RSVP on our GDG community platform -> https://gdg.community.dev/events/details/google-gdg-melbourne-presents-gdg-melbourne-april-meetup-4/

This event is hosted at the Mantel Group Office, with the recording of the talks to be shared afterwards on YouTube if you can't make it.

There will be food, networking and some surprise swag!

Agenda:

6:20 - Intro

6:30 - Talks

8:00 till late - networking & chat (& drinks optional)

Speakers and Talks:

Nicole Ellis, IT @ Monash (Games and Immersive Media) | Team Co-Lead @ MNET | Comms Officer @ MTS
'Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt is the Real Barrier (Not Skill)'
Most people in tech are not held back by a lack of ability; they are held back by intimidation.
We avoid learning new tools and technologies not because we can’t, but because they feel too hard. We tell ourselves we’re “too busy,” we delay starting, and we stick to what feels comfortable. But often, what looks like procrastination is actually fear. Fear of failure, uncertainty, and self-doubt.
Drawing from experience in education, esports, and leadership, this talk explores how hesitation shows up across different environments, and why it matters more than technical skill.
This session reframes what it means for something to be “hard” and offers a practical approach to taking the first step towards the things you’ve been avoiding.

Cameron Pavey, Principal Engineer | Technical Writer @ Rex
'Building systems that learn and grow'
Most AI interactions start from zero every time. But what happens when you build systems that persist, accumulate context, and actually improve through use?
This session explores the architecture of my long-running AI companion. Not a chatbot that forgets, but systems that learn your household's rhythms, anticipate needs, and develop genuine continuity over months and hopefully years, no OpenClaw required.
We'll walk through the engineering decisions that make this possible: memory architecture that balances retrieval with synthesis, multi-facet coordination that lets different subsystems work in parallel, and the practical challenges of keeping a system coherent when it runs 24/7 across months of operation.

Narendra Santhosh Nagarajan, Senior Backend Engineer @ TIG Freight Management
'Debugging my way through GCP'

How to find us:

Doors open at 5:45 PM at our host the Mantel Group, Level 2/452 Flinders St Melbourne. Message via Meetup or Slack if you are arriving after 6:00 as the lifts won't let you up. 

This is an in-person only event. If you have any accessibility requirements please reach out via the Meetup or Slack to the organiser group to discuss and we will do our best to help you out.