Lara Tai
Reporter-Editor
The Google Developer Group (GDG) is an organization and technology partner of George Brown College as well as Google under the 940 chapters program. It is one of the fastest growing with the group’s membership increasing from a couple a passionate individuals to over 2100 plus members including many GBC Students and Alumni. This all happened within one year of their public release of the group.
GDG is a co-learning activity space where anyone is invited who wants to upgrade their computer learning in various computer disciplines. They are very passionate about helping all groups of people from underprivileged to skilled professionals. Adebiyi Malik who is studying at Computer Programmer Analyst at George Brown says, “I am very passionate about computers and I saw this as an opportunity to volunteer and help people learn … this is an opportunity to give back. George Davis, another volunteer shares his experience “I learn a lot of things here and it’s a good refresher and to speak to people it’s gonna help [as I have made a lot of friends here]. The community part is a plus for GDG, rarely do [information learning groups] have a meet up and with GDG it’s more of a cloud study jam. It’s a good chill out for the weekend.”
On Saturday, January 18, 2020, Google Developer Group (GDG) put on an amazing event for computer learning for the community. It was a success with over 100 attendees up bright and early with their laptops open ready to log in the GDG Google Cloud learning environment.
One of the co-creators of the event, Vimal, Arts, Design and Information Technology Educational Centre Representative and Alumni of GBC described the event to us,
“We are 3 core organizers all of which are GBC Alumni and 25 percent of all volunteers are from GBC students and its for Technology enthusiastic people.” This event focussed on machine and image processing which attendees used Google Cloud platform sponsored by Google. They get it for free as long as they bring their own laptops. There is an access code for participants access to the machine learning platforms and labs and George Brown College provided the venue at the Waterfront Campus room 607. There are events that have more than 300 people with 50 percent of them being GBC students, 30 percent that are industry professionals working in different fields and 20 percent that are CTOS/ VP/ High level directors. The directors essentially the decision makers who need a fast track of information of what is current and understand it from an in depth point of view from the people that use the technology. They also look for hopeful talented candidates.
There is a strong mandate to connect people. Jimberly Cotoner, Lead Volunteer focused on coding and GBC Staff “After coming to the first event, I just loved the community everyone is open and encouraging. Whether are level one or level 10 you are welcome to come in”. Prachi Bhatnagar, Digital Marketing ambassador says, “Our Social media marketing and branding is most important because that is how students get to learn about GDG. It was phenomenal growth that they had. The interesting work that they do got me excited to join.”
There is also an intent to build a diversified audience. “We wish for all students [and members of the community] to get awareness about computer technology and certification. That is why we have ongoing events. We focus on Students, Professionals, Woman in the workforce, underprivileged women and homeless,Black community, Indigenous people. We want to provide diversity in Technology.”
They are also preparing for DevFest–Google technical festival later on this year. These are events you can access online and are held monthly. Look out for their events which will be on GBC campuses.
