Droidcon UK – Europe’s Largest Android Developer Conference Is Bigger and Better Than Ever

Droidcon UK may have been and gone, but the memories of this years event will be with us for a long time to come. The biggest Droidcon UK yet took place in late October and was an exceptional example of what we can achieve together as a community.

With sponsors and attendees covering aspects of the industry including Android security, app distribution platforms, app creation and content management there was something for everyone as the event kicked off. Two of the key highlights of the event were Chet Haase's satirical closing keynote on day one and the more serious opening talk on day two, where he ran through the changes made to Android since the release of Android 7.0.

We took a moment to speak to Wendy from Skills Matter, the organisers of Droidcon UK to discuss the future of the event. Having sold out of tickets to this year's event and having also reached the event space's capacity, Skills Matter has sought to make the large jump from their current location in the Gallery Hall of the Business Design Centre to the much larger 2560 m² mezzanine (which attendees to previous years events will recognise as the centre's main hall.) and convert the old venue in to an additional auditorium large enough to fit 1200 people, ideal for the more popular talks.

This year's event ended with the London Hack Weekend, a two-day hackathon in London's largest tech based venue Code Node. Here entrants were faced with three challenges of which to choose including:

• Creating an app for Zebra's TC8000 an Android-based handheld computer and scanner designed for use in enterprises,
• Build something with FireBase,
• Or build something with Equal Expert's Bluetoothtap, a BLE beacon with the added functionality of  "tapping" in a similar manner to NFC but with the added benefit of being compatible with all Android and iOS devices.

The Winner of XDA's prize at the hackathon, was Daniel Mallcott with his idea to expedite queues at Droidcon in future years.

With so much going on at the event it's hard to catch everything, If you missed one of the talks this year, you can watch the talk again over at Skillscast and watch interviews with the speakers here.

Noah Falstein: VR and AR – Technologies 40,000 years in the making,
Chet Haase: What's New in Android,
Dario Incalza: Android Application Security the Right Way,
Amrit Sanjeev: Optimising Apps For the Next Billion Users,
View the complete list of talks here

Thank you to Wendy and the entire Skills Matter and Droidcon team. Were you at Droidcon UK? Check Skills Matter complete album on Flickr to see if you can spot yourself!

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