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.