Grace Hopper Conference 2013 – Day 4

The final day was pretty quiet since most of the people had already left. There were only few people participating in the open source day. I was lucky enough to be part of it after being in the waitlist for almost 3 weeks. The key is to register for these activities early. You would think that people probably would return from the conference early after 3 hectic days but that was not the case. A lot of people wanted to participate in open source coding and only the ones who registered early or on time got the chance. One of the reasons why I got the chance is probably because I didn’t pick a specific project. I just kept my options open.  Some of the open source teams were from Google, Microsoft, Firefox Mozilla and others. I was part of ODK – Open Data Kit group. This team was unique since it was not part of a company but part of a university program. I was helping a group of PhD students with their project. The task was to build a mobile app that lets you send information between cell phones connected to a Wi-Fi.  This was a small part of their big project where they were actually building a mobile scanner that keeps track of all health records. I didn’t know what I was going to be doing until I reached there.

Morning started with some warm breakfast and coffee. There was a small welcome and then we headed off to our designated team rooms. Our team leads briefed us on what we would be doing. I got excited immediately when I came to know I would be building a small feature in a mobile app. I have never created a mobile app. I have always wanted to but never got around doing it. Although what we were doing was not a full app and rather just adding a feature to an app, it was still interesting and intense. We broke for lunch around noon but we could take breaks anytime during the session. By the end of the day which was around 3:30pm, to my surprise I was able to add the working feature to the mobile app! Of course I had help but given the time frame and the time it took to set up everything to even begin coding and the actual coding time and my experience, I think I did a pretty good job.

The day ended with each team presenting their work and some lucky folks getting some prizes hidden under their chairs. Note to self, check your chair before selecting your seat! They usually have little paper notes stuck under random chairs and if you happen to be in one of the chairs, you get something cool like an XBOX! Nope I wasn’t one of the lucky ones.

We took pictures and exchanged contacts and said our farewells!

And just like that GHC 2013 concluded. I can’t think of a single bad thing to say about GHC. I had a lot of fun. I tried to go to as many sessions as I could and network with many cool people. If you are looking for a new job or internship, this is the best place to be.

If you are going to GHC 2014, best of luck to you and have as much fun as you can and if you couldn’t this year, there is always a next time.

Read about my experience from Day 3 here.