This was my sixth time speaking at GIDS! My first time was in 2016, so I have only missed out on a few editions during the last 10 years. It is a great conference, with a very engaged audience, so I am happy to be a regular speaker there.
The sponsor area is bustling with activity all day, and the rooms fill up even for the late afternoon talks. I guess the (in)fameous Bangalore traffic has some influence on attendees staying until the end.
I had two talks accepted this year. The first was Jakarta EE Meets AI, a very popular and well-attended talk. Presenting at GIDS is always such a pleasure since the attendees are very engaged and respond well to my (silly) jokes and asks great questions.
My second talk this year was about how to Boost Performance and Developer Productivity with Jakarta EE 11. Given it was the last talk on Wednesday afternoon, I was pleasantly surprised by an almost full room.
On Tuesday night, I attended DevRelJam Bengaluru – April 2025. This was the inaugural edition of this initiative, and I was invited to participate in an Ask-Me-Anything panel along with fellow developer advocates James Ward and Sourabh Bagrecha. The panel was moderated by the organizer of the event, Yashraj Nayak.
There were also talks by Ram Lyengar and Stephen Chin in addition to mingling and great food.