React Native EU 2020 Virtual Edition - Summary
Authors
The conference took place on September, 3-4 and was held fully remotely. All the talks were streamed live on Callstack YouTube channel so that every participant had the possibility to watch them comfortably and safely at home.
During these two days, 24 talented speakers from all around the world including core contributors and community leaders and representing companies like
- Facebook,
- Microsoft,
- Artsy,
- Expo,
- Major League Soccer,
and many more held 23 live-streamed talks covering the following thematic blocks:
- Cross-platform & architecture,
- Performance,
- Building interfaces,
- Testing,
- Native modules & guides on how to get started,
- GraphQL & data management and showcases.
During these talks, our speakers shared their knowledge and different points of view on React Native development basing on their diverse experience - from working at startups to managing developers' teams at big enterprises.
Thanks to that, every participant of React Native EU can find something valuable for themselves what makes the conference a great opportunity to explore the React Native framework and develop their own skills.
To avoid being groundless, let's see what our participants said about the talks on a special Discord channel dedicated to the conference:
If you want to know more details about the talks and speakers, you can find them on the React Native EU 2020 website.
Networking
Talks are just one of the elements of the conference. How about networking and gathering the community together? Although it may seem a little bit challenging to gather a few thousand people in “one” remote place, it wasn’t that difficult.
We created a Discord channel called React Native EU Conference with two rooms:
General - where participants could share their thoughts, insights, or comments regarding the conference itself.
q-and-a - for questions related to the talks. Now, we are working on a special podcast dedicated to the RNEU Q&A.
Thanks to that solution, every participant could feel almost like at an on-site conference and share thoughts and experiences with other React Native enthusiasts.
One of the most touching things was the moment at the beginning of the conference when people started to say “Hello” and posted their national flags. It showed us that we gathered people literally from all around the world!
After that, when speakers started to present their talks, more and more people were joining the channel and it turned into almost a real-life conversation. If anybody had some technical questions, somebody always answered it. If there were any questions related to the talks, our speakers were happy to answer them.
Q&A Panel
The Q&A Panel also had to change its form. This year, we decided to gather all the questions related to the talks on a special Discord channel (q-and-a described above) and then answer them during a special episode of The React Native Show podcast.
The podcast is hosted by Mike Grabowski aka @grabbou, MC at React Native EU conference and CTO at Callstack and his special guests:
- Monica Restrepo – Software Engineer at Major League Soccer
- Kudo Chien – Software Engineer at CloudMosa
- Eloy Duran – Principal Software Engineer at Microsoft
- Ram N – an Engineering Manager at Oculus
are discussing the following topics:
- The new architecture of React Native
- The multiplatform aspect of the framework
- General development of React Native.
It's a great opportunity to get knowledge from world-class React Native experts, Core Contributors, and leaders of the community. They dive into the questions very deeply what makes the podcast a must-watch (and listen!) for every React Native enthusiast.
https://youtu.be/OHSe66Dhs7M
As new episodes of The React Native Show podcast are coming soon, follow our social media profiles on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and YouTube to stay updated!
Summary
To wrap everything up, despite unfavorable circumstances the conference went really great. Nearly 6000 signed up for the event and, at its peak, the stream was watched by 1289 people!
That’s why we want to say big Thank You for all the participants and speakers, it wouldn’t be possible without you.
We are also pleased with the diversity of our conference participants. You virtually came to us from such countries as the United States, India, United Kingdom, Colombia, Vietnam, Brazil, Germany, Poland, Ukraine, Argentina, and more. It makes us proud of you all and bodes a bright future for us and the whole React Native community.
Although the conference is over, we can't wait to see you next year and we hope to meet you on-site. See you next year!
