Posted by Erica Hanson, Program Manager
ARUA, UGANDA - Samuel Mugisha is a 23 year old university student with a laugh that echoes off every wall and a mind determined to make change. Recently he heard from a healthcare worker that many children at a local clinic were missing vaccinations, so he decided to take a walk. He toured his community, neighbor to neighbor, and asked one simple question: “Can I see your vaccination card?”
In response he was given dirt stained, wrinkled, torn pieces of paper, holding life or death information - all written in scribble.
He squinted, held the cards to the light, rubbed them on his pant leg, but for no use. They were impossible to read. As Samuel put it, “They were broken.”
From the few cards he could read, Samuel noted children who had missed several vaccinations - they were unknowingly playing the odds, waiting to see if disease would find them.
Without hesitation, Samuel got right to work, determined to fix the healthcare system with technology.
He first brought together his closest friends from Developer Student Clubs (DSC), a program supporting students impacting their communities through tech. He asked them: “Why can’t technology solve our problem?”
This newly formed team, including Samuel, Joshwa Benkya and Norman Acidri, came up with a twofold plan:
The idea came together right as Developer Student Clubs launched its first Solution Challenge, an open call for all members to submit projects they recently imagined. These young developers had to give it a shot. They created a model, filled out an application, and pitched the idea. After waiting a month, they heard back - their team won the competition! Their idea was selected from a pool of 170 applicants across India, Africa, and Indonesia. In other words, everything was about to change.
In a country where talent can go unnoticed and problems often go unsolved, this new team had pushed through the odds. Developer Student Clubs is a platform for these types of bold thinkers. Students who view the issues of their region not simply as obstacles to overcome, but chances to mend their home, build a better life for themselves, and transform the experiences of their people.
The goal of the Solution Challenge, and all other DSC programs, is to educate young developers early and equip them with the right skills to make an impact in their community.
In this case, office space in Uganda was expensive and hard to find. Samuel’s team previously had few chances to all work under the same roof. After winning the challenge, Developer Student Clubs helped them find a physical space of their own to come together and collaborate - a simple tool, but one that led to a turning point. As Samuel described it,
With this new space to work, DSC then brought some of Africa’s best Google Developer Group Leads directly to the young developers. In these meetings, the students were given high-level insights on how to best leverage Android, Firebase, and Presto to propel their product forward. As Samuel put it:
As a result, the team realized that with the scarcity of internet in Uganda, Firebase was the perfect technology to build with - allowing healthcare workers to use the app offline but “check in” and receive updates when they were able to find internet.
Although the app has made impressive strides since winning the competition, this young team knows they can make it even better. They want to improve its usability by implementing more visuals and are working to create a version for parents, so families can track the status of their child’s vaccination on their own.
While there is plenty of work ahead, with these gifted students and Developer Student Clubs taking each step forward together, any challenge seems solvable.
What has the team been up to recently? From August 5th-9th they attended the Startup Africa Roadtrip, an intensive training week on how best to refine a startup business model.
Posted by Ben Fried, VP, CIO, & Chief Domains Enthusiast
Celebrating 100 of our favorite .app websites. See the list here.
A year ago, we launched .app, the first open top-level domain (TLD) with built-in security through HSTS preloading. Since then, hundreds of thousands of people have registered .app domains, and we want to take a moment to celebrate them.
People are making more websites and apps than ever before. A recent survey we conducted with The Harris Poll found that nearly half (48%) of U.S. respondents plan to create a website in the near future. And a lot of people, especially students, are already building on the web. Over a third (34%) of 16-24 year olds who’ve already created a website did so for a class project.
Having a meaningful domain name helps students turn their projects into reality. Take Ludwik Trammer, creator of shrew.app, who said: “The site started as a project for my graduate Educational Technology class at Georgia Tech. Getting the perfect domain gave me the initial push to turn it into the real deal (instead of making a prototype, publishing a scientific paper on it, and forgetting it).”
Helping creators launch their sites securely
With so many new creators, it’s essential that everyone does their part to make the internet safer. That’s why Google Registry designed .app to be secure by default, meaning every website on .app requires a HTTPS connection to ensure a secure connection to the internet.
HTTPS helps keep you and your website visitors safe from bad actors, who may exploit connections that aren’t secure by:
“As a social application, data protection is paramount. As cyber attacks increase, the security benefits a .app domain brings was a key factor for us. We also believe that a .app domain is significantly more descriptive than a .com domain, meaning users can find us more easily! All in all it was a no brainer for us switching to .app.” -Daneh Westropp, Founder, pickle.app
-Daneh Westropp, Founder, pickle.app
There's still work to be done. One out of two people don’t know the difference between HTTP and HTTPS. Many major browsers (like Chrome) warn users in the URL bar when content is "not secure," but there’s every website creator still has a shared responsibility to keep their users safe.
.App is year in, and we’re happy to see so many people using it to build secure websites and connect with the world. You can read more stories from .app owners here and get your own .app name at get.app. If you’re one of the millions of people planning to build a website, we hope you’ll join us in making the internet safer and take the steps to securely launch your website.
Posted by William Florance, Global Head, Developer Training Programs
Building upon our pledge to provide mobile developer training to 100,000 Africans to develop world class apps, today we are pleased to announce the next round of Google Africa Certification Scholarships aimed at helping developers become certified on Google’s Android, Web, and Cloud technologies.
This year, we are offering 30,000 additional scholarship opportunities and 1,000 grants for the Google Associate Android Developer, Mobile Web Specialist, and Associate Cloud Engineer certifications. The scholarship program will be delivered by our partners, Pluralsight and Andela, through an intensive learning curriculum designed to prepare motivated learners for entry-level and intermediate roles as software developers. Interested students in Africa can learn more about the Google Africa Certifications Scholarships and apply here
According to World Bank, Africa is on track to have the largest working-age population (1.1 billion) by 2034. Today’s announcement marks a transition from inspiring new developers to preparing them for the jobs of tomorrow. Google’s developer certifications are performance-based. They are developed around a job-task analysis which test learners for skills that employers expect developers to have.
As announced during Sundar Pichai - Google CEO’s visit to Nigeria in 2017, our continued initiatives focused on digital skills training, education and economic opportunity, and support for African developers and startups, demonstrate our commitment to help advance a healthy and vibrant ecosystem. By providing support for training and certifications we will help bridge the unemployment gap on the continent through increasing the number of employable software developers.
Although Google’s developer certifications are relatively new, we have already seen evidence that becoming certified can make a meaningful difference to developers and employers. Adaobi Frank - a graduate of the Associate Android Developer certification - got a better job that paid ten times more than her previous salary after completing her certification. Her interview was expedited as her employer was convinced that she was great for the role after she mentioned that she was certified. Now, she's got a job that helps provide for her family - see her video here. Through our efforts this year, we want to help many more developers like Ada and support the growth of startups and technology companies throughout Africa.
Follow this link to learn more about the scholarships and apply.
Posted by Adam Seligman, VP, Developer Relations
Last week we announced the new .dev top-level domain (TLD) was open for Early Access registrations. As of today, .dev is available to anyone through your registrar of choice (typically $12-$15 for standard priced domains, varies by registrar).
We envision .dev as a home for developers. From tools to programming languages to blogs, .dev is the best place for all the amazing things that you build. Over the past few months, we've launched, or re-launched, many of our own developer sites on the new domain. Here are some of our favorites:
But we're not done yet! We've got big plans for .dev, and we'd like to invite you to join us. To start, everyone who applied for a ticket to Google I/O 2019 will get a .dev domain at no cost for one year. If you entered the drawing, check your inbox for your redemption code. We'll be moving more of our existing projects and launching some exciting things on .dev in the months to come. We can't wait to see what you build on .dev -- share what you create with #hellodotdev.
Posted by Sami Kizilbash, Developer Relations Program Manager
Last November, Raymond Chan, a data scientist at Chope, attended one of our first ML bootcamps for developers and start-ups in Southeast Asia. Over four days, he gained a deeper understanding of how to use Google Cloud Platform to better structure data from approximately 775,000 records on Chope's real-time restaurant reservation booking platform every day. With this new knowledge, Chope has been able to use that data for more effective and timely decision-making, making it easier for customers to book restaurants.
Last week in Singapore, we opened the Developer Space @ Google Singapore—a space that brings together resources to help Southeast Asian developers, entrepreneurs and community groups grow, plus earn more with their businesses. This is the first physical space dedicated to developers that sits inside a Google office, so developers in Singapore can look forward to benefiting from insights, hands-on mentorship and networking opportunities with various teams working at our Asia Pacific headquarters.
Supporting startups and developers like Raymond, and helping them achieve their full potential is something we're passionate about. In addition to the ML bootcamps which we expect another 800 developers in Singapore to attend by the end of this year, we will run a range of workshops on the latest Google tools and technologies, as well as programs like LeadersLab and Indie Games Accelerator that fuel ecosystem growth. We will also support activities run by community groups like Google Developer Groups, Google Business Groups and Women Techmakers.
With developers and startups from Southeast Asia rapidly driving growth across the region, we can't think of a better place to open this new hub. Come join us throughout the year for an exciting roster of events and meet people who, like Raymond, are looking to build and scale great products. Check out our schedule of events here.
Developers, designers, writers and architects: you built the web. You make it possible for the billions of people online today to do what they do. Have you ever tried to register your preferred domain name, only to find out it's not available? Today, Google Registry is announcing .dev, a brand new top-level domain (TLD) that's dedicated to developers and technology. We hope .dev will be a new home for you to build your communities, learn the latest tech and showcase your projects—all with a perfect domain name.
Check out what some companies, both big and small, are doing on .dev:
Like our recent launches for .app and .page, this new domain will be secure by default because it requires HTTPS to connect to all .dev websites. This protects people who visit your site against ad malware and tracking injection by internet service providers, and from spying when using open WiFi networks. With every .dev website that's launched, you help move the web to an HTTPS-everywhere future.
Starting today at 8:00 a.m. PT and through February 28, .dev domains are available to register as part of our Early Access Program, where you can secure your desired domains for an additional fee. The fee decreases according to a daily schedule. Beginning on February 28, .dev domains will be available at a base annual price through your registrar of choice. To find out pricing from our participating partners, visit get.dev.
Google has already started using .dev for some of our own projects, like web.dev and opensource.dev. Visit get.dev to see what companies like Mozilla, Netflix, Glitch, Stripe, JetBrains and more are doing on .dev and get your own domain through one of our registrar partners. We look forward to seeing what you create on .dev!
Originally posted on the Google Cloud Blog by Greg Brosman, Product Manager, G Suite Marketplace
Starting today, we're making it possible for you to access all of your favorite G Suite extensions in one place by bringing add-ons and web apps from the Chrome Web Store into the G Suite Marketplace.
If you're not familiar with the G Suite Marketplace, it's the app store for G Suite. Whether you want to boost your productivity, take control of your calendar or do more from within your inbox, you can browse more than a thousand options to customize how you work in G Suite. IT admins also have the ability to manage access and controls of apps from within the G Suite Marketplace—like whitelisting app access for users or installing an app for an entire domain (read more about best practices here). If you're an admin, you can access the marketplace from within the Admin console (Go to Tools > G Suite Marketplace).
Going forward, new G Suite extensions will be listed only on the G Suite Marketplace to make it easier for you to manage your listings. This includes all G Suite apps with add-ons, like Docs, Sheets and Drive. If you have existing apps listed on the Chrome Web Store, you'll have 90 days to migrate them. Here are specific instructions for editor add-ons, Drive v3 apps, and Drive v2 apps to get that process started. Ratings and reviews will be included in the migration, and existing users will continue to be able to use their apps.
We look forward to seeing your apps on G Suite Marketplace!
Posted by Erica Hanson, Developer Communities Program Manager
Our GDG community is very excited as they aim to connect with 100,000 developers at 500 DevFests around the world to learn, share and build new things.
Most recently, GDG Nairobi hosted the largest developer festival in Kenya. On September 22nd, DevFest Nairobi engaged 1,200+ developers, from 26+ African countries, with 37% women in attendance! They had 44 sessions, 4 tracks and 11 codelabs facilitated by 5 GDEs (Google Developer Experts) among other notable speakers. The energy was so great, #DevFestNairobi was trending on Twitter that day!
GDG Tokyo held their third annual DevFest this year on September 1st, engaging with over 1,000 developers! GDG Tokyo hosted 42 sessions, 6 tracks and 35 codelabs by partnering with 14 communities specializing in technology including 3 women-led communities (DroidGirls, GTUG Girls, and XR Jyoshibu).
Our community is interested in hearing about what you learned at DevFest. Use #DevFestStories and #DevFest18 on social media. We would love to re-share some of your stories here on the Google Developers blog and Twitter! Check out a few great examples below.
Learn more about DevFest 2018 here and find a DevFest event near you here.
GDGs are local groups of developers interested in Google products and APIs. Each GDG group can host a variety of technical activities for developers - from just a few people getting together to watch the latest Google Developers videos, to large gatherings with demos, tech talks, or hackathons. Learn more about GDG here.
Follow us on Twitter and YouTube.
Update: .page is now open for general registration! Find participating registrar partners at get.page.
Today we're announcing .page, the newest top-level domain (TLD) from Google Registry.
A TLD is the last part of a domain name, like .com in "google.com" or .google in "blog.google". The .page TLD is a new opportunity for anyone to build an online presence. Whether you're writing a blog, getting your business online, or promoting your latest project, .page makes it simple and more secure to get the word out about the unique things you do.
Check out 10 interesting things some people and businesses are already doing on .page:
Security is a top priority for Google Registry's domains. To help keep your information safe, all .page websites require an SSL certificate, which helps keep connections to your domain secure and helps protect against things like ad malware and tracking injections. Both .page and .app, which we launched in May, will help move the web to an HTTPS-everywhere future.
.page domains are available now through the Early Access Program. For an extra fee, you'll have the chance to get the perfect .page domain name from participating registrar partners before standard registrations become available on October 9th. For more details about registering your domain, check out get.page. We're looking forward to seeing what you'll build on .page!
Posted by Wesley Chun (@wescpy), Developer Advocate, Google Cloud
Google Cloud Next '18 is only a few days away, and this year, there are over 500 sessions covering all aspects of cloud computing, from G Suite to the Google Cloud Platform. This is your chance to learn first-hand how to build custom solutions in G Suite alongside other developers from Independent Software Vendors (ISVs), systems integrators (SIs), and industry enterprises.
G Suite's intelligent productivity apps are secure, smart, and simple to use, so why not integrate your apps with them? If you're planning to attend the event and are wondering which sessions you should check out, here are some sessions to consider:
I look forward to meeting you in person at Next '18. In the meantime, check out the entire session schedule to find out everything it has to offer. Don't forget to swing by our "Meet the Experts" office hours (Tue-Thu), G Suite "Collaboration & Productivity" showcase demos (Tue-Thu), the G Suite Birds-of-a-Feather meetup (Wed), and the Google Apps Script & G Suite Add-ons meetup (just after the BoF on Wed). I'm excited at how we can use "all the tech" to change the world. See you soon!
Posted By Ben Fried, VP, CIO, & Chief Domains Enthusiast
Today we're announcing .app, the newest top-level domain (TLD) from Google Registry.
A TLD is the last part of a domain name, like .com in “www.google.com” or .google in “blog.google”. We created the .app TLD specifically for apps and app developers, with added security to help you showcase your apps to the world.
Even if you spend your days working in the world of mobile apps, you can still benefit from a home on the web. With a memorable .app domain name, it's easy for people to find and learn more about your app. You can use your new domain as a landing page to share trustworthy download links, keep users up to date, and deep link to in-app content.
A key benefit of the .app domain is that security is built in—for you and your users. The big difference is that HTTPS is required to connect to all .app websites, helping protect against ad malware and tracking injection by ISPs, in addition to safeguarding against spying on open WiFi networks. Because .app will be the first TLD with enforced security made available for general registration, it's helping move the web to an HTTPS-everywhere future in a big way.
Starting today at 9:00am PDT and through May 7, .app domains are available to register as part of our Early Access Program, where, for an additional fee, you can secure your desired domains ahead of general availability. And then beginning on May 8, .app domains will be available to the general public through your registrar of choice.
Just visit get.app to see who's already on .app and choose a registrar partner to begin registering your domain. We look forward to seeing where your new .app domain takes you!
Posted by Jason Douglas, PM Director for Actions on Google
The Google Assistant brings together all of the technology and smarts we've been building for years, from the Knowledge Graph to Natural Language Processing. To be a truly successful Assistant, it should be able to connect users across the apps and services in their lives. This makes enabling an ecosystem where developers can bring diverse and unique services to users through the Google Assistant really important.
In October, we previewed Actions on Google, the developer platform for the Google Assistant. Actions on Google further enhances the Assistant user experience by enabling you to bring your services to the Assistant. Starting today, you can build Conversation Actions for Google Home and request to become an early access partner for upcoming platform features.
Conversation Actions for Google Home
Conversation Actions let you engage your users to deliver information, services, and assistance. And the best part? It really is a conversation -- users won't need to enable a skill or install an app, they can just ask to talk to your action. For now, we've provided two developer samples of what's possible, just say "Ok Google, talk to Number Genie " or try "Ok Google, talk to Eliza' for the classic 1960s AI exercise.
You can get started today by visiting the Actions on Google website for developers. To help create a smooth, straightforward development experience, we worked with a number of development partners, including conversational interaction development tools API.AI and Gupshup, analytics tools DashBot and VoiceLabs and consulting companies such as Assist, Notify.IO, Witlingo and Spoken Layer. We also created a collection of samples and voice user interface (VUI) resources or you can check out the integrations from our early access partners as they roll out over the coming weeks.
Coming soon: Actions for Pixel and Allo + Support for Purchases and Bookings
Today is just the start, and we're excited to see what you build for the Google Assistant. We'll continue to add more platform capabilities over time, including the ability to make your integrations available across the various Assistant surfaces like Pixel phones and Google Allo. We'll also enable support for purchases and bookings as well as deeper Assistant integrations across verticals. Developers who are interested in creating actions using these upcoming features should register for our early access partner program and help shape the future of the platform.
Good morning! Only one minute to go until Darin Fisher, VP of Chrome kick's off this year's keynote at Chrome Dev Summit 2016. Join us as we take a look at the latest web advancements with over 20 sessions presented by Chrome engineers. We're live streaming all sessions and posting videos throughout the next two days.
Posted by Roy Glasberg, Global Lead, Launchpad Accelerator
We’re delighted to open our call for applications for the third class of the Launchpad Accelerator. If you are a late-stage app startup from Brazil, India, Indonesia, or Mexico, we encourage you to apply here by October 24, 2016. Based outside of these countries? Stay tuned, as we expect to add more countries to the program in the future!
The equity-free program will begin on January 30, 2017 at the new Google Developers Launchpad Space in San Francisco and will include 2 weeks of all-expense-paid training.
What are the benefits?
During the kick-off bootcamp we deliver in-depth technical and business mentoring that enables our startups to tackle their specific challenges and successfully scale. Launchpad mentors hail from around the world and more than 20 teams across Google. In total, startups receive access to Google’s expertise and resources for 6 months.
What do we look for when selecting startups?
Each startup that applies to the Launchpad Accelerator is considered holistically and with great care. Below are general guidelines behind our process to help you understand what we look for in our candidates.
All startups in the program must:
Additionally, we are interested in what kind of startup you are. We also consider:
We look forward to learning more about your startup and working closely with you on building a successful business that has both a local and global impact.
Posted by Wesley Chun (@wescpy), Developer Advocate, Google Apps
At Google I/O 2016, we launched a new Google Sheets API—click here to watch the entire announcement. The updated API includes many new features that weren’t available in previous versions, including access to functionality found in the Sheets desktop and mobile user interfaces. My latest DevByte video shows developers how to get data into and out of a Google Sheet programmatically, walking through a simple script that reads rows out of a relational database and transferring the data to a brand new Google Sheet.
Let’s take a sneak peek of the code covered in the video. Assuming that SHEETS has been established as the API service endpoint, SHEET_ID is the ID of the Sheet to write to, and data is an array with all the database rows, this is the only call developers need to make to write that raw data into the Sheet:
SHEETS
SHEET_ID
data
SHEETS.spreadsheets().values().update(spreadsheetId=SHEET_ID, range='A1', body=data, valueInputOption='RAW').execute()
rows = SHEETS.spreadsheets().values().get(spreadsheetId=SHEET_ID, range='Sheet1').execute().get('values', []) for row in rows: print(row)
If you’re ready to get started, take a look at the Python or other quickstarts in a variety of languages before checking out the DevByte. If you want a deeper dive into the code covered in the video, check out the post at my Python blog. Once you get going with the API, one of the challenges developers face is in constructing the JSON payload to send in API calls—the common operations samples can really help you with this. Finally, if you’re ready to get going with a meatier example, check out our JavaScript codelab where you’ll write a sample Node.js app that manages customer orders for a toy company, the database of which is used in this DevByte, preparing you for the codelab.
We hope all these resources help developers create amazing applications and awesome tools with the new Google Sheets API! Please subscribe to our channel, give us your feedback below, and tell us what topics you would like to see in future episodes!
Posted by Uttam Kumar Tripathi, Global Lead, Developer Agency Program
Back in December 2015, we had shared our initial plans to offer a unique program to software development agencies working on mobile apps.
The Agency Program is an effort by Google’s Developer Relations team to work closely with development agencies around the world and help them build high quality user experiences. It includes providing agencies with personalized training through local events and hangouts, dedicated content, priority support from product and developer relations teams, and early access to upcoming developer products.
Over the past few months, the program drew a lot of interest from hundreds of Agencies and we have since successfully launched this program in a number of countries including India, UK, Russia, Indonesia, USA and Canada.
Having worked with various agencies for several months, the Agency Program has now launched certification for those partners that have undergone the required training and have demonstrated excellence in building Android applications using our platforms. The Agency Program hopes that doing so would make it easier for clients who’re looking to hire an agency to make an informed decision while also pushing the entire development agency ecosystem to improve.
The list of our first set of certified agencies Agencies is available here.
We do plan to review and add more agencies to this list over the year and also expand the program to other countries.
