Posted by Kübra Zengin, Program Manager, Developer Relations
Google Developer Group (GDG) chapters are in a unique position to help make an impact during a time where many companies and businesses are trying to shift to a digital first world. Perhaps no one knows this better than GDG NYC Lead, Anna Nerezova. Over the past year, she’s seen firsthand just how powerful the GDG NYC community can be when the right opportunity presents itself.
In the past few years, Anna and other GDG NYC organizers have hosted a number of events focused on learning and sharing Cloud technologies with community members, including Cloud Study Jams and in-person workshops on Machine Learning Cloud-Speech-to-Text, Natural Language Processing, and more. Last year, GDG NYC took Google Cloud learning to the next level with a series of virtual Google Cloud tech talks on understanding BigQuery, Serverless best practices, and Anthos, with speakers from the Google Cloud team.
A GDG NYC speaker session
Thanks to these hands-on workshops, speaker sessions, and technical resources provided by Google, GDG NYC community members are able to upskill in a wide variety of technologies at an accelerated pace, all the while gaining the confidence to put those skills into practice. Beyond gaining new skills, Google Developer Group members are often able to unlock opportunities to make positive impacts in ways they never thought possible. As a GDG Lead, Anna is always on the lookout for opportunities that give community members the chance to apply their skills for a higher purpose.
Anna identified one such opportunity for her community via Positive Planet US, a local nonprofit dedicated to alleviating global and local poverty through positive entrepreneurship. Positive Planet International, originally formed in France, has helped 11 million people escape poverty across 42 countries in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa since its inception in 1998. Just last year, Positive Planet US was launched in New York City, with a mission to create local and global economic growth in underprivileged communities in the wake of the pandemic.
Anna recognized how the past few years' emphasis on learning and leveraging Google Cloud technology in her GDG chapter could help make a transformative impact on the nonprofit. A partnership wouldn’t just benefit Positive Planet US, it would give community members a chance to apply what they’ve learned, build experience, and give back. Anna and fellow GDG NYC Lead, Ralph Yozzo, worked with Positive Planet US to identify areas of opportunity where GDG NYC members could best apply their skills. With Positive Planet US still needing to build the infrastructure necessary to get up and running, it seemed that there were limitless opportunities for GDG NYC community members to step in and help out.
Volunteers from GDG NYC quickly got to work, building Positive Planet US’ website from the ground up. Google Cloud Platform was used to build out the site’s infrastructure, set up secure payments for donations, launch email campaigns, and more. Applying learnings from a series of AMP Study Jams held by GDG NYC, volunteers implemented the AMP plugin for WordPress to improve user experience and keep the website optimized, all according to Google’s Core Web Vitals and page experience guidelines. Volunteers from GDG NYC have also helped with program management, video creation, social media, and more. No matter the job, the work that volunteers put in makes a real impact and helps drive Positive Planet US’ efforts to make a difference in marginalized communities.
Positive Planet US volunteers are currently working hard to support the nonprofit’s flagship project, the Accelerator Hub for Minority Women Entrepreneurs, launched last year. As part of the program, participants receive personalized coaching from senior executives at Genpact and Capgemini, helping them turn their amazing ideas into thriving businesses. From learning how to grow a business to applying for a business loan, participating women from disadvantaged communities get the tools they need to flourish as entrepreneurs. The 10-week program is running its second cohort now, and aims to support 1,000 women by next year.
Some participants of Positive Planet US’ second Accelerator Hub Program
With Positive Planet US’ next cohort for 50 women entrepreneurs starting soon, Anna is working to find coaches of all different skill levels directly from the GDG community. If you’re interested in volunteering with Positive Planet US, click here.
Anna is excited about the ongoing collaboration between Positive Planet US and GDG NYC, and is continuing to identify opportunities for GDG members to give back. And with a new series of Android and Cloud Study Jams on the horizon and DevFest 2021 right around the corner, GDG NYC organizers hope to welcome even more developers into the Google Developer Group community. For more info about GDG NYC’s upcoming events, click here.
Join a Google Developer Group chapter near you here.
Posted by Salim Abid, MENA Regional Lead, Developer Relations
Yara Elkady, Google Developer Student Club (GDSC) Lead, can trace her passion for tech all the way back to a single moment. She was sitting in computer class when her middle school teacher posed a question to the class:
It was a simple question, but it was enough to plant the seed that would define the trajectory of Yara’s career. Following in the footsteps of so many beginners before her, Yara did a Google search to find out more about creating apps. She didn’t realize it at the time, but Yara had just taken her first steps down the path to becoming a developer.
Knowing that she wanted to pursue tech further, Yara went to college at Misr University for Science and Technology (MUST) in Giza, Egypt to study computer science. In her second year, she had begun reading more about artificial intelligence. Yara was blown away by the potential of training a machine to make decisions on its own. With machine learning, she could pursue more creative ideas that went beyond what was possible with traditional programming. As Yara explains, “It felt like magic”. Still, she felt lost like any beginner interested in AI.
Yara first discovered the GDSC chapter at MUST through her school’s social media page. For the entirety of her second year, Yara attended workshops and saw firsthand how GDSC events could leave an impact on students aspiring to become developers. With help from Google Developer Student Clubs, Yara was able to grow her skills as a developer and connect with peers who shared her interests. At the end of the year, Yara applied to be a Lead so that she could help more students engage with the community. Not too long after, Yara was accepted as a GDSC Lead for the 2020-2021 season!
A GDSC MUST speaker session
As part of becoming a GDSC Lead, Yara enrolled in the MENA DSC Leads Academy to receive hands-on training in various Google technologies. Despite being only the first time the Academy had ever been hosted (both in person and virtually), 100+ Leads from 150 GDSC chapters attended over the course of six weeks. Yara applied to the Machine Learning track and was chosen for the program. During the course, Yara mastered advanced machine learning concepts, including classical ML models, deep learning, data manipulation, and TensorFlow training. She also got to work with other Leads on advanced machine learning projects, helping her gain even more confidence in her ML knowledge.
Soon after passing the program, Yara collaborated with the GDSC Leads she met during the course to host a one-month ML track to pass on the knowledge they had learned to the GDSC community. Through the sessions she hosted, Yara was contacted by BambooGeeks, a startup that creates training opportunities for local tech aspirants to help them become industry-ready. Yara was offered a job as a machine learning instructor, and could now create sessions for the largest audience of trainees she’d ever worked with.
Yara didn’t realize it yet, but even more opportunities were headed her way. She learned from the GDSC MENA program manager that GDSC Leads would have the opportunity to take the TensorFlow Certification exam, if they wished to take it. It wouldn’t be easy, but Yara knew she had all the resources she needed to succeed. She wasted no time and created a study group with other GDSC Leads working to get certified. Together, Yara and her fellow Leads pulled endless all-nighters over the next few months so that they could skill up for the exam and support each other through the arduous study process. They also worked with Elyes Manai, a ML Google Developer Expert, who gave them an overview of the exam and recommended resources that would help them pass.
Thanks to those resources, support from her peers, and tons of hard work, Yara passed the exam and received her TensorFlow certification! And she wasn’t the only one. 11 other MENA GDSC Leads also passed the exam to receive their certifications. Yara and her study partners were the first women in Egypt to be featured in the TensorFlow Certificate Network, and Yara became one of 27 people in Africa to receive the TensorFlow Developer Certificate!
Yara’s TensorFlow Developer Certificate
When Yara looks back at how she was able to fast track from beginner to certified machine learning developer in just a year, she credits Google Developer Student Clubs with:
The truth is, students like Yara make Google Developer Student Clubs special by sharing their knowledge with the community and building a support system with their peers that extends far beyond the classroom.
On the importance of community, Yara says it best:
If you’re a student who is ready to join your own Google Developer Student Club community, find one near you here.
Posted by Abby Carey, Developer Advocate
Long gone are the days of looking for documentation, finding a how-to guide, and questioning whether the commands and code samples actually work.
Google Cloud recently added a Cloud Shell integration within each and every documentation page.
This new functionality lets you test code in a preprovisioned virtual machine instance while learning about Google Cloud services. Running commands and code from the documentation cuts down on context switching between the documentation and a terminal window to run the commands in a tutorial.
This gif shows how Google Cloud’s documentation uses Cloud Shell, letting you run commands in a quickstart within your Cloud Shell environment.
If you’re new to developing on Google Cloud, this creates a low barrier to entry for trying Google Cloud services and APIs. After activating billing verification with your Google Cloud account, you can test services that have a free tier at no charge, like Pub/Sub and Cloud Vision.
gcloud config set project
If you want to test something a bit more adventurous, try to deploy a containerized web application, or get started with BigQuery.
If you’ve been developing on Google Cloud, chances are you’ve already interacted with Cloud Shell in the Cloud Console. Cloud Shell is a ready-to-go, online development and operations environment. It comes preinstalled with common command-line tools, programming languages, and the Cloud SDK.
Just like in the Cloud Console, your Cloud Shell terminal stays open as you navigate the site. As you work through tutorials within Google Cloud’s documentation, the Cloud Shell terminal stays on your screen. This helps with progressing from two connected tutorials, like the Pub/Sub quickstart and setting up a Pub/Sub Proxy.
Having a preprovisioned environment setup by Google eliminates the age old question of “Is my machine the problem?” when you eventually try to run these commands locally.
While Cloud Shell is useful for managing your Google Cloud resources, it also lets you test code samples. If you’re using Cloud Client Libraries, you can customize and run sample code in the Cloud Shell’s built in code editor: Cloud Shell Editor.
Cloud Shell Editor is Cloud Shell’s built-in, browser-based code editor, powered by the Eclipse Theia IDE platform. To open it, click the Open Editor button from your Cloud Shell terminal:
Cloud Shell Editor has rich language support and debuggers for Go, Java, .Net, Python, NodeJS and more languages, integrated source control, local emulators for Kubernetes, and more features. With the Cloud Shell Editor open, you can then walk through a client library tutorial like Cloud Vision’s Detect labels guide, running terminal commands and code from one browser tab.
Open up a Google Cloud quickstart and give it a try! This could be a game-changer for your learning experience.
Posted by Justyna Politanska-Pyszko
Google Developers Experts is a global community of developers, engineers and thought leaders who passionately share their technical knowledge with others.
Becoming a Google Developers Expert is no easy task. First, you need to have strong skills in one of the technical areas - Android, Kotlin, Google Cloud, Machine Learning, Web Technologies, Angular, Firebase, Google Workspace, Flutter or other. You also need to have a track record of sharing your knowledge - be it via conference talks, your personal blog, youtube videos or in some other form. Finally, you need one more thing. The courage to approach an existing Expert or a Google employee and ask them to support your application.
It’s not easy, but it’s worth it. Joining the Experts community comes with many opportunities: direct access to product teams at Google, invitations to events and projects, entering a network of technology enthusiasts from around the world.
On a quest to make these opportunities available to a diverse group of talented people globally, we launched “Road to GDE”: a mentoring program to support women in their journey to become Google Developers Experts.
Mentors and Mentees meeting online
For 3 months, 17 mentors from the Experts community were mentoring mentees on topics like public speaking, building their professional portfolio and confidence boosting. What did they learn during the program?
Glafira Zhur: No time for fear! With my Mentor’s help, I got invited to speak at several events, two of which are already scheduled for the summer. I created my speaker portfolio and made new friends in the community. It was a great experience.
Julia Miocene: I learned that I shouldn't be afraid to do what someone else has already done. Even if there are talks or articles on some topic already, I will do them differently anyway. And for people, it’s important to see things from different perspectives. Just do what you like and don’t be afraid.
Bhavna Thacker: I got motivated to continue my community contributions, learnt how to promote my work and reach more developers, so that they can benefit from my efforts. Overall, It was an excellent program. Thanks to all organisers and my mentor - Garima Jain. I am definitely looking forward to applying to the Experts program soon!
Road to GDE mentee - Glafira Zhur and her mentor - Natalia Venditto.
Congratulations to all 17 mentees who completed the Program: Maris Botero, Clarissa Loures, Layale Matta, Bhavika Panara, Stefanie Urchs, Alisa Tsvetkova, Glafira Zhur, Wafa Waheeda Syed, Helen Kapatsa, Karin-Aleksandra Monoid, Sveta Krivosheeva, Ines Akrap, Julia Miocene, Vandana Srivastava, Anna Zharkova, Bhavana Thacker, Debasmita Sarkar
And to their mentors - all members of the Google Developers Experts community: Lesly Zerna, Bianca Ximenes, Kristina Simakova, Sayak Paul, Karthik Muthuswamy, Jeroen Meijer, Natalia Venditto, Martina Kraus, Merve Noyan, Annyce Davis, Majid Hajian, James Milner, Debbie O'Brien, Niharika Arora, Nicola Corti, Garima Jain, Kamal Shree Soundirapandian
To learn more about the Experts program, follow us on Twitter, Linkedin or Medium.
Please note that the information, uses, and applications expressed in the below post are solely those of our guest author, Neurons Lab, and not necessarily those of Google.
With the advancement of technology, drones have become not only smaller, but also have more compute. There are many examples of iPhone-sized quadcopters in the consumer drone market and the computing power to do live tracking while recording 4K video. However, the most important element has not changed much - the controller. It is still bulky and not intuitive for beginners to use. There is a smartphone with on-display control as an option; however, the control principle is still the same.
That is how the idea for this project emerged: a more personalised approach to control the drone using gestures. ML Engineer Nikita Kiselov (me) together with consultation from my colleagues at Neurons Lab undertook this project.
Figure 1: [GIF] Demonstration of drone flight control via gestures using MediaPipe Hands
Gestures are the most natural way for people to express information in a non-verbal way. Gesture control is an entire topic in computer science that aims to interpret human gestures using algorithms. Users can simply control devices or interact without physically touching them. Nowadays, such types of control can be found from smart TV to surgery robots, and UAVs are not the exception.
Although gesture control for drones have not been widely explored lately, the approach has some advantages:
With all these features, such a control method has many applications.
Flying action camera. In extreme sports, drones are a trendy video recording tool. However, they tend to have a very cumbersome control panel. The ability to use basic gestures to control the drone (while in action) without reaching for the remote control would make it easier to use the drone as a selfie camera. And the ability to customise gestures would completely cover all the necessary actions.
This type of control as an alternative would be helpful in an industrial environment like, for example, construction conditions when there may be several drone operators (gesture can be used as a stop-signal in case of losing primary source of control).
The Emergencies and Rescue Services could use this system for mini-drones indoors or in hard-to-reach places where one of the hands is busy. Together with the obstacle avoidance system, this would make the drone fully autonomous, but still manageable when needed without additional equipment.
Another area of application is FPV (first-person view) drones. Here the camera on the headset could be used instead of one on the drone to recognise gestures. Because hand movement can be impressively precise, this type of control, together with hand position in space, can simplify the FPV drone control principles for new users.
However, all these applications need a reliable and fast (really fast) recognition system. Existing gesture recognition systems can be fundamentally divided into two main categories: first - where special physical devices are used, such as smart gloves or other on-body sensors; second - visual recognition using various types of cameras. Most of those solutions need additional hardware or rely on classical computer vision techniques. Hence, that is the fast solution, but it's pretty hard to add custom gestures or even motion ones. The answer we found is MediaPipe Hands that was used for this project.
To create the proof of concept for the stated idea, a Ryze Tello quadcopter was used as a UAV. This drone has an open Python SDK, which greatly simplified the development of the program. However, it also has technical limitations that do not allow it to run gesture recognition on the drone itself (yet). For this purpose a regular PC or Mac was used. The video stream from the drone and commands to the drone are transmitted via regular WiFi, so no additional equipment was needed.
To make the program structure as plain as possible and add the opportunity for easily adding gestures, the program architecture is modular, with a control module and a gesture recognition module.
Figure 2: Scheme that shows overall project structure and how videostream data from the drone is processed
The application is divided into two main parts: gesture recognition and drone controller. Those are independent instances that can be easily modified. For example, to add new gestures or change the movement speed of the drone.
Video stream is passed to the main program, which is a simple script with module initialisation, connections, and typical for the hardware while-true cycle. Frame for the videostream is passed to the gesture recognition module. After getting the ID of the recognised gesture, it is passed to the control module, where the command is sent to the UAV. Alternatively, the user can control a drone from the keyboard in a more classical manner.
So, you can see that the gesture recognition module is divided into keypoint detection and gesture classifier. Exactly the bunch of the MediaPipe key point detector along with the custom gesture classification model distinguishes this gesture recognition system from most others.
Utilizing MediaPipe Hands is a winning strategy not only in terms of speed, but also in flexibility. MediaPipe already has a simple gesture recognition calculator that can be inserted into the pipeline. However, we needed a more powerful solution with the ability to quickly change the structure and behaviour of the recognizer. To do so and classify gestures, the custom neural network was created with 4 Fully-Connected layers and 1 Softmax layer for classification.
Figure 3: Scheme that shows the structure of classification neural network
This simple structure gets a vector of 2D coordinates as an input and gives the ID of the classified gesture.
Instead of using cumbersome segmentation models with a more algorithmic recognition process, a simple neural network can easily handle such tasks. Recognising gestures by keypoints, which is a simple vector with 21 points` coordinates, takes much less data and time. What is more critical, new gestures can be easily added because model retraining tasks take much less time than the algorithmic approach.
To train the classification model, dataset with keypoints` normalised coordinates and ID of a gesture was used. The numerical characteristic of the dataset was that:
All data is a vector of x, y coordinates that contain small tilt and different shapes of hand during data collection.
Figure 4: Confusion matrix and classification report for classification
We can see from the classification report that the precision of the model on the test dataset (this is 30% of all data) demonstrated almost error-free for most classes, precision > 97% for any class. Due to the simple structure of the model, excellent accuracy can be obtained with a small number of examples for training each class. After conducting several experiments, it turned out that we just needed the dataset with less than 100 new examples for good recognition of new gestures. What is more important, we don’t need to retrain the model for each motion in different illumination because MediaPipe takes over all the detection work.
Figure 5: [GIF] Test that demonstrates how fast classification network can distinguish newly trained gestures using the information from MediaPipe hand detector
To control a drone, each gesture should represent a command for a drone. Well, the most excellent part about Tello is that it has a ready-made Python API to help us do that without explicitly controlling motors hardware. We just need to set each gesture ID to a command.
Figure 6: Command-gesture pairs representation
Each gesture sets the speed for one of the axes; that’s why the drone’s movement is smooth, without jitter. To remove unnecessary movements due to false detection, even with such a precise model, a special buffer was created, which is saving the last N gestures. This helps to remove glitches or inconsistent recognition.
The fundamental goal of this project is to demonstrate the superiority of the keypoint-based gesture recognition approach compared to classical methods. To demonstrate all the potential of this recognition model and its flexibility, there is an ability to create the dataset on the fly … on the drone`s flight! You can create your own combinations of gestures or rewrite an existing one without collecting massive datasets or manually setting a recognition algorithm. By pressing the button and ID key, the vector of detected points is instantly saved to the overall dataset. This new dataset can be used to retrain classification network to add new gestures for the detection. For now, there is a notebook that can be run on Google Colab or locally. Retraining the network-classifier takes about 1-2 minutes on a standard CPU instance. The new binary file of the model can be used instead of the old one. It is as simple as that. But for the future, there is a plan to do retraining right on the mobile device or even on the drone.
Figure 7: Notebook for model retraining in action
This project is created to make a push in the area of the gesture-controlled drones. The novelty of the approach lies in the ability to add new gestures or change old ones quickly. This is made possible thanks to MediaPipe Hands. It works incredibly fast, reliably, and ready out of the box, making gesture recognition very fast and flexible to changes. Our Neuron Lab`s team is excited about the demonstrated results and going to try other incredible solutions that MediaPipe provides.
We will also keep track of MediaPipe updates, especially about adding more flexibility in creating custom calculators for our own models and reducing barriers to entry when creating them. Since at the moment our classifier model is outside the graph, such improvements would make it possible to quickly implement a custom calculator with our model into reality.
Another highly anticipated feature is Flutter support (especially for iOS). In the original plans, the inference and visualisation were supposed to be on a smartphone with NPU\GPU utilisation, but at the moment support quality does not satisfy our requests. Flutter is a very powerful tool for rapid prototyping and concept checking. It allows us to throw and test an idea cross-platform without involving a dedicated mobile developer, so such support is highly demanded.
Nevertheless, the development of this demo project continues with available functionality, and there are already several plans for the future. Like using the MediaPipe Holistic for face recognition and subsequent authorisation. The drone will be able to authorise the operator and give permission for gesture control. It also opens the way to personalisation. Since the classifier network is straightforward, each user will be able to customise gestures for themselves (simply by using another version of the classifier model). Depending on the authorised user, one or another saved model will be applied. Also in the plans to add the usage of Z-axis. For example, tilt the palm of your hand to control the speed of movement or height more precisely. We encourage developers to innovate responsibly in this area, and to consider responsible AI practices such as testing for unfair biases and designing with safety and privacy in mind.
We highly believe that this project will motivate even small teams to do projects in the field of ML computer vision for the UAV, and MediaPipe will help to cope with the limitations and difficulties on their way (such as scalability, cross-platform support and GPU inference).
If you want to contribute, have ideas or comments about this project, please reach out to nik.kis@neurons-lab.com, or visit the GitHub page of the project.
This blog post is curated by Igor Kibalchich, ML Research Product Manager at Google AI.
Posted by Patricia Correa, Director, Global Developer Marketing
In June this year we opened applications for our Indie Games Accelerator, a mentorship program to help top mobile game startups achieve their full potential, as well as for our Indie Games Festival, a competition open to small game studios who get the opportunity to win promotions and be featured on Google Play. These annual programs are part of our commitment to helping all developers thrive in the Google ecosystem.
We received thousands of applications from developers across the world and we were truly amazed by the response. We’re impressed by the innovation and passion of the indie game community, and the unique and creative games they bring to players worldwide.
Last month we announced the Festival finalists and today we hosted the finals.
This year, for the first time, the events were virtual so everyone could attend. Players from around the world joined the adventure, met the finalists, played their games, and cheered on the Top 10 and the winners as they were announced on stage.
We also took the opportunity to announce the Indie Games Accelerator selected class of 2021.
Our deepest thanks to our amazing hosts: YouTube creator Papfi, Japanese comedians Kajisak and Kikuchiusotsukanai, and Inho Chung, who all shared their unique expertise and love of games.
Without further ado, here are this year's Festival winners…
Bird Alone by George Batchelor, United Kingdom
Cats in Time by Pine Studio, Croatia
Gumslinger by Itatake, Sweden
CATS & SOUP by HIDEA
Rush Hour Rally by Soen Games
The Way Home by CONCODE
Users' Choice
Animal Doll Shop by Funnyeve
Mousebusters by Odencat
Quantum Transport by ruccho
Survivor's guilt by aso
Check out the top 10 finalists in Europe, South Korea and Japan.
The selected studios will receive exclusive education and mentorship over the 12 week program, to help them build and grow successful businesses.
Americas
Aoca Game Lab, Brazil
Berimbau Game Studio, Brazil
Boomware Studio, Peru
Concrete Software, USA
Delotech Games, Brazil
DreamCraft Entertainment, Inc., USA
Ingames, Argentina
Ludare Games Group Inc., Canada
Whitethorn Games, USA
Asia Pacific
Banjiha Games, South Korea
CATS BY STUDIO, South Korea
dc1ab pte. Ltd., Singapore
Dreams & Co., Thailand
Gamestacy Entertinment, India
izzle Inc., South Korea
Koco Games, India
Limin Development and Investment Joint Stock Company, Vietnam
Mugshot Games Pty Ltd, Australia
Odencat Inc., Japan
Playbae, India
Xigma Games, India
XOGAMES Inc., South Korea
YOMI Studio, Vietnam
Europe, Middle East & Africa
Cleverside Ltd, Belarus
Dali Games, Poland
Firegecko Ltd, United Kingdom
Hot Siberians, Russia
Infinity Games, Portugal
Itatake, Sweden
Jimjum Studios, Israel
LIVA Interactive, Tunisia
Pale Blue Interactive, South Africa
Pine Studio, Croatia
Platonic Games, Spain
SMOKOKO LTD, Bulgaria
Spooky House Studios, Germany
If you missed the finals or would like to explore further, you can still sign in and wander around the space but only for a limited time. Explore now.
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Posted by Wesley Chun (@wescpy), Developer Advocate, Google Cloud
In the previous episode of the Serverless Migration Station video series, developers learned how to containerize their App Engine code for Cloud Run using Docker. While Docker has gained popularity over the past decade, not everyone has containers integrated into their daily development workflow, and some prefer "containerless" solutions but know that containers can be beneficial. Well today's video is just for you, showing how you can still get your apps onto Cloud Run, even If you don't have much experience with Docker, containers, nor Dockerfiles.
Dockerfile
App Engine isn't going away as Google has expressed long-term support for legacy runtimes on the platform, so those who prefer source-based deployments can stay where they are so this is an optional migration. Moving to Cloud Run is for those who want to explicitly move to containerization.
Migrating to Cloud Run with Cloud Buildpacks video
So how can apps be containerized without Docker? The answer is buildpacks, an open-source technology that makes it fast and easy for you to create secure, production-ready container images from source code, without a Dockerfile. Google Cloud Buildpacks adheres to the buildpacks open specification and allows users to create images that run on all GCP container platforms: Cloud Run (fully-managed), Anthos, and Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE). If you want to containerize your apps while staying focused on building your solutions and not how to create or maintain Dockerfiles, Cloud Buildpacks is for you.
In the last video, we showed developers how to containerize a Python 2 Cloud NDB app as well as a Python 3 Cloud Datastore app. We targeted those specific implementations because Python 2 users are more likely to be using App Engine's ndb or Cloud NDB to connect with their app's Datastore while Python 3 developers are most likely using Cloud Datastore. Cloud Buildpacks do not support Python 2, so today we're targeting a slightly different audience: Python 2 developers who have migrated from App Engine ndb to Cloud NDB and who have ported their apps to modern Python 3 but now want to containerize them for Cloud Run.
ndb
Developers familiar with App Engine know that a default HTTP server is provided by default and started automatically, however if special launch instructions are needed, users can add an entrypoint directive in their app.yaml files, as illustrated below. When those App Engine apps are containerized for Cloud Run, developers must bundle their own server and provide startup instructions, the purpose of the ENTRYPOINT directive in the Dockerfile, also shown below.
entrypoint
app.yaml
ENTRYPOINT
Starting your web server with App Engine (app.yaml) and Cloud Run with Docker (Dockerfile) or Buildpacks (Procfile)
Procfile
In this migration, there is no Dockerfile. While Cloud Buildpacks does the heavy-lifting, determining how to package your app into a container, it still needs to be told how to start your service. This is exactly what a Procfile is for, represented by the last file in the image above. As specified, your web server will be launched in the same way as in app.yaml and the Dockerfile above; these config files are deliberately juxtaposed to expose their similarities.
Other than this swapping of configuration files and the expected lack of a .dockerignore file, the Python 3 Cloud NDB app containerized for Cloud Run is nearly identical to the Python 3 Cloud NDB App Engine app we started with. Cloud Run's build-and-deploy command (gcloud run deploy) will use a Dockerfile if present but otherwise selects Cloud Buildpacks to build and deploy the container image. The user experience is the same, only without the time and challenges required to maintain and debug a Dockerfile.
.dockerignore
gcloud run deploy
If you're considering containerizing your App Engine apps without having to know much about containers or Docker, we recommend you try this migration on a sample app like ours before considering it for yours. A corresponding codelab leading you step-by-step through this exercise is provided in addition to the video which you can use for guidance.
All migration modules, their videos (when available), codelab tutorials, and source code, can be found in the migration repo. While our content initially focuses on Python users, we hope to one day also cover other legacy runtimes so stay tuned. Containerization may seem foreboding, but the goal is for Cloud Buildpacks and migration resources like this to aid you in your quest to modernize your serverless apps!
Posted by Ashley Francisco, Head of Startup Developer Ecosystem, Canada
Earlier this summer we shared details about how the Google for Startups Accelerator program is expanding its support for founders from underrepresented groups. In addition to our Black Founders accelerator program, the expansion included a second year of programming specifically designed for women-led startups in North America.
We launched the inaugural Google for Startups Accelerator: Women Founders program in 2020, in order to address gender disparity in the startup ecosystem and provide high-quality mentorship opportunities and support for women founders. Studies showed that only 16% of small and medium sized businesses were owned by women, and that women often lack access to venture capitalist funding and accelerator programs to help launch and scale up their businesses.
This year, we have designed another great program for our women founders, and today we are thrilled to announce the 12 women-led startups joining our class of 2021.
Without further ado, meet the Google For Startups Accelerator: Women Founders class of 2021!
Starting on September 27, the 10-week intensive virtual program will bring the best of Google's programs, products, people and technology to help these businesses reach their goals. Participating startups receive deep mentorship on technical challenges and machine learning, as well as connections to relevant teams across Google. The startups will also receive nontechnical programming to help address some of the unique barriers faced by women founders in the startup ecosystem.
We are excited to welcome these 12 women-led businesses to our Google for Startups Accelerator community, and look forward to working with them this fall!
Posted by Chris Curtis, Startup Marketing Manager at Google Cloud
We’re excited to announce our first-ever Google Cloud Startup Summit will be taking place on September 9, 2021.
We hope you will join us as we bring together our startup community, including startup founders, CTOs, VCs and Google experts to provide behind the scenes insights and inspiring stories of innovation. To kick off the event, we’ll be bringing in X’s Captain of Moonshots, Astro Teller, for a keynote focused on innovation. We’ll also have exciting technical and business sessions,with Google leaders, industry experts, venture investors and startup leaders. You can see the full agenda here to get more details on the sessions.
We can’t wait to see you at the Google Cloud Startup Summit at 10am PT on September 9! Register to secure your spot today.
Posted by Aniedi Udo-Obong, Sub-Saharan Africa Regional Lead, Google Developer Groups
The Google Developer Groups Spotlight series interviews inspiring leaders of community meetup groups around the world. Our goal is to learn more about what developers are working on, how they’ve grown their skills with the Google Developer Group community, and what tips they might have for us all.
We recently spoke with Kose, community lead for Google Developer Groups Juba in South Sudan. Check out our conversation with Kose about building a GDG chapter, the future of GDG Juba, and the importance of growing the tech community in South Sudan.
Tell us a little about yourself?
I’m a village-grown software developer and community lead of GDG Juba. I work with JavaScript stack with a focus on the backend. Learning through the community has always been part of me before joining GDG Juba. I love tech volunteerism and building a community around me and beyond. I attended many local developer meetups and learned a lot that led to my involvement with GDG Juba.
I am currently helping grow the GDG Juba community in South Sudan, and previously volunteered as a mentor in the Google Africa Developer Scholarship 2020.
Why did you want to get involved in tech?
I hail from a remote South Sudan's village with little to zero access to technology. My interest in tech has largely been driven due to an enthusiasm to build things and solve farming, agricultural economics, and social issues using technology.
I am currently researching and working on a farmers connection network to help transform our agricultural economics.
What is unique about pursuing a career as a developer in South Sudan?
When you talk about technology in South Sudan, we are relatively behind compared to our neighbors and beyond. Some challenges include the lack of support, resources, and mentorship among the few technology aspirants. The electricity and internet bills are so costly that an undetermined hustler won't sacrifice their days' hustle for exploring and learning the tech spectrum.
At the same time, there are a lot of areas technology developers can dive into. Finance, hospitality, agriculture, transportation, and content creation are all viable fields. As a determined techie, I tasked myself with allocating 10% of everything I do and earn to learning and exploring technology. This helped me to have some time, money, and resources for my tech journey. As for mentorship, I’m building a global network of resourceful folks to help me venture into new areas of the tech sector.
How did you become a GDG lead?
I’ve always been that person who joined tech events as often as I could find registration links. In my college days, I would skip classes to attend events located hours away. I would hardly miss Python Hyderabad, pycons, and many other Android meetups. It was during the International Women's Day (IWD) 2018 event organized by WTM Hyderabad and GDG Hyderabad that I was lucky enough to give a short challenge pitch talk. I saw how the conference folks were excited and amazed given the fact that I was the only African in the huge Tech Mahindra conference hall. I met a lot of people, organizers, business personalities and students.
Kose takes the stage for International Women's Day (IWD) 2018
At the end of the conference and subsequent events, I convinced myself to start a similar community. Since starting out with a WhatsApp group chat, we’ve grown to about 200 members on our GDG event platform, and have event partners like Koneta Hub and others. Since then, GDG Juba is helping grow the tech community around Juba, South Sudan.
How has the GDG community helped you grow in the tech industry?
From design thinking to public speaking and structuring technical meetups, the GDG community has become a resourceful part of organizing GDG Juba meetups and enhancing my organizational skills.
As a community lead, I continuously plan the organization of more impactful events and conferences, and network with potential event partners, speakers, mentors, and organizers. Being part of the GDG community has helped me get opportunities to share knowledge with others. In one instance, I became a mobile web mentor and judge for the Google Africa Developer Scholarship 2020 program.
What has been the most inspiring part of being a part of your local Google Developer Group?
As a tech aspirant, I had always wanted to be part of a tech community to learn, network, and grow in the community. Unfortunately, back then there wasn't a single tech user group in my locality. The most inspiring thing about being part of this chapter is the network buildup and learning from the community. I notably network with people I could have never networked with on a typical day.
Kose at a GDG Juba meetup
A lot of our meetup attendees now share their knowledge and experiences with others to inspire many. We are seeing a community getting more engagement in technology. Students tell us they are learning things they hardly get in their college curriculum.
As a learner myself, I am very excited to see folks learn new tech skills and am also happy to see women participating in the tech events. I’m especially proud of the fact that we organized International Women's Day (IWD) 2021, making it possible for us to be featured in a famous local newspaper outlet.
What are some technical resources you have found the most helpful for your professional development?
The official documentation from Google Developers for Android, Firebase, and others have been and are still helpful for my understanding and diving into details of the new things I learn.
In addition to the cool resources from the awesome tech bloggers on the internet, these links are helping me a lot in my adventure:
What is coming up for GDG Juba that you are most excited about?
As part of our Android Study Jam conducted earlier this year, we are planning to host a mentorship program for Android application development. The program will run from scratch to building a fully-fledged, deployable Android app that the community can use for daily activities. I am particularly excited about the fact that we will be having a mentor who has been in the industry for quite a long time. I hope to see people who read this article participating in the mentorship program, too!
What would be one piece of advice you have for someone looking to learn more about a specific technology?
Be a learner. Join groups that can mentor your learning journey.
Ready to learn new skills with developers like Kose? Find a Google Developer Group near you, here.
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