Thursday, September 3, 2015

Droidcon NYC 2015

I was really excited about Droidcon NYC, not only to learn the latest in Android development, but also to hang out with my fellow female developers. With 22% women speakers, it was not difficult to bump into them during the conference. And I loved it.

Android Dialogs

Huyen and I flew in a day early to record for Android Dialogs, and we got a lot of footage to edit. Here is a recap video to thank everyone who helped us, especially Yash who booked a conference room at her office for us.

Espresso

My talk, Advanced Android Espresso, was assigned to a smaller room upstairs. I have to admit I was disappointed when I saw that. However, everything changed when I was actually in the room. It was packed, and people were staying at the back. The energy was way better than the main stage, which can hold all the attendee so by definition will be rather empty during the 4-track sessions. I much prefer to have a full house!

Droidcon NYC talks are 40 minutes each, and I had so much to share on Espresso that I took them all up. At the end of my talk, I said, “I won’t be taking live questions. Please come up to chat off stage.” Afterwards, my friends told me that they were quite impressed that I dared to defy the norm of taking questions after a talk. Hey, it’s my stage, and I get to call the shots :)

Diversity panel

Besides the Espresso talk, I was invited to be on the diversity panel at Droidcon NYC. We got an audience question on how to cope with a misogynist boss. A female panelist replied that sometimes the best thing to do is to walk away, only to be contradicted by a male panelist, who suggested talking to HR.

“Go to HR? That will destroy your career!”, I thought to myself. “Why would he say that? Are we now touting the party line?” I was so shocked that I did not know what to do. Fortunately, Corey jumped on stage and said what I wanted to say: HR is there to protect the company, not the employee.

We had a discussion off stage after the panel, and to my surprise, the men actually did not know the horror stories of women going to HR only to face retaliation! It was so widely circulated in my circle that I assumed everybody knows.

This panel was truly an eye opener.

Sketchnotes

I started sketchnoting in March, and it was been amazing to see the community pick up on it. There were so many of us sketch noting at Droidcon NYC, including a professional who recorded the keynote by Corey Latislaw.

#LetMeExplainYou

One of the speakers had an emergency and could not make it to the conference. The other speakers want him to be there in spirit, so they inserted a meme slide to their deck!

Droidcon is a truly special community. We are fun and helpful, always ready to step up and make things happen. So honored to be a part of it!

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