Welcome to #IamaGDE - a series of spotlights presenting Google Developer Experts (GDEs) from across the globe. Discover their stories, passions, and highlights of their community work.
Today, meet Diana Rodríguez— Maps, Web, Cloud, and Firebase GDE.
Google Developer Expert, Diana Rodríguez
Diana Rodríguez’s 20 years in the tech industry have been focused on community and making accessible content. She is a full-stack developer with experience in backend infrastructure, automation, and a passion for Python. A self-taught programmer, Diana also learned programming skills from attending meetups and being an active member of her local developer community. She is the first female Venezuelan GDE.
“I put a lot of myself into public speaking, workshops, and articles,” says Diana. “I want to make everything I do as open and transparent as possible.”
Diana’s first foray into working with Google Maps was in 2016, when she built an app that helped record institutional violence against women in Argentina. As a freelance developer, she uses the Google Maps Platform for her delivery services clients.
“I have plenty of clients who need not only location tracking for their delivery fleet, but also to provide specific routes,” says Diana.
“The level of interaction that’s been added to Maps has made it easier for me as a developer to work with direct clients,” says Diana, who uses the Plus Codes feature to help delivery drivers find precise locations on a map. “I’m a heavy user of plus codes. They give people in remote areas and underserved communities the chance to have location services, including emergency and delivery services.”
Getting involved in the developer community
Diana first became involved in the developer community 20 years ago, in 1999, beginning with a university user group. She attended her first Devfest in Bangkok in 2010 and has worked in multiple developer communities since then. She was a co-organizer of GDG Triangle and is now an organizer of GDG Durham in North Carolina. In 2020, she gave virtual talks to global audiences.
“It’s been great to get to know other communities and reach the far corners of the Earth,” she says.
Favorite Google Maps Platform features and current projects
Diana is excited about the Places API and the Maps team’s continuous improvements. She says the Maps team keeps the GDEs up to date on all the latest news and takes their feedback very seriously.
“Shoutout to Claire, Alex, and Angela, who are in direct contact with us, and everyone who works with them; they have been amazing,” she says. “I look forward to showcasing more upcoming changes. What comes next will be mind-blowing, immersing people into location in a different way that is more interactive.”
Of the new features released in June 2020, which include Cloud-based maps styling and Local Context, Diana says, “Having the freedom to customize the experience a lot more is amazing.”
As a Maps GDE in 2021, Diana plans to continue working on open source tech projects that benefit the greater good, like her recently completed app for Diabetes users, ScoutX, which notifies emergency contacts when a Diabetic person’s blood glucose values are too high or too low, in case they need immediate help.
She envisions an app that expands connectivity and geolocation tracking for hikers in remote areas, using LoRaWan technologies that can withstand harsh temperatures and conditions.
“Imagine you go to Yellowstone and get lost, with no GPS signal or phone signal, but there’s a tracking device connected to a LoRaWan network sending your location,” Diana says. “It’s much easier for rescue services to find you. Rack Wireless is working on providing satellite access, as well, and having precise latitude and longitude makes mapping simple.”
In the future, Diana sees herself managing a team that makes groundbreaking discoveries and puts technologies to use to help other people.
Follow Diana on Twitter at @cotufa82
Check out Diana’s projects on GitHub
For more information on Google Maps Platform, visit our website.
For more information on Google Developer Experts, visit our website.
#IamaGDE series presents: Google Maps
Homing Tam is a product manager at Lalamove, an on-demand logistics company. He started at the company as a product manager focusing on location-based systems, talking with developers and business users to enhance the company’s mapping solutions, before moving into product management. Now, Homing handles corporate solutions; takes care of people who want to integrate with his company’s systems; handles the API side of things to help make integration easier; and provides recommendations for developers and other technical teammates.
Homing studied geomatics and computing at university, and his 2009 thesis was based on Google’s API backend. His dissertation focused on using the Google Maps API to perform mapping and overlay. His first full-time job was as a GIS analyst at Esri, the largest private software company in the world. A year and a half later, he became a solutions consultant for a different company, helping customers interested in integrating Google Maps with their software.
After Homing got involved in the Google Technology User Group (now known as Google Developer Groups), his boss at the time told him about the Google Developer Experts program. For his interview, Homing presented a product using the Google Maps APIs. When he became a GDE, he gave presentations and talks in the greater China region as a surrogate for the Google Maps Platform team. Homing is currently one of the organizers for GDG Hong Kong, organizing and giving community talks.
Homing says the Maps Styling Wizard, the precursor to the newer Cloud-based Maps Styling features, is one of his favorite features.
“Cartography, which I studied in college, matters a lot, especially to a simple black and white schematic map, or when matching the theme of a map to a site,” he says. “I like that feature a lot.”
In 2020, Homing gave one talk on Android in the Android 11 Meetup and another talk on Maps at the first-ever virtual Hong Kong Devfest, and he’s ready to do more speaking.
“It had been a while since I gave a talk on maps, and the launch of Cloud-based Maps Styling is so exciting that I feel like it’s time to do some presentations and let the community know more about it. Beyond knowing how to use the API, you need to know how you can make the most of the API.”
Homing notes that this year, in particular, more small business owners need to know how to collect customer addresses, allow customers to place on-demand delivery orders, and update customers.
In 2021, in addition to giving more talks, Homing hopes to work with the GDG organizers in Hong Kong to plan a hackathon or otherwise teach community members more about the new Maps features.
“Can we make an MVP or a really initial stage cycling app to use as a base to explore the new features and use different Google components?’
As his career continues, Homing says he has two priorities: progressing as a product manager and leveraging technology, including maps, to improve lives.
“This year was a year for everyone to become digitally literate,” he says. “With the extra time we spend on technology, we should make good use of technology to make life better.”
The Google Developers Experts program is a global network of highly experienced technology experts, influencers, and thought leaders who actively support developers, companies, and tech communities by speaking at events and publishing content.
Meet Josue Gutierrez — Maps, Web, Identity and Angular Google Developer Expert.
Josue currently works at the German company Boehringer Ingelheim and lives near Frankfurt. Before moving to Germany, Josue was working as a software engineer in Mexico, and before that, he spent almost a year in San Francisco as a senior front-end developer at Sutter Health.
Josue Gutierrez
Josue studied computer science and engineering as an undergraduate and learned algorithms and programming. His first language was C++, and he learned C and Python, but was drawn to web technologies.
“When I saw a web browser for the first time, it stuck with me,” he says, “It was changing in real time as you’re developing. That feeling is really cool. That’s why I went into frontend development.”
Josue has worked on multiple ecommerce projects focused on improving customers’ trade experience. He sees his role as creating something from scratch to help people improve lives.
“These opportunities we have as developers are great — to travel, work for many verticals, and learn many businesses,” he says. “In my previous job, I developed tech-oriented trade tools for research companies, to manipulate strings or formulas. I was on the team involved in writing these kinds of tools, so it was more about the trade experience for doctors.”
Josue’s first trip outside Mexico, to San Francisco, exposed him to the many developer communities in the area, and he appreciated the supportive communities of people trying to learn together. Several of the people he met suggested he start his own meetup in Mexico City, to get more involved in Google technologies, so he launched an Angular community there. As he hunted for speakers to come to his Angular meetup, Josue found himself giving talks, too.
Then, the GDG Mexico leader invited Josue to give talks on Google for startups.
“That helped me get involved in the ecosystem,” Josue says. “I met a lot of people, and now many of them are good friends. It’s really exciting because you get connected with people with the same interests as you, and you all learn together.”
“I’m really happy to be part of the Google Maps ecosystem,” Josue says. “It’s super connected, with kind people, and now I know more colleagues in my area, who work for different companies and have different challenges. Seeing how they solve them is a good part of being connected to the product. I try to share my knowledge with other people and exchange points of view.”
Josue says 2020 provided interesting opportunities.
“This year was weird, but we also discovered more tools that are evolving with us, more functionalities in Hangouts and Meetup,” Josue says. “It’s interesting how people are curious to get connected. If I speak from Germany, I get comments from countries like Bolivia and Argentina. We are disconnected but increasing the number of people we engage with.”
He notes that the one missing piece is the face-to-face, spontaneous interactions of in-person workshops, but that there are still positives to video workshops.
“I think as communities, we are always trying to get information to our members, and having videos is also cool for posterity,” he says.
He is starting a Maps developer community in Germany.
“I have colleagues interested in trying to get a community here with a solid foundation,” he says. “We hope we can engage people to get connected in the same place, if all goes well.”
Favorite Maps features and current projects
As a frontend developer, Josue regards Google Maps Platform as an indispensable tool for brands, ecommerce companies, and even trucking companies.
“Once you start learning how to plant coordinates inside a map, how to convert information and utilize it inside a map, it’s easy to implement,” he says.
In 2021, Josue is working on some experiments with Maps, trying to make more real-time actualization, using currently available tools.
“Many of the projects I’ve been working on aren’t connected with ecommerce,” he says. “Many customers want to see products inside a map, like trucking products. I’ve been working in directories, where you can see the places related to categories — like food in Mexico. You can use Google Maps functionalities and extend the diversification of maps and map whatever you want.”
“Submission ID is really cool,” he adds. “You can do it reading the documentation, a key part of the product, with examples, references, and a live demo in the browser.”
Future plans
Josue says his goal going forward is to be as successful as he can at his current role.
“Also, sharing is super important,” he says. “My company encourages developer communities. It’s important to work in a place that matches your interests.”
Follow Josue on Twitter at @eusoj |Check out Josue’s projects on GitHub.
For more information on Google Maps Platform, visit our website or learn more about our GDE program.
Posted by Jonathan Beri, Product Manager
Today, we’re announcing that CocoaPods will be the primary channel to acquire Google SDKs for iOS. CocoaPods is a popular, free dependency manager for iOS that significantly simplifies the process of importing libraries and frameworks into Xcode. And it will help you manage your dependencies between our various libraries.
While there was a small but growing number of official Google Pods, as well as a few Pods written by other iOS developers, it was often difficult for developer to find the right SDK. With today’s announcement, some of our key libraries, like Google Cloud Messaging and the Google Maps SDK for iOS can now be found on the public CocoaPods service. Going forward, new iOS SDKs will be packaged and documented as Pods and published on cocoapods.org. You can find the full list of Google Pods and all supporting documentation at developer.google.com/ios/cocoapods.
If you haven't used CocoaPods yet, now is a great time to give it a try. Add GoogleAnalytics to a Podfile to start counting new users. Or pod install your way to adding AdMob ads in your app. And check out pod try, a CocoaPods plugin that allows you to quickly launch our demo projects.
GoogleAnalytics
pod install
pod try
For more iOS developer protips and to learn more about Google’s iOS SDKs, please check out the Route 85 video series from Todd Kerpelman. We look forward to all the great Google-powered iOS apps you will create!
