Immersing Jogja's Tech Scene
I FINALLY made the trip to Yogyakarta (Jogja) last week for 4 days.
My friend Muhammad and Delta (in picture) who are the co-founders of Qiscus, a Jogja based startup have always been planting the idea that I should visit Jogja to understand the vibrancy of the flourishing tech sector there.
Meeting Jogja's Software Development Houses
Once I told them I decided to go, they helped to arrange a few meetings with startups in Jogja. These meetings allowed me to evaluate better the capabilities of these software house as Voiddeck Ventures is looking at options to accelerate our deliverable. Outsourcing is one or the options and so I was there to share with them what Voiddeck Ventures planning to do and at the same time evaluate their competencies.We discussed ideas and share timelines but what I liked most was that I am able to look at the engineers and its premises. It is very interesting to see young engineers behind their development rig working in different rooms , coding away for various technology - from mobile phone apps development, CMS, websites and many others. All of them work on various projects concurrently but I am pretty impressed by the output despite their modest environment and unassuming outlook of the individuals. All of them are excited to work on the projects with Voiddeck and so am I !!
Qiscus's Tech Talk Invitation
Another thing I like about Qiscus is their attitude towards building a community and facilitating community growth by learning and sharing.
I was requested to give the Tech Talk #101 while I am there and so I obliged. Made myself to the Jogja Digital Valley at 7pm where it houses startups. I chose to talk about the topic - "Building an Effective Tech Team". It focuses on things that needs to be done correctly in order for tech teams to scale without also scaling the problems/issues that they might have as well. Attendees included university students, founders, engineers and business people. The idea is to share how investing in tools and processes will help companies scale up more smoothly. Yes, there are many other factors but I am just focusing on using tools and processes to build and effective team in this talk.
About 120-odd people showed up, more than what the organizer or I expected. I walked through with them how my team runs our scrums and sprints, what we did at various stages pf our sprints and the tools and processes that we use to ensure that we deliver quality software that is predictable while ensure healthy (happy!) developers at the end of each sprint.
In conclusion, I enjoyed the trip not only for the things that we can do but network and friendship forged during these four days. I am pretty sure I will be back there again soon and I am looking forward to continue to be there and perhaps just perhaps inspire more people to continue pressing forward as I do see great potential in them.
Slides used can be found here.