What we run

The community meeting

One meeting a week, and it is the spine everything else hangs from. Each week has a chosen topic — artificial intelligence one week, Python the next, web development after that. A moderator guides the discussion so it stays organised, and the moderator changes from week to week so it never becomes one person's show.

The point is that it is interactive, not a lecture. Half of the value is in the part where members talk about their own week.

• A topic selected for each meeting
• Members share what they learned that week
• What they are working on right now
• A problem they are trying to solve
• A project they want feedback on
• Guest speakers when we can invite them

More about the community meeting

Study groups

Small groups learning one subject together. You do not need the leadership team's permission to start one — pick a subject, find two or three other people, agree a time. Members create and manage the groups around whatever they are actually interested in.

Certification preparation works especially well this way. People studying for a cloud certification can work through it together, share resources and keep each other consistent, which is the part most people fail at alone.

• Programming
• Data science
• Web development
• Mobile development
• Certification preparation
• Whatever else people want to study

More about study groups

Idea submissions

There is somewhere to put an idea, because good ideas come from anyone — including people who joined last week. Members can submit projects, workshops, events, competitions, community improvements, new study groups, problems they want to solve, or opportunities to collaborate.

An idea does not automatically become a community project just because somebody suggested it. The leadership team reviews submissions against a short, honest set of questions, and says so either way.

More about idea submissions

Project teams

Members find people whose skills complete their own and build something real. One project might need a programmer, a designer, someone who understands AI, someone responsible for documentation, and someone interested in the business or marketing side.

This is exactly why the community is not limited to programmers. The goal is to give students genuine experience of working in a team and producing something that exists when you close the laptop.

More about project teams

Hackathons and competitions

We organise and take part in hackathons. At the start the priority is participation and learning rather than winning — the experience of building under a deadline with people you have just met is the point. As the community gets more experienced, we run larger events ourselves.

• Internal KDU hackathons
• External hackathons
• Online challenges
• University competitions
• Technology competitions
• Industry-run challenges

More about hackathons and competitions

Demo day

Members present the projects they have been working on to the rest of the community. It is deliberately a little uncomfortable, because presenting your own work is a skill and the only way to get it is to do it.

• Present what you built
• Receive real feedback
• Practise communicating your work
• Build confidence
• Show your portfolio
• Find people to collaborate with next

More about demo day

In-person meetups

Most of what we do happens online, but a community that only exists in a chat window is not much of a community. At least once a month we meet physically — for coding workshops, hands-on sessions, project work, guest speakers, or simply to talk to each other properly.

More about in-person meetups