GDG Cloud Sydney

Summary (powered by Gemini):

Learn to build AI-powered web applications in this hands-on workshop led by veteran developer Tamas. He'll demystify LLMs, RAG, and other AI tools, showing you how to integrate them into your projects.

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As a web developer with over two decades in the industry, Tamas has always been curious about the next big thing shaping the field. Recently, he took some time to dive into the rapidly growing world of AI — unpacking buzzwords like multimodality, agents, RAG, large language models (LLMs), tokens, and embeddings. He wanted to go beyond the hype and truly understand how these tools can enhance the way we build. Now, Tamas is excited to share what he’s learned in a practical, developer-friendly way. His hands-on workshop is designed to empower fellow web developers — whether they're just starting their journey or have years of experience. Together, they'll begin with building full-stack applications, exploring frontend and backend development, data routing, and app management. From there, they’ll dive into AI, showing you how to integrate its powerful features into your projects. Tamas's goal is to make AI approachable, translating complex concepts into something relatable and actionable — developer to developer. By the end, attendees will be equipped to create intelligent, cutting-edge web applications that stand out in today’s tech landscape.

Light refreshments will be provided.

Agenda

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Speaker

Tamas Piros - Cloudinary (Director of Developer Advocacy)

Tamas is a Google Developer Expert in Web Technologies and a seasoned Developer Evangelist. He is a passionate advocate for modern web technologies, helping people understand and unlock the latest & greatest features of web development.

Hosted By

Reeya Maharjan,

Roshan Ghale, Community organiser

A passionate Software Engineer skilled in JavaScript, React, Node.js, as well as Salesforce Development. Currently I am working as a Software Engineer at Practifi.

Ryan Snowden, Community Organiser

Sajan Shrestha, Community organiser

Rohit Maharjan, Community Organiser

Hi, I’m Rohit, a dedicated software engineer with 2 years of experience and a
keen interest in transitioning to a DevOps role. I have a strong background in
building digital solutions using PHP, JavaScript (React.js), and MySQL. My
passion for cloud technologies and continuous integration/deployment
(CI/CD) drives me to further develop my skills in DevOps. I am eager to
leverage my development experience and cloud knowledge to contribute to
a dynamic DevOps team.

Adhish Panta, Community Organiser

Geshan Manandhar, Community organiser

Geshan is a seasoned software engineer, with over 15 years of software engineering experience. Currently, in Sydney, Australia serving Simply Wall St. as a senior software engineer. He is a language-agnostic software engineer who believes the value provided to the business is more important than the choice of language or framework. With a keen interest in REST architecture, microservices, agile software engineering, and serverless, he has spoken at tech conferences in the Middle East, Europe, the United States, and Australia. He is actively involved with the developer community and is a Google Developer Expert (GDE) for the Google Cloud Platform (GCP). He is a certified scrum master too. Blogging since 2007, he has a well-maintained tech blog where he shares his views and ideas.

Gary Lou, Community organiser

Siddhesh Shivdikar, Senior Software Engineer Android

I'm Siddhesh (Sid), a Senior Software Engineer specialising in Mobile App Development, based in Sydney. My mantra is to merge my love for technology with my desire to make a positive impact on the community. I completed my master's in Information Technology from UNSW.

With over five years of experience in developing mobile apps, I've aligned myself with opportunities that bolster my transformation journey. I helped Agarwal Cars Transport create a PWA to automate payments, invoices, data collection, and delivery status tracking for clients like OLA, Uber, and Cars 24. During the COVID-19 pandemic, I helped an organization establish their e-commerce platform via Flutter for mobile and React for the web. Additionally, I supported Ampol in their transformation from a fuel-based company to an energy-based company, leveraging EV-Charging and HomeEnergy solutions.

My journey continues as I strive to create the same impact through hackathons. I won the SIH Smart India Hackathon by developing an Android Backdoor app to track and navigate criminals. I also developed a POC to stop the spread of misinformation during the Massachusetts Institute of Technology COVID-19 Hackathon.

I devote my time to giving back to the community and empowering others by volunteering as a co-organiser at GDG Sydney. I share knowledge and organise monthly meetups alongside my fellow organisers. Please feel free to reach out if you want to be part of the community or are willing to empower the community by presenting your knowledge.

Kunal Ostwal,

Luke Moody, Founder

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Partner

Cloudinary (https://cloudinary.com/home)
Trusted by more than 2 million developers and 10,000 enterprise and hyper-growth companies as a critical part of their tech stack.

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Complete your event RSVP here: https://gdg.community.dev/events/details/google-gdg-cloud-sydney-presents-build-with-ai-practical-ai-for-web-developers/.

GDG Cloud Sydney is back for a meetup this April! Join us for an evening of interesting technical talks.

Come Hire!
The meetup allocates 10 minutes to people seeking technical jobs or with open roles at their company.

This meetup is in the in-person format; there are no plans to stream the event*

Partners
This meetup is organised in partnership with Mantel Group. They harness technologies that transform business operations in the real world. With capabilities spanning Cloud, Data, Digital and Security, they merge emerging technologies with innovative design and industry expertise to enhance your business. With deep technical specialisation and as leading Amazon, Google and Microsoft cloud partners, the depth and breadth our solutions offer is unparalleled. Mantel Group is your partner for end-to-end digital transformation.

Ranked in Australia's top 10 Best Workplaces by Great Place To Work Australia for four years in a row, we are people-focused and uphold strong values. Our culture champions trust, empowerment, and diversity with a lean structure emphasizing collaboration, direct communication, and equity.

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"Dented Code teaches coding skills that you need to become a full stack developer and help you advance your career, pursue your dream job, or enjoy the freedom of life as a freelancer." - Learn more on their website.

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We will also give out two licenses from JetBrains 1-year subscription to any of JetBrains' IDEs with a raffle. You can use the 100% discount code on CLion, DataGrip, DataSpell, GoLand, IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate, PhpStorm, PyCharm, ReSharper, ReSharper C++, Rider, RubyMine, WebStorm, or dotUltimate.

Talks
Talk 1: Beyond Chatbots: Next-Gen Customer Support - Prakash Ghimire

As customer expectations continue to evolve, businesses must move beyond traditional chatbots to provide more efficient, intelligent, and human-like support experiences. This talk explores the next generation of customer service solutions powered by LiveKit and Google Gemini, combining real-time communication with advanced AI-driven interactions. LiveKit, leveraging WebRTC technology, enables seamless, high-quality voice and video communication, ensuring instant, low-latency engagement between customers and support agents. 

Meanwhile, Google Gemini enhances chatbot capabilities with deep contextual understanding, adaptive responses, and natural language processing, allowing for more personalized and effective interactions. This discussion will explore how organizations can leverage these innovations to redefine customer support, optimize operational efficiency, and set new standards in service excellence, ensuring they stay ahead in an increasingly competitive digital landscape.

About the speaker - Prakash

Prakash is a Senior Software Engineer at Fireflies.ai with a passion for problem-solving and innovation. He enjoys diving into the nitty-gritty of systems, understanding their intricacies, and optimizing them for efficiency and scalability

Talk 2:  Building agentic AI workflows with Gemini and Google Cloud - Harini Janakiraman

In this talk, Harini Janakiraman, co-founder and CEO of BuildShip, will demo how to build agentic AI workflows for your business on Google Cloud using Gemini and other models. We will cover three examples: web scraping, lead qualification, and data transformation pipelines, all with a comprehensive toolkit to kickstart your production-grade AI workflow ideas and enable quick deployment on backend systems in Google Cloud.

About the speaker - Harini

Harini is the co-founder and CEO of Buildship, where they create a visual backend and AI workflow builder to power the next wave of developers, builders, makers, and creators. BuildShip gives the ease of no-code with the power of code and AI- to build any product idea with just plain english.

Event Schedule
5:30pm - Event doors open

5:45pm - Introduction and hiring connect for those hiring/wanting to be hired (5 mins for each group, and every individual gets 1 min max)

6:00pm - Beyond Chatbots: Next-Gen Customer Support - Prakash Ghimire

6:45pm - Building agentic AI workflows with Gemini and Google Cloud - Harini Janakiraman

7:30pm - Raffle for the 2 JetBrains IDE licenses

8:00pm - Event end

Agenda

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Speakers

Prakash Ghimire - Fireflies.ai (Senior Software Engineer)

Prakash is a Senior Software Engineer at Fireflies.ai with a passion for problem-solving and innovation. He enjoys diving into the nitty-gritty of systems, understanding their intricacies, and optimizing them for efficiency and scalability.

Harini Janakiraman - Buildship (Co-founder & CEO)

Harini is the co-founder and CEO of Buildship, where they create a visual backend and AI workflow builder to power the next wave of developers, builders, makers, and creators. BuildShip gives the ease of no-code with the power of code and AI- to build any product idea with just plain english.

Hosts

Reeya Maharajan - The Butcher's Block Group (Junior Developer)

Gary Lou - GDSC USYD (AI/ML Technical Lead)

Bachelor of Science (Data Science) and Bachelor of Laws at The University of Sydney.

Rohit Maharjan

Sajan Shrestha

Kunal Ostwal

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Partners

Mantel Group (https://mantelgroup.com.au/)
Mantel Group harnesses technologies that transform business operations in the real world. With capabilities spanning Cloud, Data, Digital, and Security, they merge emerging technologies with innovative design and industry expertise to enhance your business. With deep technical specialisation and as leading Amazon, Google and Microsoft cloud partners, the depth and breadth our solutions offer is unparalleled. Mantel Group is your partner for end-to-end digital transformation.

Ranked in Australia's top 10 Best Workplaces by Great Place To Work Australia for four years in a row, we are people-focused and uphold strong values. Our culture champions trust, empowerment, and diversity, with a lean structure that emphasises collaboration, direct communication and equity.

JetBrains (https://www.jetbrains.com)
At JetBrains, code is our passion. Ever since we started, back in 2000, we have strived to make the strongest, most effective developer tools on earth. By automating routine checks and corrections, our tools speed up production, freeing developers to grow, discover and create.

Our Mission
We make professional software development a more productive and enjoyable experience.

Dented Code (https://dentedcode.com)
At Dented Code, we have developed an innovative coding Bootcamp approach to empower candidates with cutting-edge technology and skills to thrive in the Australian multi-billion digital economy. In 2021, Dented Code started transferring those programming skills to students through BootCamp courses, in-school workshops, community upskill initiatives as well as online tutorials. Through DetedCode’s BootCamp, students get equipped with in-demand coding and web development skills.

Google Cloud (https://cloud.withgoogle.com/next/sf/)

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Complete your event RSVP here: https://gdg.community.dev/events/details/google-gdg-cloud-sydney-presents-gdg-sydney-meetup-april-2025/.