Skip to content
All posts

· 2 min read

5 Things You Missed at Devfest gDay x Cebu 2017

Around 1,200 people came to Devfest gDay x Cebu 2017 for talks, workshops, reverse pitching, Code in the Dark and giveaways. This is what you missed.

Symph Website 2025

If you couldn't make it to Devfest gDay x Cebu 2017 (we blame the unfortunate circumstances), this is some of what you missed.

1. The speakers

Our own Dave Overton, CEO of Symph, and Albert Padin, CTO and Google Developer Expert, were among the speakers who gave talks and ran workshops. We were also honored to have speakers who travelled all the way to the Philippines to share what they know with everyone: Manikantan Krishnamurthy from Google Developer Relations, Shang Yi Lim from Ezypay, Malaysia, and Jecelyn Yeen from Randstad, Malaysia.

2. Meeting fellow geeks

This year's Devfest reached a milestone for us, a crowd of around 1,200 active and passionate people.

Developers, entrepreneurs and aspirants came from all over Cebu and from outside the country. Besides the talks and workshops, the event became a meetup for geeks who share the same urge to make things that make life easier and the world better.

3. Reverse pitching

You know what pitching is, but this time we ran it the other way round. It was a first for local tech events and one of the highlights of the day.

Early in the program, entrepreneurs pitched business problems they wanted solved. In the afternoon breakout session, one of our speakers, Justine Win, ran a design sprint where teams of devs developed solutions to those problems. Near the end of the event, the teams presented their solutions to the entrepreneurs and the whole crowd.

4. Code in the Dark

For one breakout session we shut off the lights in a whole hall and left only glow sticks and disco lights on. No, we didn't disco. We coded in the dark.

Code in the Dark is a competition where developers implement UI designs without previewing them in a browser. The hall looked super cool, and so did the devs who took on the challenge.

5. Giveaways

Thanks to our generous sponsors, lucky participants went home with smartphones, a PS4, a Nintendo Switch, a Google Chromecast and Virtual Reality Kits. Yup.

Everybody got swag too, and most people went home with a Devfest gDay x Cebu shirt, which looked pretty good, by the way.

We are still hungover from it. If you missed this one, don't worry, because it won't be the last Devfest, and maybe we'll see you next year.

This video takes you back to the day: https://youtu.be/rIpzhgz5Y_o