What is Google I/O Extended?
Before I begin, let's find out from the official website of Google Developer Groups. So Google I/O Extended is a series of community events organized by Google Developer Groups (GDG) that aim to bring the knowledge of the main annual Google I/O conference to local communities around the world (yes, this is a global event). These events typically include live streaming of the Google I/O keynote, technical discussions, Q&A sessions, presentations by Google Developer Experts, and opportunities for hands-on learning and networking with other developers in the local area with the latest content update from Google I/O.
Why do I have to join this event?
This is my personal reason, but as a person who works and lives with technology, I just love to know about the latest technology updates. And this is one of the media that can help me learn more about this. It is like, it just feels good to have (or at least know) a place where you can get good things you like and you can meet many people with the same interest.
Okay, so why Yogyakarta and Bogor?
Ah yes, as I live in Jakarta, why not just come to the event held in Jakarta? It was really unfortunate that I was late in registering for the Google I/O Extended event held in Jakarta. And after that, I just found out that the event was also held in Yogyakarta and Bogor. So these are actually two separate events held at two different times in Yogyakarta and Bogor.
Yogyakarta . This is the first event I joined. The event was held at Gadjah Mada University at the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Science on July 21st. The sessions were split into two parts. The first was the talkshow session, which began at 10:25 (GMT+07).
- The first talk was about AI: "Multimodal Retrieval Augmented Generation" by Ms. Esther Irawati, a Google Developer Expert in AI/ML. Her talk was about how we use multimodal AI to enhance AI information retrieval and generate better results. She also explains how the AI model works behind the scenes, from querying the prompt until outputting the result.
- The second talk was by Dr. Azhari SN, M.T., Lecturer in the Master Program in Artificial Intelligence at the Department of Computer Science and Electronics, Gadjah Mada University. The talk is "How Data Shapes AI and Machine Learning," and he explains how data plays a critical role in developing and refining AI and ML models. This talk is related to the first one that he explained behind the scenes about vector databases, etc.
- The third talk is "Craft AI-powered Angular Apps with Gemini" by Mr. Pankaj Parkar, a Google Developer Expert in Angular. His talk was about how we can integrate the Gemini AI API into our web applications, in this case, Angular.
After that, there was Q&A and break time. I continued, and the second part of the event was a workshop session in a different room.
- The first workshop is about Google Cloud: "Mastering Document Analysis with Gemini" by Mr. Muhammad Satria Yuda, a Data Engineer at Cloud Ace. The difference between a talkshow and a workshop session is that in the workshop session, we get more in-depth explanations and hands-on examples from the speaker.
- After the first workshop, I have the opportunity to join the second workshop by Mr. Andhika Yuana, a senior software engineer. His talk was about Android development: "An Introduction to Passkeys for Android." In this session, he explains what passkeys are and why we must use them as our next-generation security in our application development. We also had a live coding session on how we built a simple authentication system in our Android application project with Kotlin that uses passkeys as security.
From this event, I got so much interesting experience since this was my first tech conference I joined. I got cool souvenirs from the event committees, such as a sticker, pouch bag, keychain, and water glass.
Bogor . One week later was Google I/O Extended that was held in Bogor; it took me for about 2 hours and a half to get there from Jakarta by Comutter Line. This event was held at Pakuan University. This event is titled "Techtropic Summer's Hottest Inovations.".
There is some small difference between the sessions held in this event and the past at Yogyakarta. This event is the same as it is split into two parts; the first part is a talkshow held in the main hall. The second part is an "Ask to Expert" where we can ask questions directly to the speakers in a separate forum to get deeper insights. I only joined in the first part:
- The first talk was opened by Mr. Dimaz Maulana. He introduced the use of taptap as a digital ID card in card form. The ID card is connected to s.id. Microsite where we can put our digital information.
- The second talk by Mr. Erico Darmawan Handoyo. He is a lecturer in the Faculty of Smart Technology and Engineering at Maranatha Christian University and owns the Erico Darmawan Handoyo Youtube channel. His talk about "How Flutter Saves Your Precious Time" explains the use of the cross-platform UI software development kit Flutter created by Google and how we can build multiple platform applications with just a single codebase.
- The third talks "Hello! Kotlin Multiplatform" by Mr. Somkiat Khitwongwattana, a Google Developer Expert and Android Staff Software Engineer at LINE MAN Wongnai, Thailand. His talk was about the introduction of the Kotlin programming language created by JetBrains. Mr. Somkiat explained that now Kotlin is also considered stable and production-ready for multiplatform development, including iOS, Android, web, and desktop applications.
- The fourth talk is "Generative AI Agents With Gemini" by Mr. Jerel John Velarde, a Director of Product Management at GoTeam. His talk was about the role of Gemini as AI agents in the product management field; he talked about the differences between traditional programming and generative AI, then went over the different layers of the generative AI industry. Then he introduced generative AI agents and the three components of an AI agent: identity, tools, and memory. He also introduced agentic design patterns, which are four patterns to design AI agents: reflection, planning, tool usage, and multi-agent systems.
- The fifth talk was about Google Cloud: "Building AI Agent With Langchain On Vertex AI" by Imre Nagi, a Cloud Platform Engineer at GoTo Financial and Google Developer Expert. In his talk, he explain an AI agent with Langchain on Vertex AI and the use of a reasoning engine to speed up the process of developing and deploying AI agents. He is also using Vertex AI Search to store and query documents with NLP. In the demo, he shows the use of AI agents by building a web bot that helps answer visitors questions about the features of the web app in real-time and specifically using data stored in Vertex AI Search. His demo also demonstrates how visitors can also make a purchase and payment directly from a bot chat that is integrated with a payment gateway. (Woooh, such an amazing talk!)
- The sixth talk before a break was brought by Indonesia's most famous digital lecturer Mr. Sandika Galih: "Glimpse Into The Future Of Web Development.". His talks is about the new technologies that are being developed for web development. Some of the technologies that he talks about, including the new CSS features: View Transitions API and scroll-timeline that brings native support for animating DOM with only some lines of CSS. Although this feature is not yet widely available in all browser versions, this is a good sign that it will become easier for us to build websites because features that previously required additional JavaScript libraries are now available natively.
I go through a break time, and after that the event was split into two parts: continuing the previous talks that now separate in three different halls and starting the "Ask to Expert" sessions. Still in the main hall, there are three left talks that I joined:
- "Effortless Deployment Of Next & Angular With Firebase" by Mr. Ajat Darojat, a branch lead and instructor at Hactiv8. His talk is about how to deploy Next.js and Angular apps to Firebase App Hosting. Firebase App Hosting is a serverless web hosting platform that can be used to deploy Next.js and Angular apps or another framework. It automatically sets up the infrastructure for the app, so the developer doesn't have to worry about it.
- The next is "UI Design" by Fini Charisa, a UI/UX Designer and Influencer. She talked about the misconceptions that developers have about UI designers. She mentioned that UI designers actually help developers by creating design systems that make it easier for developers to code. She also talked about some of the elements that UI designers focus on, such as icons, grids, spacing, typography, and color.
- The last talk: "LangChain and Gemini Pro: A Powerful Duo for Next-Generation AI Applications" by Mr. Rendra Toro, a SVP Industry Solution & GDG Bogor Chapter Lead. The talk is about LangChain and Gemini Pro, which are two powerful tools for building generative AI applications. LangChain is a framework that can be used to connect large language models (LLMs) to other tools and data sources. Gemini Pro is a LLM that can be used for a variety of tasks, such as generating text, translating languages, and writing different kinds of creative content.
From this event, I got amazing insight about the new technologies and how we actually use them in real-world use cases. And I am very happy to have the opportunity to follow this series of events until the end.
Recap
Such a long story to tell, but I am very happy to attend both events and I am really waiting for the next amazing event in the future. Thank you ^^.