Our summer intern, Ami Koga, attended her first DrupalCamp June 14-16 in Montreal. Here are her impressions from the camp:

Before the Camp:

My name is Ami Koga. A couple weeks ago, I started my summer internship at Evolving Web. I had no idea about Drupal before starting at Evolving Web. I did a bit of research on it beforehand; and the internet gave me some basic information such as 

• Drupal is a free open source content management system

• Drupal is easy to use

• Drupal users are supported by a big Drupal community

This was all very abstract to me until I attended DrupalCamp Montreal. Now that I have experienced the DrupalCamp vibes, attended presentations and training, and gotten involved in the Drupal community by volunteering at the camp, I have a much better understanding of what Drupal is.

Training Day:

The first day of DrupalCamp, I went to a Drupal training called “What is Drupal? An Introduction to Drupal 8”, presented by our team lead Suzanne Dergacheva. It was an Introductory Drupal course and the training was available both in English and French. It was my very first time trying out Drupal; and, I was able to understand why the internet claims that “Drupal is easy to use” over and over again. We started with installing Drupal (of course, it was free!!), then, we played around with it by adding content, inserting pictures, changing fields, etc. I created the following basic website within 2 mins without knowing any coding knowledge. Very simple, fast and easy.

Camp Day:

On the second day, I attended the camp as a volunteer, as well as a team member of Evolving Web. During the registration, I noticed a large variety of people came to sign in; all ages, all genders, from different cities, but all gathered for the same common interest: Drupal.

Moreover, the people who stopped by at our company’s booth were very passionate and motivated to learn more about Drupal, and chat with us about their future projects. “Wow, Drupal is actually used by many people from different fields”, was my first impression at the DrupalCamp. Beginners, developers and agencies are all part of the community and all seemed happy to discuss problems and ideas related to Drupal.

Presentations:

Overall, the presentations were the main and most fun part of the DrupalCamp. My Evolving Web colleagues presented 12 sessions, so I got to learn a lot from them! Here are some of the presentations I saw :

1. Our Co-founder and front-end lead, Suzanne Dergacheva was the Keynote speaker. She gave a presentation titled, “It’s All About the Experience: What I’ve Learnt from Talking to Thousands of People About Drupal.” The essence of the presentation was that we can learn a lot by looking at the Drupal experience from different perspectives and thinking about the personas of people who interact with Drupal. This gave me some insight into the Drupal community and who makes up that community.
2. Our Co-Founder and Technical Lead, Alex Dergachev presented, “Migrating 10000 Classic Books to Drupal 8.” He discussed the technical and business motivations for the project, and provided a technical overview of the Drupal migration.
3. Our UI/UX Designer, Annika Oeser gave us 10 tips on designing a website, so that we can make our own website projects. Annika's talk gave me insight into the web design process and how designers and developers interact.
4. Our Senior Drupal Developer, Jigar Mehta and Marketing & Content Manager, Meyzi Mazalto gave a presentation on Accessibility. Making a website more accessible can also improve the SEO value and usability of your site.

In summary, the 3 day long DrupalCamp gave me interesting insight about the Drupal Community. It was highly beneficial to my development as an intern at Evolving Web and I was glad that I took the opportunity to get involved in this community as it opened up a “window” for me into web development and design.

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