NDC Sydney 2016

Earlier this month I had the incredible privilege of speaking at NDC Sydney! Australia has been at the top of my most-wanted-to-visit places since I was young. I can't begin to tell you how excited I was to have this opportunity!

The jet lag, it is real

Yes. Very. The flight from San Francisco to Sydney is about 15 hours, and you lose about another day due to the time difference!

Part 1: Vacation

We flew into Sydney about a week ahead of the conference so we could enjoy some of the sights and culture.

Sydney from our hotel room

Sydney Harbour Bridge

Sydney Opera House from the Harbour Bridge

Manly Beach

We took a day-long group tour to the Blue Mountains, which was the highlight of our vacation.

Blue Mountains

Part 2: The Conference

NDC Conferences are a well-oiled software developer conference machine. They have conferences in Oslo Norway, London UK, and now Sydney Australia. Every event I have been to has been consistently awesome. They have a very professional staff, a fantastic A/V crew, and the best food.

NDC record all of their sessions, and make them available soon after each event. Go check out their invaluable library of speaker recordings!

I gave a refreshed version of my Node.js Crash Course (for .NET developers), including a bunch of new hand-drawn illustrations for the audience to enjoy.

Bonus Round!

While in Sydney, I saw a retweet from Rod Vagg:

Looking for a speaker for Thursday's #nodejs meetup in Sydney! Ping me if you'd like to talk about your Node adventures, favourite lib, etc

— Romain (@asyncadventures) August 1, 2016

I reached out to the organizer, and ended up giving my Electron talk to the Sydney Node Ninjas meetup! They were a great audience, asked lots of questions, and even laughed at my jokes! Or, maybe they were just laughing at my redneck English... ;)

A++++ would travel again

I had an amazing time. I will definitely do it again, if I ever get the opportunity. My only regret is not having more time to explore more of Australia outside of Sydney.