The devs, they had their day

On Wednesday, May 2, during Philly Tech Week 2018 presented by Comcast, over 15 speakers and nearly 300 attendees converged at Temple University’s Alter Hall for the PTW18 Dev Conference.

After a light breakfast, attendees headed in to one of four workshops. People were stoked:

https://twitter.com/BillZerega/status/991782657221627904

Our Delaware-based pals, Zip Code Wilmington, provided us with three expert instructors for workshops, and Chariot Solutions sent its top talent, @RimpleOnTech, who kindly shared his demo project, which generates a quiz-taking system on GitHub:

https://twitter.com/RimpleOnTech/status/993548021819432961

The Dev Talks portion of the day took the form of a choose-your-own-adventure book, with a dozen dev experts talking about real-world scenarios and the tools they’re using in four different rooms over the course of three hours.

There was plenty to choose from including all types of snacks from KIND and Red Bull to keep attendees energized. With talks like one on artificial intelligence, it wasn’t hard to keep the audience engaged. The applause speaks for itself:

We just finished our #ArtificialIntelligence #Devtalk with CIO @twenhold! If you want to talk to him more, meet us tomorrow for our #PowerHour. RSVP here: https://t.co/bzdXqKCTJt #ptw18 #Phillytechweek pic.twitter.com/ZsAdY6bCBo

— Power Home Remodeling (@PowerHRG) May 2, 2018

Power Home Remodeling even went as far as to make a video recap of their eventful experience at Philly Tech Week:

@PhillyTechWeek and @TechnicallyPHL #Intro18 were amazing! Met so many #developers who believe that #tech fuels the human experience & improves the way companies do business. #ArtificialIntelligence #ptw18

If you believe this too, find opportunities at https://t.co/fHKH6IaeL2 pic.twitter.com/ITeTogPgKP

— Power Home Remodeling (@PowerHRG) May 9, 2018

The “Social Justice Best Practices In Dev Spaces” presentation by Coded by Kids instructor Billimarie Lubiano Robinson prompted this tweet from our lead reporter:

At our yearly #DevConference, we're kicking around ideas about capitalism, social justice and technology with guidance from @typewritepoetry #PTW18 pic.twitter.com/DqvilPCIDY

— Technical.ly (@Technical_ly) May 2, 2018

Curious about what kind of social justice happens in the tech industry? Check out her presentation:

https://twitter.com/typewritepoetry/status/989923944051494912

All the way from Boston, Bitcoin Market Journal Publisher John Hargrave’s talk made for a packed room:

"Philadelphia, Revolution is your brand," so @BitcoinMktJrnl Publisher @sirjohnhargrave wants this city to join the vanguard of "the tidal of tokens" that Blockchain represents. "Napster is around the corner for financial institutions" #PTW18 pic.twitter.com/rIuMBAKqBD

— Philly Tech Week (@PhillyTechWeek) May 2, 2018

Oh hey, cool story, bro: Technically Media Senior Business Manager Vincent Better worked with Hargrave about 10 years ago in Boston. For the past couple of years, Better had been following Hargrave’s blockchain coverage on LinkedIn. When blockchain became a topic for Dev Talks, Better invited Hargrave to speak, and the rest is #PTW18 history.

With four workshops and 18 Dev Talks, from 10 a.m.–5 p.m., it was quite a packed day for hundreds of attendees and sponsors, which lead to this tweet about the always-fun Dev Happy Hour:

Leaving the office to go join the #PTW18 fun at Dev HH at @draughthouse #PTW #PhillyTechWeek pic.twitter.com/A8fiCsdYF9

— Marc Spiron (@IronSpiron) May 2, 2018

Want to see all of the Dev Talks + Happy Hour photos? Tag yourself!

See the photos

A big shoutout to all our 2018 Dev Conference sponsors. Thank you!

• Comcast
• University of Pennsylvania
• Cerner
• Power Home Remodeling
• EPAM
• TD Bank
• Elsevier
• Linode
• Ascensus
• CardConnect
• Chariot Solutions
• Deacom
• Temple University Fox School of Business
• Scalyr
• ReachMobi
• JPMorgan Chase & Co
• IQVIA
• ShopRunner
• Inspire
• Turn5