🎉 GAPAND 2016 is Over… What a Ride!

Well folks,

Another year in the books, and another edition of GAPAND wrapped up! 🙌 Honestly, this thing might just become a proper tradition at this point… but hey, time will tell. What I can tell you is that this was hands down the best edition yet, based on the only metric that actually matters to me: the feedback from you awesome people. And man, it’s been absolutely fantastic! THANK YOU! 🚀

You know what? That feedback is worth its weight in gold. Because sure, as you probably guessed, organizing an event like this is a massive grind. And boy, is it ever! We’re talking months of hardcore prep work, coordinating with a ton of people, juggling a thousand different moving parts, putting out fires left and right… all for one single day. ONE DAY a year! Yeah, we really know how to make life complicated for ourselves, don’t we? 😅

Opening session energy

But here’s the thing—all that stress just melts away when you see the vibe on event day. When you get to reconnect with old dev friends and make new ones. Because the real magic of GAPAND (like so many other 100% community-driven events) isn’t just in the technical sessions—it’s in the human connections and that electric atmosphere you can feel in the air.

Tech sessions in full swing

🙏 Massive Thanks to Everyone

So from the bottom of my heart, I want to thank everyone who helped make this event possible, whether in big ways or small: THANK YOU! THANK YOU! AND MORE THANK YOU! 🎊

Starting with our amazing sponsors because without them we’d have no venue (Universitat d’Andorra), no breakfast (Sant Eloi), no lunch (DevsDNA), no speaker swag (Eset), no staff shirts (Semic), no attendee freebies (Microsoft), no beers (Hack & Beers), and nothing cool to raffle off (Caldea, Andorra Turisme, etc.).

To our incredible speakers—you absolute legends! Not only are you technical rockstars, but you put in serious effort crafting mind-blowing content to create an epic agenda. And you do all this for exactly zero compensation… heck, you even pay for your own hotels (hopefully we can fix that in future editions). The level of community commitment is just insane! If that’s not pure love and passion for what you do, I don’t know what is. Standing ovation because you’re all absolutely incredible! 👏

More amazing sessions

And of course, to everyone who showed up to the event—without you, none of this makes sense. I was especially stoked to see way more women this year (though we still need more!) and loads of young developers (c’mon, us old-timers are gonna need replacements sooner rather than later 😂), including students from the university itself and even folks who traveled from pretty far away to spend a day with us in this tiny country. THANK YOU!

Special shoutout to my buddy Jordi, who had the patience to put up with me for another year and carry the load when things got heavy. Oh, and somehow managed to become our impromptu Community Manager too! Thanks mate! 🍻

Even more technical goodness

📱 Event Timeline

And to wrap things up, here’s a timeline recap with some of the best tweets from #gapand2016 🐦

GAPAND 2016 is Over

Author

Lluis Franco

Publish Date

07 - 04 - 2016