgineanu at DevFest Bucharest 2024 as he delves into creating custom virtual keyboards in Flutter for kiosk systems. Adrian will walk through the technical steps of building a responsive, accessible virtual keyboard tailored for Flutter-based applications and share insights on how developers can publish their work on pub.dev, making valuable tools accessible to the entire Flutter community. This talk is a must for mobile developers interested in open-source contributions and expanding Flutter's utility in specialized environments.

3:00 PM: [Web] - Bogdan Bindea - From Analog to Digital: The Power of Semantic Web and Java in Transforming Engineering

The engineering world is rapidly shifting from traditional analog methods to a fully digital landscape, and understanding this transformation is crucial for staying ahead. This talk delves into the journey “From Analog to Digital,” focusing on the role of Semantic Web technologies and Java architectures in driving this evolution. Attendees will learn how these technologies enable seamless data integration, bridge the physical and digital worlds, and create smarter, more efficient engineering solutions. We’ll dive into real-world examples of how Semantic Web principles and modern software architectures are used to streamline processes, improve decision-making, and drive innovation. Whether you’re an engineer, software architect, or passionate about digital transformation, this session offers valuable insights into the latest practices shaping engineering’s future. Discover how to leverage these technologies to open up new opportunities in your field.

3:00 PM: [Cloud] - Joshua Fox - Taking Machine Learning to production: Vertex MLOps for speed and efficiency

I have worked with many startups which emerged from university projects. They often run on a single virtual machine, which is what works for research.
However, as the system scales and enters production, automation becomes crucial. Google Vertex can radically streamline this process. For example, model training is more efficient with a managed service that automatically scales compute resources based on your training needs, eliminating the cost of idle resources – as happens when you use a Jupyter Notebook or a VM for training.
We’ll cover other parts of the ML process with Vertex and other Google Cloud services, including development, hypertuning, deployment for inference, tracking model performance, and defining the entire pipeline.
The hard part is deciding when to switch. Learning new services and migrating to them takes precious time that a fast-moving startup cannot afford. But If you stay too long with the simple architecture, you end up building components yourself, and eventually get locked in. So, after reviewing the Google Cloud services you can use, I will explain the key decision points for when to adopt each of the services.

3:45 PM: [Mobile] - TBA

3:45 PM: [Web] - Bogdan Hobeanu - The Dart stack: why code twice when once is nice?

You’ve built your Flutter app, and now you need a backend. Who you gonna call? Dart might be the answer! Tired of switching between different languages and tools? Can Dart simplify full-stack development and let you use one language for both frontend and backend? Let’s find out together.

3:45 PM: [Cloud] - Marton Kodok - Vector search and multimodal embeddings in BigQuery

BigQuery allows you to generate multimodal embeddings and perform vector searches directly on your data without complex preprocessing steps. Simplify the process of finding relevant data, identifying patterns and trends, and clustering similar objects together. Learn how to generate embeddings using familiar BigQuery SQL syntax with multimodal inputs (text, images, audio). We’ll then review how to use BigQuery’s vector search capabilities to explore data in new and innovative ways, leading to faster decision-making and improved insights.

4:30 PM: [Mobile] - TBA

4:30 PM: [Web] - Alex Bordei - Building a Full-Stack CRM with Flutter and Firebase: Architecture, Challenges, and Best Practices

Discover how to build a full-featured CRM using Flutter and Firebase in this hands-on workshop. We’ll explore key architecture, API-driven development, and real-time data challenges. Walk away with practical knowledge to build scalable web apps and tackle performance issues with confidence.

4:30 PM: [Cloud] - Lucian Gruia - Agentic Design Patterns: Bridging AI Agents and Microservices Architecture

This talk explores the paradigm of Agentic AI, highlighting the roles of intelligent agents in transforming modern software architecture. We will discuss the essential design patterns, including tool use, multi-agent collaboration and cross-species agent design, explaining how these frameworks enable AI agents to expand their capabilities, collaborate effectively, and adapt to heterogeneous environments. We will draw analogies between AI agents and microservices architecture, showing how agentic workflows can enhance process optimization, adaptability, and innovation. The talk will emphasize the characteristics of reactive, proactive, and hybrid agents, illustrating their roles in dynamic, real-time decision-making and strategic planning. Additionally, we will assess emerging trends in Generative AI, focusing on advancements in collaborative efficacy, adaptability, and the ethical considerations involved in AI deployment, including building responsible AI systems. This session aims to provide attendees with a comprehensive understanding of how agentic design patterns are influencing the landscape of intelligent systems and their integration within existing software frameworks.

5:15 PM: Closing

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Speakers

Adina-Teodora Marcu - Microsoft (Software Engineer)

I am a passionate software engineer with a knack for web technologies. Currently, I am part of the Microsoft Teams team, building scalable and innovative solutions for collaboration tools. I love to share knowledge and brainstorm ideas that is why I am a volunteer at a few NGO’s that support education and a mentor at Global Mentorship Initiative.

Adrian Mărgineanu

Adrian Mărgineanu is a committed tech enthusiast whose work spans software development, community building, and fostering education in technology. With a particular focus on Flutter, he has dedicated himself to helping others learn, innovate, and grow through both technical guidance and community engagement. Adrian believes in the transformative power of technology and strives to make advanced…

Ahmed Tikiwa - Bol.com (Google Developer Expert: Android)

Ahmed Tikiwa is a Google Developer Expert for Android and a seasoned full-stack developer with over 10 years of experience and possesses a strong passion for developing world-class applications that can help make a difference. He has experience in frontend and backend systems, where he has built enterprise solutions for major telecommunication companies. He is currently a Software Engineer bas…

Alex Bordei - FlutterDev.io (Flutter Developer 💙 & WordPress Expert)

Alex Bordei is a full-stack developer with a decade of experience in creating custom solutions for web, API, and mobile development. His expertise and dedication have earned him recognition as a respected authority within the technology industry. Having spoken at over 30 IT conferences, Alex has covered a wide range of topics, including IoT and DIY IoT projects, virtual assistants, web and mob…

Alex Burdusel

As a former backend engineer, Alex transitioned his focus to Android development. His passion lies in multiplatform development and creating tools that simplify the lives of developers.
Alex enjoys spending his free time with his family, playing with his 4 years old boy and poking at personal software projects.

Alexandru Gatu - Endava (Performance & Security Test Consultant)

With more than 13 experience in the IT field, a master degree on Computer Security from "Politechnica" University Bucharest, Alex is the Endava CE Regional Security Manager. Having hands on experience on mobile, Web and API pentesting on various industries from insurance, payments and banks, his interest is to share the practical knowledge by speaking at various international conferences and o…

Alexandru Ionescu

Alexandru is a technology enthusiast with a deep passion for exploring computers at every level, from hardware to high-level systems. His experience includes software development on various platforms as well as systems design and administration. Alex is always looking up to the next challenge, be it professionally or when tinkering with microcontrollers in his spare time

Bogdan Bindea - Bosch Romania (Software Engineer)

Bogdan is an enthusiastic Software Engineer and PhD student, driven by a passion for learning and experimenting with new approaches. He is part of a team dedicated to developing and executing an integrated, long-term digital strategy. His interests span Web Technologies, Medical Engineering, the Automotive Industry, and Robotics. Bogdan is committed to quality, sustainability, and people-focus…

Bogdan Hobeanu

Flutter enthusiast.

Gabriel Preda - Endava (Principal Data Scientist / Kaggle GDE)

Gabriel has a PhD in computational electromagnetics and started his career in academia. In 1999 he authored his first paper that used an Artificial Intelligence technique, Neural Networks, to solve inverse problems in Nondestructive Testing and Evaluation (NDT). Soon after that, he moved from academia to private research, and worked for few years as a researcher for a high-tech company in Toky…

Jasper Duizendstra

Hello, I’m Jasper Duizendstra, a seasoned cloud architect, international speaker, and enthusiastic traveller. With over a decade of deep-rooted experience in the Google platform, I have guided clients through the complex terrain of technology transitions, making me a trusted navigator in the cloud computing space.
Since 2016, I’ve been recognized as a Google Developer Expert (GDE) specia…

Joshua Fox - DoiT International (Senior Cloud Architect)

Joshua Fox has been a software architect in innovative technology companies for 20 years. Now at DoiT International, he advises tech startups and growth companies about the cloud. Along with that, he writes open source code, publishes technical articles, and speaks to cloud engineers as a Google Developer Expert.
He has a PhD from Harvard University and a BA in math from Brandeis.

Lucian Gruia - Ciklum (Principal Technology Lead ⬥ AI, BI, Data | Software Architecture)

AI Tech Lead and Software Architect with over 12 years of hands-on coding experience (Java/Python/SQL) in Telecom, Fintech & Aerospace, designing frameworks and complex solutions for real-time systems.
Highly skilled in System Performance, Artificial Intelligence, Fraud Detection, Blockchain and Data Integrity.Experienced in leading international teams in both enterprise and s…

Mangirdas Kazlauskas - Billo (Google Developer Expert - Flutter & Dart)

Experienced Software Engineer with a demonstrated history of working in the information technology and services industry. While at university, he excelled as a student and used his skills to mentor others. In his second year there, he began working as Software Engineer and continued his professional path in various IT companies. In 2018, he have started diving deeper into cross-platform develo…

Márton Kodok - Google Developer Expert, Reea

Márton works as a Senior PHP Lead Engineer/Database/Search systems expert at Reea. He is a Google Developer Expert.

Natalie Godec - Zencore (GDE in Cloud Platform, Senior Cloud Architect)

Google Developer Expert in Cloud Platform

Paul Negoescu - Nagarro (People and Technology Enablement - Web Technologies, Managed Services, Mobile, and UI/UX)

Paul is a passionate and enthusiastic trainer known for his deep expertise in technology and his passion for sharing knowledge. With a career spanning over a decade, he embarked on his journey in 2006 as a backend developer.
Later, Paul's curiosity (client needs might also have mattered) led him to explore the intricacies of front-end development, a realm where he discovered his current …

Radu Marin - Timeworx.io (Lecturer @ University Politehnica of Bucharest, Co-founder @ Timeworx.io)

Radu Marin is a PhD graduate Summa Cum Laude in 2021 for his research in opportunistic computing, and an industry-recognized expert in Android application development, with over 12 years of experience as a software architect and technical community leader. Currently, Radu is a co-founder of Timeworx.io and a Lecturer at the Faculty of Automatic Con…

Radu-Ioan Ciobanu

Radu-Ioan Ciobanu is an Associate Professor and researcher at the Computer Science department of the Faculty of Automatic Control and Computers at the National University of Science and Technology POLITEHNICA Bucharest. He obtained his PhD from the same faculty in 2016. His research interests include pervasive and mobile networks, DTNs, opportunistic networks, cloud computing, federated learni…

Rustam Mehmandarov - GDG Cloud Oslo

Rustam lives and works in Oslo, Norway. He is a chief engineer and consultant specializing in the Java platform, architecture, and cloud-native applications and is a competency network coordinator at work. Rustam is passionate about open source and sharing his knowledge with others. He is a GDE for Cloud and a Java Champion. In his spare time, Rustam contributes to several local developer comm…

Moderators

Bogdan Zurac - Shortcut (Senior Android Developer)

With a passion for doing things right, I always like to search for the best possible solution to a problem, be it code-related or not. I'm an avid Android developer and I love to share my knowledge with fellow colleagues from the developer community. When I'm not coding, I’m probably on the couch binge-watching TV series or travelling the countryside.

Codrut Ciulacu - Adobe (Software Engineer Intern)

Cosmin Ștefan - Shortcut (Android Engineer)

Full-stack software engineer, with the main focus on Android and leader of the team developing native apps at the company he founded, Cosmin has joined the Android universe more than 12 years ago and has been passionate about building best-in-class mobile apps ever since. He believes great architecture and clean code are a must for an excelling product. He loves to travel.

Daniel Ianosi

Daniel admires resolving complex problems with simple algorithms. He tries his best to practice emphatic coding and to explain complex concepts with the simplest words possible. His goal is to improve continuously and to share his knowledge in the most straightforward and accessible way.

Hosted By

Carmen Ciulacu, GDG Organizer

Cosmin Stefan, GDG Organizer

Bogdan Zurac, GDG Organizer

With a passion for doing things right, I always like to search for the best possible solution to a problem, be it code-related or not. I'm an avid Android developer and I love to share my knowledge with fellow colleagues from the developer community. When I'm not coding, I’m probably on the couch binge-watching TV series or travelling the countryside.

Marius Seinoiu, GDG Organiser

Codrut Cristian Ciulacu, GDG Organiser

Valerica Aneci, Engineering Manger

Passionate about android, kotlin, ai, iot and cooking

Alex Bordei, Flutter Developer 💙 & WordPress Expert

👨‍💻 Professionally speaking. I mean, coding 💻

I have over 9 years of experience in software development, starting with a background in C# and JAVA and stepping into Custom Web Development with WordPress and Laravel and always maintaining a very high focus on API development and Integrations.

Since 2017, becoming a Full-Stack WordPress Expert @ Codeable, focusing on WordPress custom development

Currently, WordPress EXPERT @ Codeable and Flutter Developer focused on custom development both for web and mobile platforms.

I LOVE COMMUNITIES, this is why you can find me helping out organizing and co-organizing communities like
Bucharest WordPress Meetup,
Flutter Romania Meetup,
Bucharest Mobile Development Group,
Bucharest IoT Hangouts

I also love to speak and share IT topics at CodeCamp Romania, DevTalks Romania, and WCEU, speaking at more than 50 IT conferences.

Hobby side, we can talk for hours about
📻 Radio and 🎶 Music 🎹 in general. We can also set up some online jamming sessions. I play the 🥁 DRUMS or 🎸 GUITAR or BASS 🎸.

Do you like weekend projects?
Ask me about 🦾 IoT systems, 🤖 robots, and 🕹️ automated systems

And WE CAN TALK FOREVER about 🤗 personal development, ☁️ mindfulness, 🧘 meditation, 💤 healthy sleep, and 💉 🖥️ 💉 hybrid medical technologies

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Partners

Digital Stack (https://digitalstack.ro)
A Tech Forward Company Is Built With Tech Forward People.
Tech skills learning and development programs for your employees. Beginner to advanced.

Flutter Romania (https://www.meetup.com/flutter-bucharest-meetup)

Google (https://www.google.com/)

Shortcut (https://careers.shortcut.io/)
Shortcut is a leading mobile innovation company across Europe, with more than 150 app developers, designers, projects managers and app do-it-alls in our offices in Bucharest, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Oslo & Bergen.

Opened in 2015, Shortcut's Bucharest office brings together some of the smartest, happiest and friendliest mobile app developers. Together with our clients and partners, we have built high quality award-winning apps used by millions of people every day.

Veridion (https://veridion.com/)

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Complete your event RSVP here: https://gdg.community.dev/events/details/google-gdg-bucharest-presents-devfest-bucharest-2024/.