Welcome! Please introduce yourself

Hello everyone, I'm Rae. I'm pretty new to Android development and Java. I got half way through the Android Basics course before the scholarship came. I want to contribute to the project as much as I can with what limited knowledge I have so far, but I'm willing to learn any aspect, obviously, that's why I'm doing Udacity so I'll do whatever I can.

@rae2 Glad you've joined the project!

Hey, I'm Jessica. I have experience in IT and web development. I've taken an introductory Java course through Edx.org. Android is new to me though. I may be learning this for the first time but I have a wide range of other skills that can be useful. I look forward to working & growing with you all. Thank you, Janice, for the great idea!

@jessicaperkins1 Thanks for the kind words. So glad you're here!

Out of curiosity, do you do any web backend stuff?

You're welcome. Yes, I was learning on the job in a previous role. So I am familiar with databases and (of course) SQL.

Very cool!

Since I've never introduced myself anywhere else in the Udacity course, I think here would be a good place to do that. I am a sci-tech jill-of-all trades. I have several chemistry degrees but have been programming for a really long tiem -
mostly as an add-on to whatever career I find myself. About 4 years ago in response to Mitch Resnick's TED talk, I co-founded a local (St. Louis) non-profit dedicated to getting more under-represented groups into CS and IT by working with local schools and districts to get high-quality programming instruction into the classrooms (not as an extracurricular). My co-founder still runs it, but at a certain point - after telling class after class of girls that if they want phone apps that reflect who they are and what they want they need to learn to program apps - I realized I couldn't just tell - I needed to lead by example.

I started learning Android two years ago, and it was sheer stubbornness that has taken me this far. It's a hard system to learn, but since only 6% of mobile developers are women there is a SEVERE lack of software written for women and by women. I want to be part of the solution to that problem.

Hi, I'm Jessie. I'm an undergrad Computer Science student (20 more credits!) in New Haven, CT. Some of the latest things I've built are a machine learning program to classify music genres and a Raspberry Pi app that streams video to me of (and reacts with him through a buzzer-rigged pen, because he loves those for some reason, haha) my cat while I'm not home. I built a basic chat app with Firebase on Android for school as well as an alarm app at a hackathon that makes you solve math problems in order to wake up deep sleepers, but I relied on a lot of YouTube tutorials that didn't explain the processes behind the code. I got really frustrated at the last hackathon I went to because of my lack of Android expertise. I was on a team that was creating a project that was designed to hook up female tech students to fellow women mentors, something very near and dear to my heart, and we lost. I want to make sure that never happens again!!! Thank you Janice for starting this group and giving us a chance to properly introduce ourselves! I said 2 sentences in the #introductions channel and some dude fastparroted me, which made me kinda annoyed, lol. So nice to meet all of you!

I feel like I want to sit down with you over a cup of coffee and have you explain each and every one of those projects they sound so cool! Really glad you've joined us here! I agree, I really think Android will be disruptive to how women connect, work and live if only we can get enough female Android devs to make this happen. It's not that men wouldn't create them - it's just that they don't know what we need and I don't think it speaks to them the same way it would to a female dev.

P.S. Can I just say how much I hate those d*mn parrots?

This is me at android@scale yesterday. My first android event since a long time. I was a full-stack developer and moved into the mobile world in 2010 after pestering someone in the mobile team at IBM to be my mentor and to give me opportunities to do some mobile projects. I started creating the web service layer to support the mobile applications and connected with other fellow iOS engineers to help me get started in mobile development. I finally caved in and paid for my own MacBook Pro ($2000 or so). Since then I brought two laptops to work everyday (my IBM laptop to work on the services layer and my macbook to study iOS development and ask my colleague questions). I built my own apps, which are no longer in the AppStore because I didn't have time to maintain them. I went away from mobile and worked in capital markets for a couple of years before transitioning back into mobile development to lead a team of junior and senior devs using hybrid technology. I'm not fond of anything non-native anymore. My previous company left a little bit of sour taste in my mouth until the last year when we fully converted to native development so it's been 3 years of fully native iOS development. I'm learning Android development out of curiosity. =] I also studied psychotherapy for two years because I figured relationships with people are the best thing that life has to offer. I had to put that study on hold after moving to NYC to experience life as a New Yorker with my wife and work in the startup world.