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It is my absolute delight to have the opportunity to announce the details for the first Android App Expo, which is going to be held on the 5th of January, 2013 in Bangalore.
Having been part of the community in the country from its early days, when it was almost impossible to find a regular person who had heard of our beloved platform, let alone have a phone that ran it, I have seen first hand the challenge the developers here have faced. HTC? Samsung? LG? To the regular user, they all sucked, and you either had a Nokia, or were ridiculously rich enough to own an iPhone, or wasted money on some cheap stuff.
It’s amazing to think that it was like that only 18 to 24 months ago. The word Android is itself now ubiquitous in a country where 30 languages are spoken by over a million people, and almost synonymous with the term “smartphone”. And a big part of that reason is role the apps created by the developers have played in creating such a powerful ecosystem in such a short time.
The Expo, organized by Bangalore’s Google Developer Group (GDG) and Android User Group, is a celebration of their work and of the platform in itself. Any person can nominate an app for the exhibition by following this link. The last date is December 15th, so do hurry. The best apps would be picked out by a panel of various members of the community, and would get the be part of the Expo at the Park Plaza, Bangalore on January 5th. Anyone and everyone is invited to attend and be part of the festivities, with registrations opening on December 25th for the general public.
What’s in it for the developers? Besides the opportunity to showcase your hard work in front of users, media, members from Google’s global Android team as well as others from the industry, there’s a grand prize like none other: an opportunity to sit down with the Developer Relations team who’ll assist you in taking your work to the next level.
I’ll be at the event myself, covering each and every app that is demoed there and also some of the backstage activity. Having had the opportunity to be part of the planning in my new role at the GDG Delhi Android, I can assure you this is going to be one event that you don’t want to miss (teaser: we’re planning on having a full blown Ingress war over there).
For more information on the event, visit this link.
New job ? We’ve missed you
Sort of, yeah. But believe me, not as much as I miss you guys.
I’ll be posting infrequently though, and maybe even get back to the same role as before if time permits down the line.