On the 26th of July 2024, I attended my first ever international tech conference - CityJS . Like many other participants, I had travelled to Singapore just for this conference. As a software engineer that works primarily on the frontend, attending a JS conference was very exciting stuff for me!
I had three goals for myself for this conference - learn 🧠, meet 🙋🏻♀️, and document 📸
🧠 Learn
Despite the conference having JavaScript in its name, the talks ranged from all things frontend to even AI. Very diverse, much like the melting pot Singapore is hehe 🇸🇬
Out of all the talks, these stood out to me the most:
AI in the browser and on the edge
by Thor 雷神 Schaeff (speaker notes)
Thor demoed how a combination of AI browser tools were able to instantaneously translate what he was saying in English to other languages. What’s more impressive is when he started speaking in Chinese and the translation having a pretty high accuracy!
The anatomy of a thinking machine
by Nicole Zhu and Gabrielle Ong ( jan.ai )
Nicole and Gabrielle introduced the concept of local AI which is when the AI model is self-run on the user’s computer. This is in contrast to cloud-based AI like ChatGPT where the model is run on remote servers owned by OpenAI. There are several benefits of local AI, most notably data privacy, reduced network latency, and offline capability.
View Transition API: Navigate in Elegance
by Trung Vo (speaker notes)
Trung’s very engaging and visual talk was about how we can bring PowerPoint Morph’s fluid storytelling to web navigation using View Transition. The View Transition API provides a mechanism for easily creating animated transitions between different website views. Between smiley emojis and cat emojis, it was definitely a laugh!
The web can be weird
by Elian Van Cutsem (speaker)
This talk was by far the most memorable 🤩 Elian reminded us that the web is weird and we can make it weird! He showed us all the fun little creations he made with the Battery Status API and WebMIDI. It was a good reminder that amidst all the serious work we may be doing with technology, at the end of the day, it’s good to step back and actually have some fun with what we’re doing.
The reality of learning at conferences…
Now to be frank with you, it was a struggle for me to concentrate 100% throughout the conference for various reasons - sometimes I was hungry, unable to understand the concepts, tired etc. And tbh, I think this is a common problem that most people face, because after all, we’re human 🥲 In the past, I would have thought, “Mannn, what a waste!” and felt bad for not giving it my all. But now I have a different perspective - I treat conferences as an opportunity for me to get exposure to a variety of different concepts. For example, if I hadn’t attended this conference, I wouldn’t have learnt about local AI, AI in the browser, and the view transition API. I may not have understood all of what was explained in the talks, but at least now I know that these concepts exist and should I want to learn more about them, I can. Essentially, a seed has been planted.
🙋🏻♀️ Meet
Now as an introvert, I had to put on my extrovert self to talk and network with people, and I’m glad to say I met quite a few people! Exploring the different booths (and gathering merch at the same time 🤭) was pretty interesting as I got the chance to hear what all these different companies are up to with their technology.
Probably the highlight was meeting Evan You - the creator of Vue.js and Vite ! During his talk, he mentioned how his users’ frustrations were the fuel for his work. Super inspiring ✨
📸 Document
Yups being the GenZ that I am, I took lots of pics, made a reel, and also a YouTube video 😀 Enjoy!
So yes, that sums up my first ever international tech conference experience! Thank you so much to all the organisers and speakers for making this conference happen, and thanks to my workplace for sponsoring my ticket! 🥰