The Developers Conference 2024 in Mauritius, hosted by the Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community (MSCC), was a resounding success - drawing a diverse group of professionals from the tech industry. It was held at the Caudan Arts Centre from July 18th to 20th, showcasing a rich agenda filled with insightful presentations, technical demonstrations, workshops, and panel discussions.

🕹️ Theme of the year : Retro Gaming
🧑‍💻 Total attendees : 1600+
💻 Sessions: 75+

The event kicked off with a keynote speech that set the tone for the conference.

Over the three days, attendees had the opportunity to engage with a variety of topics, including Artificial Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Mobile Development, and Career Development. The conference was also the perfect platform for networking, allowing professionals to connect and share ideas and aspiring professionals to see how what is the industry all about.

Dodo Dodge (Credits: Nicolas Strands)

One of the highlights of the conference was the Dodo Dodge game, a unique arcade-style game in which the player controls a dodo trying to avoid getting hunted. The highest scorer throughout the conference won some prizes.

The dodo in the game hopefully survived much longer than the real one 😟

A Note of Gratitude to the Squad and Sponsors

The Developers Conference in Mauritius has always been free of charge for attendees. This feat is only possible with support from many organisations each contributing in their own way, whether it’s through funding or just providing water dispensers!

Of course, the event does not organise itself.

The organising teams and squads all commit their personal time to the community and make sure that the bar for the conference is raised year after year. From contacting and following up with the sponsors very early on, to setting up the stage and putting in hours at the registration desk - their work is never truly over.

Community Presence

This is the event where you often see a gathering of many other communities in Mauritius, including our very own .NET User Group (Mauritius) who had a great lineup of sessions on Saturday, July 20th.

As a member of the .NET User Group, I also helped the community organise its sessions, workshops and activities.
We had:

• Dhanesh Purdaseea - RepoDB as an alternative to Entity Framework
• Samanta Luchoo and Kelly Quirin - Minimal APIs in .NET 8
• Vidush H. Namah - Health Diagnostics in .NET
• Jochen Kirstätter - Streamlining code re-use and distribution through NuGet packaging

Shoutout to Samanta and Kelly who are first-time speakers at the conference. Their session was very nicely laid out and well presented. They breezed through it like naturals with the occasional jokes and puns!

And now, I will attempt to brain dump some notes about a few sessions I attended during the event.

Panel Discussion: Cloud Native Strategies for Mauritian Businesses

Moderated by Ish Sookun

Panelists:

• Dawid Van Der Merwe (Solutions Architect, SUSE)
• Dr. Viv Padayatchy (Managing Director, Cybernaptics Ltd.)
• Delphine Bissessur (Head of Digitial at a Local Bank)
• Avinash Meetoo (Director, Knowledge7)

The first day itself kicked off strong with this riveting panel discussion around the possibilities of Mauritius adopting Cloud Native technologies and positioning itself as a pioneer in the field in Africa. The conversation kept us on our toes, diving deeper into what is being done right, and what needs to change in order for Mauritius to take a more prominent role in the technology industry.

As a technology enthusiast and a business owner myself, I could relate to this.

The Overlooked Aspects of Software Testing

Presented by Payal Ghoorhoo

People (at least in Mauritius) often underestimate the potential of software testing. It is often misunderstood as “clicking a button” and “reporting if it worked” - but that is never the complete story. There is so much more room for growth in this field.

Payal did a short and sweet session on this very concept, explaining the difference between being able to report on whether a button worked (or not) and contributing to the growth of a product with insights and improvements. Her session outlined the essence of software testing and quality assurance, putting emphasis on the difference in mindset that one should have when performing a check as opposed to software testing.

Game Development in C# using Godot

Presented by Fawwaaz Koodruth

Fawwaaz (also a first time speaker at the conference) did a great job at explaining the fundamentals of game development. He used Godot Engine and C# as his technology of choice to show how the different components that come together in a game can be created and programmed. As someone who does not do game development, although the interest exists, this session was very interesting to me.

He built a Space Invaders style game with the goal of avoiding enemies - and scored a grand total of 003 points. Not all game developers are good gamers 😂

The good news about this technology is how simple it makes everything.
Will you build the next GTA VI on this? Probably not (but then again, maybe you can - I’m no expert!). However, if you want to build an indie game that focuses on a good storyline and engaging actions, I can see this as being a very good choice.

Developers Conference 2025

On this note, it’s a wrap on the Developers Conference 2024.

The 2025 Conference has been announced!
Watch out for the call for speakers on the social media channels of the Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community.
See you there next year!