Google Developer Group (GDG) Las Vegas is a community of developers and enthusiasts interested in Google technologies. The group hosts monthly meetups to talk, teach, and learn about Google technologies, such as Android, Google Cloud, and Angular.
The organizers invite the #VegasTech community to join for GDG Study Jam, which is a community organized study group around the Udacity Android for Beginners course. The series aims to provide a group setting to get started with Android development.
“I’m the lead organizer for this event and I’m working closely with Rich Hazeltine at Zappos who’s helping coordinate the event including garnering Zappos’ support of the event,” said Matt Kranzler. “I knew Rich when I worked for Zappos and he’s also working closely with the mobile team to enlist their help in co-organizing the event and answering any questions. We are also working on getting sponsorship from Zappos as well as some PR help from them too. I’m hoping Terence Carroll will also be able to help out at a few of the sessions since he will be helping out with additional GDG meetups in the future.”
The Study Jam will consist of five 2 hour sessions spread over 5 weeks, beginning April 13, 2016. Each session will take place at Zappos.com Council Chambers, located at 400 Stewart Avenue in Las Vegas.
“I chose Zappos to host the event for a few different reasons. First of all I’m still well connected with some Zappos employees and knowing Zappos’ core values I figured my goals would closely align with their’s and we could get a good turnout,” explained Kranzler. “Another reason I reached out to Zappos is due to them having potential space to host the event and with the potential of having more than 50 people there aren’t a lot of places that can host such an event.”
“In each session we’ll go over online course material together with room for questions and assistance,” the organizers write on Meetup.com. “The course consists of 3 lessons with 2 practice sets, and a final project.”
Community members can come take advantage of personal tutoring on the course material, an amazing community setting to support course learning, a Google offered Study Jams completion certificate, a discount on Android Nanodegree upon course completion, and the opportunity to join Google Launchpad with completed app.
In addition, it’s a great chance to learn something new! In fact, those who plan to attend do not need any prior programming knowledge to participate in this Study Jam.
“Having been in the Vegas tech community for a few years now I’m well aware that there is a lack of mobile (and Android specifically) developers,” said Kranzler. “Since this Study Jam is for beginners with no prior programming knowledge necessary it allows a very low barrier of entry for people who have any interest in mobile apps to get the basics on how apps are built. My (and Google’s) hope is that after taking the course people will find that it really isn’t that hard to do and if they have any interest it is something that they should pursue since it is a skill in extremely high demand right now and can produce a very rewarding career.”
Interested in attending? Visit the group’s Meetup page to learn more!
