In the month of June we will be hosting a GDG event focused on Web Tech as that is what our community has been asking for. We will have Richard Young giving us a talk on Machine Learning in the browser and Mike Geyser who will be speaking about something Shinny 🤖Should be epic!

AGENDA:
17:45 - 18:00 - Food and drinks are served, get comfy and prepare yourself to learn some new things!

18:00 - 18:15 - Welcome to GDG!

18:15 - 18:40 - Machine learning in the browser - Richard Young

Machine learning has earned a reputation for needing complex mathematics, massive datasets and expensive hardware. This has unfortunately led many developers to see machine learning as something out of their reach. I will show you how we can make use of the web browser to run prebuilt tensorflow.js models just as we would use any other JavaScript software library. We will look at the advantages of using the web browser for doing machine learning, and how we can take advantage of something called transfer learning to tweak existing models to do some really fun things in the browser. This talk is suitable for beginners and no existing machine learning knowledge is required.

Bio
Richard is a software developer with a passion for problem solving and anything web related. He considers himself somewhat of a polyglot programmer and has worked on systems that do everything from calculating optimal pizza toppings to teaching languages in the classroom using AI. Richard now works as a Research Engineer at IBM Research where he is helping to deliver innovative solutions to some of Africa's biggest challenges.

18:40 - 18:45 - Small Breather

18:45 - 19:30 - Light up the web with lit-html 🔥

What if I told you that building on the web could be easier? What if I told you that you didn't need complicated frameworks, confusing tools and convoluted builds? Let me introduce you to my little friend; lit-html 🔥. At only 3.5kb gzipped (⁉️) this miniscule framework leverages off of the modern web platform to make it efficient, expressive, and extensible.

In this code oriented talk, I hope to show how low friction it is to work with lit-html. Together we'll build a TodoMVC application, starting from first principles and ending with WebComponents - all with (almost) zero tooling. Come and see for yourself: the web can be easy, fun and lit 🔥 - Mike Geyser

Bio

Mike Geyser is a Google Developer Expert in Web Technologies from South Africa, where he works in the R&D team at a company called BBD. He is a co-organiser of the Jozi.Js meetup groups, and is a frequent technical speaker. He has been hacking on the web since Geocities was a 'thing', and has the keening wail of dialup modem etched into his subconscious. While he is fluent in several ‘golden hammer’ programming languages, he has a long-lived love affair with JavaScript, and cannot see its (many, obvious) flaws. He has worked on lots of interesting enterprise applications, but it is the challenges of the public web that really appeal to him - having spent his formative years building transactional websites. He is always eager to talk about the web platform, but be warned, he is prone to hyperbole.

19:30 - 19:45 - Giveaways and Thanks!

LOCATION:
JoziHub, 44 Stanley.

WHAT TO EXPECT:
Lots of great content and smart developers! (Oh and some awesome prizes to be won!)

WHAT TO BRING:
Yourself, and maybe a friend if you are shy to chat to people (don't be shy!)

ABOUT JOZIHUB:
JoziHub is a co-working spot located in 44 Stanley. You can find more about their venue here: http://jozihub.org/

Please remember, we have a code of conduct at our meetup. Everyone is welcome and if you feel uncomfortable please let any of the organisers know.