No play, no gain
Details
The year 2025 is quickly coming to an end ... what a year it was! We organized 5 very interesting events which were all hosted by Cell[0] for which we are very thankful. In 2026 we will continue to host our events at their spacious and welcoming location. Great!
About our events: the next one is scheduled for January. This time we will welcome Ramon de la Fuente. He is an experienced tech lead who is comfortable with different tech stacks. His talk will inspire all and open eyes for what might seem to be a game. Really! This lecture will be about playing games to level up some skills. No hardcore code examples this time but more social aspects of software development.
Surprise! As each year we will raffle a Dutch PHP Conference (DPC) ticket. Only attendees of the evening can join the raffle and take a chance of winning this great price! So ... be there!
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The lecture
With 20+ years of living through the challenges of a (software development) team, I believe the best way of leveling up lies in playing games. That's right! By safely experiencing situations and experimenting during play, teams can escape from past patterns and jump over obstacles that exist in "real life". Lessons learned during play cause more profound change of behavior and experiences are turned into practical and ready to use techniques during debrief.
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About Ramon de la Fuente
When he was a kid programming games in Basic, no one said he could choose that as a career. But later Ramon found his way into IT as a systems administrator, where he (re)discovered his love for writing code. That's when he realized: in this profession, you never stop learning.
He is passionate about improvement — himself, but also that of those around him. This has led me to organize PHP meetups, become a public speaker, and become president of the local judo club. Ramon is an experienced tech lead who's comfortable with different tech stacks. He likes to think in terms of systems and feedback loops — for his team's performance, he focuses more on organization and communication than on technology.
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About the location
The meetup is held at Cell[0]. Cell[0] provides us an great location, food (pizza, vegan as well) and drinks. The office of Cell[0] is located inside the Klokgebouw building at Strijp-S. The entrance is in the middle of the building along Philitelaan, which is opposite the Ketelhuis.
If the door is locked, please ring the bell at number 112. Once inside, follow the signs to the second floor.
For parking, paid options are available along the road at Strijp-S and in the "Om de Hoek" parking garage. Additionally, you can find some free parking spots along the NS train station "Strijp-S" next to Dinner Time, which is a 5-minute walk. There is also plenty of free parking at the other side of the train tracks, behind the station, along the Groenewoudseweg. That's about 10-minutes walking.
Everybody is encouraged to attend about an hour prior to the lecture, so we can have a chat while enjoying our food.
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About the meetup
• attending the meetup is free (as in free beer);
• free food (pizza, vegan as well) and free drinks are provided!;
• food is available between 18:00 and 19:00;
• prize raffle (JetBrains license) every meetup;
• the lecture will start at 19:00;
• spoken language is English unless not necessary;
• the presentation is in English;
• suitable for novice to expert level;
• held at Cell[0];
• paid parking spaces are right around the building, free parking spaces are a 10 min. walk.