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by Aygul Zagidullina and
Misha Matiyenko-Kupriyanov, with Domenica Liberti, Google I/O Team
Google I/O 2012 is fast approaching, and to help energize you for three packed days of demos, announcements and developer fun, we chatted with a few attendees to see what excites them about this year’s agenda, and to get some tips on how to make the most of the event.
Today's conversation is with two passionate
GDG leaders, Aygul and Misha, who spent part of their honeymoon at Google I/O last year! Aygul Zagidullina is a research scientist at the University of Stuttgart and Misha Matiyenko-Kupriyanov works as a web developer at Deutsche Online Medien GmbH. Their life together is documented and searchable on Google. They share their thoughts and web gems on Google+, plan trips across Europe and the US with Google Maps, check in on each other with Google Latitude, and live in the clouds with their Android devices. We would like to share with you their love story and how they are planning on making the most of 3 days of Google I/O 2012.
How did the two of you meet?
Our story began with a casual conversation in LiveJournal that we quickly outgrew and moved to Google Talk to keep up with each other by relying heavily on daily chat communication. We very quickly discovered how many similar interests and thoughts on a wide variety of topics we have. Within a month, we decided to have our first trip to
Düsseldorf for Japan Day and started our shared Google Calendar and collaborative Google Docs to plan our activities and collect ideas of what we would like to do together.
In 2010 we both attended
German GDG Battle organized by GDG Stuttgart . The team we both were part of got Nexus One smartphones as the first prize. At this event we fell in love with the GDG concept and became later on a part of the organizing team. It has been two exciting years now since we've joined the GDG Stuttgart's organizing team, two years full of planning and execution of public events such as Android DevCamp Stuttgart, tech talks, hackathons and many other local events on Google technologies as well as communication with local developers online via discussion boards and Google+.
Years later we are incredibly happy together, and are excited about our future. Today we can't even imagine how our life would be without technology.
Why did you choose Google I/O for your honeymoon last year?
We wanted our wedding and honeymoon to be perfect in all senses, memorable, breathtaking, and pleasantly useful! Getting married in Las Vegas and spending the honeymoon at our very first Google I/O - we could not have imagined celebrating the start of our new life together any other way. Today, one year later we are looking back and can't be happier about how right this decision was.
What’s the best memory you will always keep with you about being at Google I/O as newlyweds?
Two of our most memorable moments were definitely the keynotes on the first and second days. You had to see us, happy to tears, literally screaming with all other people in the room after each groundbreaking announcement. The feeling that technology revolution happens right here, right now is nothing but priceless!
Another amazing experience we will always keep in our hearts was meeting our international GDG community. We were extremely happy to finally put faces on the name of many GDG managers we were working with to build our community. Google gave us plenty of opportunities for communication, experience exchange and fruitful networking with members of the GDG community such as the Advocates Summit (with Vic Gundotra and Developer Relations team), GDG lounge, and a visit to the Googleplex (as a part of self-organized Silicon Valley Geek Tour).
Why is attending Google I/O important to what you do?
Aygul: I am primarily interested in fostering European (both West and East) developer communities. Being an enthusiastic co-organizer of two Google Developer Groups (GDGs) in
Stuttgart, Germany and
Ufa, Russia, I love engaging with local developers to help them be successful building products using Google technologies. Besides, I'm also a happy and proud Google Top Contributor (TC) at the Google+, Gmail, Google Web Search and several other
product forums (English, German, and Russian) and am doing my best to help users on a daily basis to learn how to use Google products better and troubleshoot their issues. With such a broad network, many of whom cannot be at I/O in person, I am excited to take what I learn and share it with my fellow GDGers.
Misha: As a passionate web developer, I am mostly interested in web-related technologies like HTML5, Google Chrome as development tool, Google Chrome extensions, Google App Engine and the knowhow of Google APIs. Also, my skills in developing Android applications is something I would definitely like to boost. I am sure these new technologies will bring new boost to my mojo and attending I/O will inspire me to start new projects like the ones I've worked on recently, the Google Developer Day Android application, the FontVending Android application and the Helper for Google+ Chrome extension.
Tell us your plans for Google I/O this year.
Aygul: The day before we are planning to participate in the GDG Organizers Summit to meet GDG managers from around the world and discuss all together how we can take our community to the next level.
With all the sessions that are going in parallel, it's pretty challenging to choose only one session to attend at a time. I've said that I'm going to watch every Google I/O talk later at home, but some of them are definitely on my must-attend-and-hear-it-live list.
Getting More from the Google+ Platform,
Android Design for Success,
The Web Can Do That!?, and
From Weekend Hack to Funded Startup - How to Build Your Team and Raise Money are among them.
Besides Sessions and Code Labs, I'm really excited to see so many excellent products will be presented at Sandbox this year. As a true productivity junkie, I can’t wait to talk to creators of
GQueues in person.
Misha: Every year Google presents at Google I/O some new pieces of technology that may form the future landscape of the web. I will make sure to learn about all the announcements on Google+ API, Google App Engine, Dart, Chrome tooling, Google Cloud Printing, and Google Drive API.
This year I would like to participate in as many Google I/O sessions as possible. Some of them are
Dart - A Modern Web Language,
Building Mobile App Engine Backends for Android, iOS and the Web,
Beyond Paper: Google Cloud Print and the Future of Printing, and
Powering your Application's Data using Google Cloud Storage. I chose these sessions because these are new Google technologies and I would like to incorporate them into my projects.
Not coming to Google I/O 2012 in person? Not a problem. Watch the keynote and dozens of other sessions streamed live at developers.google.com/io.
Aygul Zagidullina is a research scientist at the University of Stuttgart. Misha Matiyenko-Kupriyanov is a web developer at Deutsche Online Medien GmbH.
Edited and posted by Domenica Liberti and Scott Knaster, Google I/O Team.
