Tag Archives: Firebase

Experts share insights on Firebase, Flutter and the developer community

Posted by Komal Sandhu - Global Program Manager, Google Developer Groups

Rich Hyndman, Manager, Firebase DevRel (left) and Eric Windmill, Developer Relations Engineer, Firebase and Flutter (right)

Firebase and Flutter offer many tools that ‘just work’, which is something that all apps need. I think you’d be hard pressed to find another combination of front end framework and back end services that let developers make apps quickly without sacrificing quality.” 

moving images of Sparky and Dart, respective mascots for Firebase and Flutter
Among the many inspiring experts in the developer communities for Firebase and Flutter are Rich Hyndman and Eric Windmill. Each Googler serves their respective product team from the engineering and community sides and has a keen eye towards the future. Read on to see their outlook on their favorite Firebase and Flutter tools and the developers that inspire them.

===

What is your title, and how long have you been at Google?

Rich: I run Firebase Developer Relations,, I’ve been at Google for around 11 years

Eric: I’m an engineer on the Flutter team and I’ve been at Google for a year.


Tell us about yourself:

Rich: I’ve always loved tech, from techy toys as a kid to anything that flies. I still get tech-joy when I see new gadgets and devices. I built and raced drones for a while, but mobile/cell phones are the ultimate gadget for me and enabled my career.

Eric: I’m a software engineer, and these days I’m specifically a Developer Relations Engineer. I’m not surprised I’ve ended up here, as I like to joke “I like computers but I like people more.” Outside of work, most of my time is spent thinking about music. I’m pretty poor at playing music, but I’ve always consumed as much as I could. If I had to choose a different job and start over, I’d be a music journalist.


How did you get started in this space?

Rich: I've always loved mobile apps: being able to carry my work in my pocket, play with it, test it, demo it, and be proud of it. From the beginning of my career right up till today, it's still the best. I worked on a few mobile projects pre-Android and was part of an exciting mobile tech startup for a few years, but it was Android that really kick-started my career.

I quickly fell in love with the little green droid and the entire platform, and through a combination of meetups, competition entries and conferences I ended up in contact with Android DevRel at Google.

Firebase is a natural counterpart to Android and I love being able to support developers from a different angle. Firebase also supports Flutter, Web and iOS, Firebase, which has also given me the opportunity to learn more about other platforms and meet more developers.

Eric: I got into this space by accident. At my first software job, the company was already using Dart for their web application, and started rebuilding their mobile apps in Flutter soon after I joined. I think that was around 2016 or 2017. Flutter was still in its Alpha stage. I was introduced to Firebase at the same job, and I’ve used various tools from the Firebase SDK ever since.


What are some challenges that you have seen developers being facing?

Rich: Developers often want to get up and running with new projects quickly, but then iterate and improve their apps. No-code solutions can be great to start with but aren’t flexible enough down the road. A lower-code solution like Firebase can be quick to get started, and it can also provide control. Bringing Flutter and Firebase together creates a powerful and flexible combination.

Eric: Regardless of the technology, I think the biggest challenge developers face is actually with documentation. It doesn’t matter how good a product is if the docs are hard to find or hard to understand. We’ve seen this ourselves recently as Flutter became an “official” supported platform on Firebase in May 2022. When that happened, we moved the documentation from the Flutter site to the Firebase site, and folks didn’t know how to find the docs. It was an oversight on our part, but it’s a good example of the importance of docs. They deserve way more attention than they get in many, many cases.

image of Sparky and Dart, respective mascots for Firebase and Flutter
What do you think is the most interesting or useful resource to learn more about Firebase & Flutter? Is there a particular library or codelab that everyone should learn?

Rich: The official docs have to be first, located at firebase.google.com. We have a great repository of Learning Pathways, including Add Firebase to your Flutter App. We’re also just launching our new Solutions Portal with over 60 solutions guides indexed already.

Eric: If I have to name only one resource, it’d be this codelab: Get to know Firebase for Flutter
But Firebase offers so many tools. This codelab is just an introduction to what’s possible.


What are some inspiring ways that developers are building together Firebase and Flutter?

Rich: We’ve had an interesting couple of years at Firebase. Firebase has always been known for powering real-time data driven apps. If you used a Covid stats app during the pandemic there’s a fair chance it was running on Firebase; there was a big surge of new apps.

Eric: Lately I’ve seen an interest in using Flutter to make 2D games, and using some Firebase tools for the back end of the game. I love this. Games are just more fun than apps, of course, but it’s also great to see folks using these technologies in ways that aren’t the explicit purposes. It shows creativity and excellent problem solving.


What’s a specific use case of Firebase & Flutter technology that excites you?

Rich: Firebase Extensions are very exciting. They are pre-packaged bundles of code that make it easy to add new features to your app from Google and partners like Stripe and Vonage. We just launched the Extensions Marketplace and opened up the ability for developers to build extensions for their own apps through our Provider Alpha program.

Eric: Flutter web and Firebase hosting is just a no brainer. You can deploy a Flutter app to the web in no time.


How can developers be successful building on Firebase & Flutter?

Rich: There’s a very powerful combination with Crashlytics, Performance Monitoring, A/B Testing and Remote Config. Developers can quickly improve the stability of their apps whilst also iterating on features to deliver the best experience for their users. We’ve had a lot of success with improving monetization, too. Check out some of our case studies for more details.

Eric: Flutter developers can be successful by leveraging all that Firebase offers. Firebase might seem intimidating because it offers so much, but it excels at being easy to use, and I encourage all web and mobile developers to poke around. They’re likely to find something that makes their lives easier.

image of Firebase and Flutter logos against a dot matrix background
What’s next for the Firebase & Flutter Communities? What might the future look like?

Rich: Over the next year we’ll be focusing on modern app development and some more opinionated guides. Better support for Flutter, Kotlin, Jetpack Compose, Swift/SwiftUI and modern web frameworks.

Eric: There is a genuine effort amongst both teams to support each other. Flutter and Firebase are just such a great pair, that it makes sense for us to encourage our communities to check out one another. In the future, I think this will continue. I think you’ll see a lot of Flutter at Firebase events, and vice versa.


How does Firebase & Flutter help expand the impact of developers?

Rich: Firebase has always focused on helping developers get their apps up and running by providing tools to streamline time-consuming tasks. Enabling developers to focus on delivering the best app experiences and the most value to their users.

Eric: Flutter is an app-building SDK that is a joy to use. It seriously increases velocity because it’s cross-platform. Firebase and Flutter offer many tools that “just work”, which is something that all apps need. I think you’d be hard pressed to find another combination of front end framework and back end services that let developers make apps quickly without sacrificing quality.


Find a Google Developer Group hosting a DevFest near you.

Want to learn more about Google Technologies like Firebase & Flutter? Hoping to attend a DevFest or Google Developer Groups (GDG)? Find a GDG hosting a DevFest near you here.

How is Dev Library useful to the open-source community?

Posted by Ankita Tripathi, Community Manager (Dev Library)


Witnessing a plethora of open-source enthusiasts in the developer ecosystem in recent years gave birth to the idea of Google’s Dev Library. The inception of the platform happened in June 2021 with the only objective of giving visibility to developers who have been creating and building projects relentlessly using Google technologies. But why the Dev Library?

Why Dev Library?

Open-source communities are currently at a boom. The past 3 years have seen a surge of folks constantly building in public, talking about open-source contributions, digging into opportunities, and carving out a valuable portfolio for themselves. The idea behind the Dev Library as a whole was also to capture these open-source projects and leverage them for the benefit of other developers.

This platform acted as a gold mine for projects created using Google technologies (Android, Angular, Flutter, Firebase, Machine Learning, Google Assistant, Google Cloud).

With the platform, we also catered to the burning issue – creating a central place for the huge number of projects and articles scattered across various platforms. Therefore, the Dev Library became a one-source platform for all the open source projects and articles for Google technologies.

How can you use the Dev Library?

“It is a library full of quality projects and articles.”

External developers cannot construe Dev Library as the first platform for blog posts or projects, but the vision is bigger than being a mere platform for the display of content. It envisages the growth of developers along with tech content creation. The uniqueness of the platform lies in the curation of its submissions. Unlike other platforms, you don’t get your submitted work on the site by just clicking ‘Submit’. Behind the scenes, Dev Library has internal Google engineers for each product area who:

  • thoroughly assess each submission,
  • check for relevancy, freshness, and quality,
  • approve the ones that pass the check, and reject the others with a note.

It is a painstaking process, and Dev Library requires a 4-6 week turnaround time to complete the entire curation procedure and get your work on the site.

What we aim to do with the platform:

  • Provide visibility: Developers create open-source projects and write articles on platforms to bring visibility to their work and attract more contributions. Dev Library’s intention is to continue to provide this amplification for the efforts and time spent by external contributors.
  • Kickstart a beginner’s open-source contribution journey: The biggest challenge for a beginner to start applying their learnings to build Android or Flutter applications is ‘Where do I start my contributions from’? While we see an open-source placard unfurled everywhere, beginners still struggle to find their right place. With the Dev Library, you get a stack of quality projects hand-picked for you keeping the freshness of the tech and content quality intact. For example, Tomas Trajan, a Dev Library contributor created an Angular material starter project where they have ‘good first issues’ to start your contributions with.
  • Recognition: Your selection of the content on the Dev Library acts as recognition to the tiring hours you’ve put in to build a running open-source project and explain it well. Dev Library also delivers hero content in their monthly newsletter, features top contributors, and is in the process to gamify the developer efforts. As an example, one of our contributors created a Weather application using Android and added a badge ‘Part of Dev Library’.

    With your contributions at one place under the Author page, you can use it as a portfolio for your work while simultaneously increasing your chances to become the next Google Developer Expert (GDE).

Features on the platform

Keeping developers in mind, we’ve updated features on the platform as follows:

  • Added a new product category; Google Assistant – All Google Assistant and Smart home projects now have a designated category on the Dev Library.
  • Integrated a new way to make submissions across product areas via the Advocu form.
  • Introduced a special section to submit Cloud Champion articles on Google Cloud.
  • Included displays on each Author page indicating the expertise of individual contributors
  • Upcoming: An expertise filter to help you segment out content based on Beginner, Intermediate, or Expert levels.

To submit your idea or suggestion, refer to this form, and put down your suggestions.

Contributor Love

Dev Library as a platform is more about the contributors who lie on the cusp of creation and consumption of the available content. Here are some contributors who have utilized the platform their way. Here's how the Dev Library has helped along their journey:

Roaa Khaddam: Roaa is a Senior Flutter Mobile Developer and Co-Founder at MultiCaret Inc.

How has the Dev Library helped you?

“It gave me the opportunity to share what I created with an incredible community and look at the projects my fellow Flutter mates have created. It acts as a great learning resource.”


Somkiat Khitwongwattana: Somkiat is an Android GDE and a consistent user of Android technology from Thailand.

How has the Dev Library helped you?

“I used to discover new open source libraries and helpful articles for Android development in many places and it took me longer than necessary. But the Dev Library allows me to explore these useful resources in one place.”


Kevin Kreuzer: Kevin is an Angular developer and contributes to the community in various ways.

How has the Dev Library helped you?

“Dev Library is a great tool to find excellent Angular articles or open source projects. Dev Library offers a great filtering function and therefore makes it much easier to find the right open source library for your use case.”



What started as a platform to highlight and showcase some open-source projects has grown into a product where developers can share their learnings, inspire others, and contribute to the ecosystem at large.

Do you have an Open Source learning or project in the form of a blog or GitHub repo you'd like to share? Please submit it to the Dev Library platform. We'd love to add you to our ever growing list of developer contributors!

Make Payments with Google Pay and Firebase

Posted by Stephen McDonald, Developer Relations Engineer, Google Pay

Connect Multiple Payment Gateways with Google Pay and Firebase

We recently launched a series of open source samples demonstrating the server-side integration between Google Pay and a variety of Payment Service Providers (PSPs). These samples also show how to create a unified interface for integrating multiple PSPs, making integrations as easy as possible by reducing the time investment in integrating multiple APIs and client libraries.

A recent study by 451 Research showed that for merchants with over 50% of sales occurring online, 69% of them used multiple PSPs. We first demonstrated with the aforementioned samples how you can implement a consistent interface to multiple PSPs, streamlining your codebase while also providing more flexibility for the future. We've now taken this one step further and brought this unified PSP interface to the Firebase platform, by way of a Firebase Extension for Google Pay, making it easier than ever to integrate Google Pay with one or more PSPs.

Google Pay Firebase Extension

Firebase Extensions are open source pre-packaged bundles of code that developers can easily pull into their apps, and are designed to increase productivity, and provide extended functionality to your apps without the need to research, write, or debug code on your own. Following this line, the Google Pay Firebase Extension brings the unified PSP interface to developers' Firebase apps.

With the Google Pay Firebase Extension installed, you can pass a payment token from the Google Pay API to your Cloud Firestore database. The extension will listen for a request written to the path defined during installation, and then send the request to the PSP's API. It will then write the response back to the same Firestore node.

Open Source

Like all Firebase Extensions, the Google Pay Firebase Extension is entirely open source, so you can modify the code yourself to change the functionality as you see fit, or even contribute your changes back via pull requests - the sky's the limit.

Furthermore, as the extension is backed by the aforementioned PSP samples project, the same set of PSPs are supported. Want to see your favorite PSP supported? Head on over to the PSP samples project which contains instructions for adding it.

Summing it up

Whether you're new to Google Pay or Firebase, or an existing user of either, the new Google Pay extension is designed to save you even more time and effort when integrating Google Pay and any number of Payment Service Providers with your application.

Get started with the extension today in the Firebase console.

What do you think? Follow us on Twitter for the latest updates @GooglePayDevs

Do you have any questions? Let us know in the comments below or tweet using #AskGooglePayDevs.

Creating an app to help your community during the pandemic with Gaston Saillen #IamaGDE

Welcome to #IamaGDE - a series of spotlights presenting Google Developer Experts (GDEs) from across the globe. Discover their stories, passions, and highlights of their community work.

Gaston Saillen started coding for fun, making apps for his friends. About seven years ago, he began working full-time as an Android developer for startups. He built a bunch of apps—and then someone gave him an idea for an app that has had a broad social impact in his local community. Now, he is a senior Android developer at Distillery.

Meet Gaston Saillen, Google Developer Expert in Android and Firebase.

Photo of Gaston

Building the Uh-LaLa! app

After seven years of building apps for startups, Gaston visited a local food delivery truck to pick up dinner, and the server asked him, “Why don’t you do a food delivery app for the town, since you are an Android developer? We don’t have any food delivery apps here, but in the big city, there are tons of them.”

The food truck proprietor added that he was new in town and needed a tool to boost his sales. Gaston was up for the challenge and created a straightforward delivery app for local Cordoba restaurants he named Uh-Lala! Restaurants configure the app themselves, and there’s no app fee. “My plan was to deliver this service to this community and start making some progress on the technology that they use for delivery,” says Gaston. “And after that, a lot of other food delivery services started using the app.”

The base app is built similarly to food delivery apps for bigger companies. Gaston built it for Cordoba restaurants first, after several months of development, and it’s still the only food delivery app in town. When he released the app, it immediately got traction, with people placing orders. His friends joined, and the app expanded. “I’ve made a lot of apps as an Android engineer, but this is the first time I’ve made one that had such an impact on my community.”

He had to figure out how to deliver real-time notifications that food was ready for delivery. “That was a little tough at first, but then I got to know more about all the backend functions and everything, and that opened up a lot of new features.”

He also had to educate two groups of users: Restaurant owners need to know how to input their data into the app, and customers had to change their habit of using their phones for calls instead of apps.

Gaston says seeing people using the app is rewarding because he feels like he’s helping his community. “All of a sudden, nearby towns started using Uh-LaLa!, and I didn't expect it to grow that big, and it helped those communities.”

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many restaurants struggled to maintain their sales numbers. A local pub owner ran a promotion through Instagram to use the Uh-Lala! App for ten percent off, and their sales returned to pre-COVID levels. “That is a success story. They were really happy about the app.”

image of person holding a phone and an image of an app on the phone

Becoming a GDE

Gaston has been a GDE for seven years. When he was working on his last startup, he found himself regularly answering questions about Android development and Firebase on StackOverflow and creating developer content in the form of blog posts and YouTube videos. When he learned about the GDE program, it seemed like a perfect way to continue to contribute his Android development knowledge to an even broader developer community. Once he was selected, he continued writing blog posts and making videos—and now, they reach a broader audience.

“I created a course on Udemy that I keep updated, and I’m still writing the blog posts,” he says. “We also started the GDG here in Cordoba, and we try to have a new talk every month.”

Gaston enjoys the GDE community and sharing his ideas about Firebase and Android with other developers. He and several fellow Firebase developers started a WhatsApp group to chat about Firebase. “I enjoy being a Google Developer Expert because I can meet members of the community that do the same things that I do. It’s a really nice way to keep improving my skills and meet other people who also contribute and make videos and blogs about what I love: Android.”

The Android platform provides developers with state-of-the art tools to build apps for user. Firebase allows developers to accelerate and scale app development without managing infrastructure; release apps and monitor their performance and stability; and boost engagement with analytics, A/B testing, and messaging campaigns.

photo of a webpage in another language

Future plans

Gaston looks forward to developing Uh-La-La further and building more apps, like a coworking space reservation app that would show users the hours and locations of nearby coworking spaces and allow them to reserve a space at a certain time. He is also busy as an Android developer with Distillery.

Photo of Gaston on a telelvision show

Gaston’s advice to future developers

“Keep moving forward. Any adversity that you will be having in your career will be part of your learning, so the more that you find problems and solve them, the more that you will learn and progress in your career.”

Learn more about the Experts Program → developers.google.com/community/experts

Watch more on YouTube → https://goo.gle/GDE

Follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn

Creating an app to help your community during the pandemic with Gaston Saillen #IamaGDE

Posted by Alicja Heisig, Developer Relations Program Manager

Welcome to #IamaGDE - a series of spotlights presenting Google Developer Experts (GDEs) from across the globe. Discover their stories, passions, and highlights of their community work.

Gaston Saillen started coding for fun, making apps for his friends. About seven years ago, he began working full-time as an Android developer for startups. He built a bunch of apps—and then someone gave him an idea for an app that has had a broad social impact in his local community. Now, he is a senior Android developer at Distillery.

Meet Gaston Saillen, Google Developer Expert in Android and Firebase.

Photo of Gaston

Building the Uh-LaLa! app

After seven years of building apps for startups, Gaston visited a local food delivery truck to pick up dinner, and the server asked him, “Why don’t you do a food delivery app for the town, since you are an Android developer? We don’t have any food delivery apps here, but in the big city, there are tons of them.”

The food truck proprietor added that he was new in town and needed a tool to boost his sales. Gaston was up for the challenge and created a straightforward delivery app for local Cordoba restaurants he named Uh-Lala! Restaurants configure the app themselves, and there’s no app fee. “My plan was to deliver this service to this community and start making some progress on the technology that they use for delivery,” says Gaston. “And after that, a lot of other food delivery services started using the app.”

The base app is built similarly to food delivery apps for bigger companies. Gaston built it for Cordoba restaurants first, after several months of development, and it’s still the only food delivery app in town. When he released the app, it immediately got traction, with people placing orders. His friends joined, and the app expanded. “I’ve made a lot of apps as an Android engineer, but this is the first time I’ve made one that had such an impact on my community.”

He had to figure out how to deliver real-time notifications that food was ready for delivery. “That was a little tough at first, but then I got to know more about all the backend functions and everything, and that opened up a lot of new features.”

He also had to educate two groups of users: Restaurant owners need to know how to input their data into the app, and customers had to change their habit of using their phones for calls instead of apps.

Gaston says seeing people using the app is rewarding because he feels like he’s helping his community. “All of a sudden, nearby towns started using Uh-LaLa!, and I didn't expect it to grow that big, and it helped those communities.”

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many restaurants struggled to maintain their sales numbers. A local pub owner ran a promotion through Instagram to use the Uh-Lala! App for ten percent off, and their sales returned to pre-COVID levels. “That is a success story. They were really happy about the app.”

image of person holding a phone and an image of an app on the phone

Becoming a GDE

Gaston has been a GDE for seven years. When he was working on his last startup, he found himself regularly answering questions about Android development and Firebase on StackOverflow and creating developer content in the form of blog posts and YouTube videos. When he learned about the GDE program, it seemed like a perfect way to continue to contribute his Android development knowledge to an even broader developer community. Once he was selected, he continued writing blog posts and making videos—and now, they reach a broader audience.

“I created a course on Udemy that I keep updated, and I’m still writing the blog posts,” he says. “We also started the GDG here in Cordoba, and we try to have a new talk every month.”

Gaston enjoys the GDE community and sharing his ideas about Firebase and Android with other developers. He and several fellow Firebase developers started a WhatsApp group to chat about Firebase. “I enjoy being a Google Developer Expert because I can meet members of the community that do the same things that I do. It’s a really nice way to keep improving my skills and meet other people who also contribute and make videos and blogs about what I love: Android.”

The Android platform provides developers with state-of-the art tools to build apps for user. Firebase allows developers to accelerate and scale app development without managing infrastructure; release apps and monitor their performance and stability; and boost engagement with analytics, A/B testing, and messaging campaigns.

photo of a webpage in another language

Future plans

Gaston looks forward to developing Uh-La-La further and building more apps, like a coworking space reservation app that would show users the hours and locations of nearby coworking spaces and allow them to reserve a space at a certain time. He is also busy as an Android developer with Distillery.

Photo of Gaston on a telelvision show

Gaston’s advice to future developers

“Keep moving forward. Any adversity that you will be having in your career will be part of your learning, so the more that you find problems and solve them, the more that you will learn and progress in your career.”

Learn more about the Experts Program → developers.google.com/community/experts

Watch more on YouTube → https://goo.gle/GDE

Follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn

Fostering an inclusive tech community with Evelyn Mendes #IamaGDE

Welcome to #IamaGDE - a series of spotlights presenting Google Developer Experts (GDEs) from across the globe. Discover their stories, passions, and highlights of their community work.

Evelyn Mendes, the first transgender Google Developer Expert, is based in Porto Alegre, Brazil, and has worked in technology since 2002. “I've always loved technology!” she exclaims, flashing a dazzling smile. As a transgender woman, Evelyn faced discrimination in the tech world in Brazil and relied on her friends for emotional support and even housing and food, as she fought for a job in technology. Her excruciating journey has made her a tireless advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), as she works toward her vision of a world of empathy, acceptance, and love.

Meet Evelyn Mendes, Google Developer Expert in Firebase

Image shows GDE Evelyn Mendes, smiling at the camera and holding an LGBTQ+ flag behind her

Current professional role

Evelyn works in systems analysis and development and currently focuses on Angular, Flutter, and Firebase. “I believe they are technologies with frame frameworks and architectures that have a lot to offer,” she says.

As an architecture consultant and specialist software engineer at Bemol Digital, Evelyn manages development teams that work with many different technologies and led Bimol Digital, through the process of switching their mobile app, originally developed in React Native, to Flutter. Now, Evelyn supports the migration of all Bimol Digital’s mobile development to Flutter. “Today, all of our new mobile projects are developed in Flutter,” she says. “I’m responsible for the architecture. I'm a PO and a Scrum Master, but I also enjoy teamwork, and I love helping the team work better, more efficiently, and most importantly, enjoy their work!”

Image shows GDE Evelyn Mendes, smiling at the camera and holding a mug with the Angular logo

DEI Advocacy

Evelyn’s kindness toward others is reflected in her advocacy for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in the IT and tech world. She takes a broad approach to diversity, advocating for safe spaces in technology for mothers, women in technology, Black founders, immigrants, and Native Brazilians to learn. “Diversity and inclusion are not just values or attitudes to me; they are a part of who I am: my life, my struggles,” she says.

Evelyn views technology as a way to help underrepresented groups achieve more, feel empowered, and change their own lives. “Technology will give you a better shot to fight for a better life,” she says. “I want to bring more trans people to technology, so that they have real chances to continue evolving in their professional lives.”

Image shows GDE Evelyn Mendes, interviewing a group of people and holding a microphone. They are standing in front of a camera

When Evelyn came out as transgender, she experienced intolerance that kept her out of the workforce for over a year, despite her innumerable skills. “Brazil, especially the southern part where I’m from, is still, unfortunately, not a very tolerant society,” she says. “Due to who I was, I wasn’t able to find a job for over a year, because people didn’t want to work with someone who is transgender.”

Evelyn was fortunate enough to have friends who supported her financially (there were times when she didn’t even have enough money to buy food) and mentally, helping her believe she could be true to herself and find happiness. She encourages others in her position to seek financial and emotional independence. “In terms of your emotional wellbeing, I’d recommend starting with identifying the abusive relationships around you, which can come from different sides, even from your family,” she says. “Try distancing yourself from them and those who hurt you. This will help you in your evolution.”

Evelyn recommends trans people in Brazil connect with groups like EducaTransforma, which teaches technology to trans people, and TransEmpregos, which helps trans people to enter the labor market. For trans and cis women in Brazil, Aduaciosa Oficial facilitates networking (tech 101 for women, classic dev community, meetups workshops), and B2Mamy supports women’s entrepreneurship.

Image shows GDE Evelyn Mendes, smiling at the camera. A woman is sitting at a desk behind Evelyn. She is slightly smiling at the camera and has her fingers on the trackpad of a laptop

Evelyn often speaks to companies about diversity in IT and how to be welcoming to women, LGBTQIA+ people, and other underrepresented groups. “I like it because I see that more and more companies are interested in the subject, and I think I can be a voice that has never been heard,” Evelyn says. “I support inclusive events, and when invited, I participate in lectures, because I know that a trans woman, on a stage where only white, ‘straight,’ cis people are normally seen, makes a lot of difference for many people, especially LGBTs.”

At BrazilJS 2017, Evelyn invited every woman at the event to join her on stage for a photo, to show how many women are involved in technology and that women are integral to events. She called her fellow speakers and attendees, as well as the event’s caterers, cleaners, and security personnel to the stage and said, “Look at the stage. Now, no one can say there aren’t any women in tech.”

At her current company, Evelyn approaches diversity as a positive and transformative thing. “I know that I make a difference just with my presence, because people usually know my story.”

In addition to her technology work, Evelyn is involved in the Transdiálogos project, which aims to train professionals to end discrimination in health services. She is also part of TransEnem in Porto Alegre, an EJA-type prep course to help trans people go to college. “I don't miss the chance to fight for diversity and inclusion anywhere,” Evelyn says. “That's what my life is. This is my fight; that's who I am; that's why I'm here.”

Image shows GDE Evelyn Mendes pictured on the page of a magazine. She is smiling and holding her birth certificate

Learning Firebase

Evelyn said she was drawn to Firebase because “Firebase is all about diversity. For poor, remote areas in Brazil, without WiFi or broadband, Firebase gives people with limited resources a reasonable stack to build with and deploy something to the world. Firebase uses basic HTML, is low code, and is free, so it’s for everyone. Plus, it’s easy to get familiar with the technology, as opposed to learning Java or Android.”

To demonstrate all the functionality and features that Firebase offers, Evelyn created a mobile conversation application that she often shows at events. “Many people see Firebase as just a NoSql database,” she says. “They don't know the real power that it can actually offer. With that in mind, I tried to put in it all the features I thought people could use: Authentication, Storage, Realtime Database with Data Denormalization, Hosting, Cloud Functions, Firebase Analytics, and Cloud Firestore.”

Image shows GDE Evelyn Mendes in a group of 4 people, two men and two women total. They are smiling and looking at the camera. All four wear lanyards for an event

Users can send images and messages through the app. A user can take a picture, resize, and send it, and it will be saved in Storage. Before going to the timeline, messages go through a sanitization process, where Evelyn removes certain words and indexes them on a list called bad_words in the Realtime Database. Timeline messages are also stored in Realtime. Users can like and comment on messages and talk privately. Sanitization is done by Cloud Functions, in database triggers, which also denormalizes messages in lists dedicated to each context. For example, all the messages a user sends, besides going to the main list that would be the timeline, go to a list of messages the user sent. Another denormalization is a list of messages that contain images and those that only contain text, for quick search within the Realtime Database. Users can also delete and edit messages. Using some rules Evelyn created in Cloud Firestore, she can manage what people will or will not see inside the app, in real time. Here’s the source code for the project. “I usually show it happening live and in color at events, with Firebase Analytics,” Evelyn says. “I also know where people are logging in, and I can show this working in the dashboard, also in real time.”

Becoming a GDE

When Evelyn first started learning Firebase, she also began creating educational content on how to use it, based on everything she was learning herself—first articles, then video tutorials. At first, she didn’t want to show her face in her videos because she was afraid she wasn’t good enough and felt embarrassed about every little silly mistake she made, but as she gained confidence, she started giving talks and lectures. Now, Evelyn maintains her own website and YouTube channel, where she saves all her video tutorials and other projects.

Image shows GDE Evelyn Mendes in a group of 4 people, one man and three women total. They are smiling and looking at the camera. Three of the four wear lanyards for the event they are attending

Her expertise caught the attention of Google’s Developer Relations team, who invited Evelyn to apply to be a GDE. “At first, I was scared to death, also because I didn't speak any English,” Evelyn recalls. “It took me quite some time, but finally I took a leap of faith, and it worked! And today, #IamaGDE!”

As a GDE, Evelyn loves meeting people from around the world who share her passion for technology and appreciates the fact that her GDE expertise has allowed her to share her knowledge in remote areas. “The program has helped me to grow a lot, both personally and professionally,” she adds. “I learned a lot and continue learning, by attending many events, conferences, and meetups.”

Image shows GDE Evelyn Mendes standing in front of a classroom giving a lecture. Her Firebase slideshow is projected on a screen behind her

Evelyn’s advice to anyone hoping to become a GDE

“Be a GDE before officially becoming one! Participating in this program is a recognition of what you have already been doing: your knowledge, expertise, and accomplishments, so keep learning, keep growing, and help your community. You may think you’re not a big enough expert, but the truth is, there are people out there who definitely know less than you and would benefit from your knowledge.”

Image shows GDE Evelyn Mendes smiling at the camera and standing next to a large Google logo on the wall beside her

#IamaGDE: Diana Rodríguez Manrique

#IamaGDE series presents: Google Maps Platform

Welcome to #IamaGDE - a series of spotlights presenting Google Developer Experts (GDEs) from across the globe. Discover their stories, passions, and highlights of their community work.

Today, meet Diana Rodríguez— Maps, Web, Cloud, and Firebase GDE.

Google Developer Expert, Diana Rodríguez

Diana Rodríguez’s 20 years in the tech industry have been focused on community and making accessible content. She is a full-stack developer with experience in backend infrastructure, automation, and a passion for Python. A self-taught programmer, Diana also learned programming skills from attending meetups and being an active member of her local developer community. She is the first female Venezuelan GDE.

“I put a lot of myself into public speaking, workshops, and articles,” says Diana. “I want to make everything I do as open and transparent as possible.”

Diana’s first foray into working with Google Maps was in 2016, when she built an app that helped record institutional violence against women in Argentina. As a freelance developer, she uses the Google Maps Platform for her delivery services clients.

“I have plenty of clients who need not only location tracking for their delivery fleet, but also to provide specific routes,” says Diana.

“The level of interaction that’s been added to Maps has made it easier for me as a developer to work with direct clients,” says Diana, who uses the Plus Codes feature to help delivery drivers find precise locations on a map. “I’m a heavy user of plus codes. They give people in remote areas and underserved communities the chance to have location services, including emergency and delivery services.”

Getting involved in the developer community

Diana first became involved in the developer community 20 years ago, in 1999, beginning with a university user group. She attended her first Devfest in Bangkok in 2010 and has worked in multiple developer communities since then. She was a co-organizer of GDG Triangle and is now an organizer of GDG Durham in North Carolina. In 2020, she gave virtual talks to global audiences.

“It’s been great to get to know other communities and reach the far corners of the Earth,” she says.

Image of Diana Rodriguez

Favorite Google Maps Platform features and current projects

Diana is excited about the Places API and the Maps team’s continuous improvements. She says the Maps team keeps the GDEs up to date on all the latest news and takes their feedback very seriously.

“Shoutout to Claire, Alex, and Angela, who are in direct contact with us, and everyone who works with them; they have been amazing,” she says. “I look forward to showcasing more upcoming changes. What comes next will be mind-blowing, immersing people into location in a different way that is more interactive.”

Of the new features released in June 2020, which include Cloud-based maps styling and Local Context, Diana says, “Having the freedom to customize the experience a lot more is amazing.”

As a Maps GDE in 2021, Diana plans to continue working on open source tech projects that benefit the greater good, like her recently completed app for Diabetes users, ScoutX, which notifies emergency contacts when a Diabetic person’s blood glucose values are too high or too low, in case they need immediate help.

She envisions an app that expands connectivity and geolocation tracking for hikers in remote areas, using LoRaWan technologies that can withstand harsh temperatures and conditions.

“Imagine you go to Yellowstone and get lost, with no GPS signal or phone signal, but there’s a tracking device connected to a LoRaWan network sending your location,” Diana says. “It’s much easier for rescue services to find you. Rack Wireless is working on providing satellite access, as well, and having precise latitude and longitude makes mapping simple.”

In the future, Diana sees herself managing a team that makes groundbreaking discoveries and puts technologies to use to help other people.

Follow Diana on Twitter at @cotufa82

Check out Diana’s projects on GitHub

For more information on Google Maps Platform, visit our website.

For more information on Google Developer Experts, visit our website.

#IamaGDE: Diana Rodríguez Manrique

#IamaGDE series presents: Google Maps Platform

Welcome to #IamaGDE - a series of spotlights presenting Google Developer Experts (GDEs) from across the globe. Discover their stories, passions, and highlights of their community work.

Today, meet Diana Rodríguez— Maps, Web, Cloud, and Firebase GDE.

Google Developer Expert, Diana Rodríguez

Diana Rodríguez’s 20 years in the tech industry have been focused on community and making accessible content. She is a full-stack developer with experience in backend infrastructure, automation, and a passion for Python. A self-taught programmer, Diana also learned programming skills from attending meetups and being an active member of her local developer community. She is the first female Venezuelan GDE.

“I put a lot of myself into public speaking, workshops, and articles,” says Diana. “I want to make everything I do as open and transparent as possible.”

Diana’s first foray into working with Google Maps was in 2016, when she built an app that helped record institutional violence against women in Argentina. As a freelance developer, she uses the Google Maps Platform for her delivery services clients.

“I have plenty of clients who need not only location tracking for their delivery fleet, but also to provide specific routes,” says Diana.

“The level of interaction that’s been added to Maps has made it easier for me as a developer to work with direct clients,” says Diana, who uses the Plus Codes feature to help delivery drivers find precise locations on a map. “I’m a heavy user of plus codes. They give people in remote areas and underserved communities the chance to have location services, including emergency and delivery services.”

Getting involved in the developer community

Diana first became involved in the developer community 20 years ago, in 1999, beginning with a university user group. She attended her first Devfest in Bangkok in 2010 and has worked in multiple developer communities since then. She was a co-organizer of GDG Triangle and is now an organizer of GDG Durham in North Carolina. In 2020, she gave virtual talks to global audiences.

“It’s been great to get to know other communities and reach the far corners of the Earth,” she says.

Image of Diana Rodriguez

Favorite Google Maps Platform features and current projects

Diana is excited about the Places API and the Maps team’s continuous improvements. She says the Maps team keeps the GDEs up to date on all the latest news and takes their feedback very seriously.

“Shoutout to Claire, Alex, and Angela, who are in direct contact with us, and everyone who works with them; they have been amazing,” she says. “I look forward to showcasing more upcoming changes. What comes next will be mind-blowing, immersing people into location in a different way that is more interactive.”

Of the new features released in June 2020, which include Cloud-based maps styling and Local Context, Diana says, “Having the freedom to customize the experience a lot more is amazing.”

As a Maps GDE in 2021, Diana plans to continue working on open source tech projects that benefit the greater good, like her recently completed app for Diabetes users, ScoutX, which notifies emergency contacts when a Diabetic person’s blood glucose values are too high or too low, in case they need immediate help.

She envisions an app that expands connectivity and geolocation tracking for hikers in remote areas, using LoRaWan technologies that can withstand harsh temperatures and conditions.

“Imagine you go to Yellowstone and get lost, with no GPS signal or phone signal, but there’s a tracking device connected to a LoRaWan network sending your location,” Diana says. “It’s much easier for rescue services to find you. Rack Wireless is working on providing satellite access, as well, and having precise latitude and longitude makes mapping simple.”

In the future, Diana sees herself managing a team that makes groundbreaking discoveries and puts technologies to use to help other people.

Follow Diana on Twitter at @cotufa82

Check out Diana’s projects on GitHub

For more information on Google Maps Platform, visit our website.

For more information on Google Developer Experts, visit our website.

Behind the scenes: How the Google I/O photo booth was made

Posted by the Google Developers team

A closer look at building a Flutter web app with Google Developer products

If you attended Google I/O this year, you probably stopped by the Google I/O photo booth for a selfie with our Google Developer mascots: Flutter’s Dash, Android Jetpack, Chrome’s Dino, and Firebase’s Sparky. If you didn’t, it’s not too late to jump in, take a selfie, and share it on social media! We loved seeing all of the pictures you posted and your favorite props! Want to learn more about building a camera plugin, layouts, and gestures used in a photo booth for Flutter on the web?

Android, Dino, Dash, and Sparky all gathered around the photo booth

It took a combination of Google developer products to make the photo booth successful. The Flutter and Firebase teams joined forces to build a best in class example of Flutter on the web that used Firebase for hosting, auth, performance monitoring, and social sharing. Take a closer look at how the photo booth was built here and then grab the open source code on Github!

Flutter team members having fun in the photo booth

Flutter team members having fun in the photo booth!

Announcing DevFest 2020

Posted by Jennifer Kohl, Program Manager, Developer Community Programs

DevFest Image

On October 16-18, thousands of developers from all over the world are coming together for DevFest 2020, the largest virtual weekend of community-led learning on Google technologies.

As people around the world continue to adapt to spending more time at home, developers yearn for community now more than ever. In years past, DevFest was a series of in-person events over a season. For 2020, the community is coming together in a whole new way – virtually – over one weekend to keep developers connected when they may want it the most.

The speakers

The magic of DevFest comes from the people who organize and speak at the events - developers with various backgrounds and skill levels, all with their own unique perspectives. In different parts of the world, you can find a DevFest session in many local languages. DevFest speakers are made up of various types of technologists, including kid developers , self-taught programmers from rural areas , and CEOs and CTOs of startups. DevFest also features a wide range of speakers from Google, Women Techmakers, Google Developer Experts, and more. Together, these friendly faces, with many different perspectives, create a unique and rich developer conference.

The sessions and their mission

Hosted by Google Developer Groups, this year’s sessions include technical talks and workshops from the community, and a keynote from Google Developers. Through these events, developers will learn how Google technologies help them develop, learn, and build together.

Sessions will cover multiple technologies, such as Android, Google Cloud Platform, Machine Learning with TensorFlow, Web.dev, Firebase, Google Assistant, and Flutter.


At our core, Google Developers believes community-led developer events like these are an integral part of the advancement of technology in the world.

For this reason, Google Developers supports the community-led efforts of Google Developer Groups and their annual tentpole event, DevFest. Google provides esteemed speakers from the company and custom technical content produced by developers at Google. The impact of DevFest is really driven by the grassroots, passionate GDG community organizers who volunteer their time. Google Developers is proud to support them.

The attendees

During DevFest 2019, 138,000+ developers participated across 500+ DevFests in 100 countries. While 2020 is a very different year for events around the world, GDG chapters are galvanizing their communities to come together virtually for this global moment. The excitement for DevFest continues as more people seek new opportunities to meet and collaborate with like-minded, community-oriented developers in our local towns and regions.

Join the conversation on social media with #DevFest.

Sign up for DevFest at goo.gle/devfest.





Still curious? Check out these popular talks from DevFest 2019 events around the world...