PickMe Engineering spearheads local innovation at Google DevFest 2019

PickMe Chief Technology Officer Mithila Somasiri (far left) with a participant

PickMe Chief Technology Officer Mithila Somasiri (right) with a participant

The engineering arm of technology-driven mobility solutions provider PickMe, PickMe Engineering, was the Platinum Sponsor of the GDG DevFest Sri Lanka 2019, organised by the Google Developers Group (GDG) and GDG Cloud Sri Lanka, at SLIIT and Stein Studio on 23 and 24 November.

DevFest is a platform renowned for bringing experts in android, web, cloud and other Google technologies under one roof, including a full day of sessions, workshops and showcases introducing and revealing ground-breaking developer innovations.   

PickMe Chief Technology Officer Mithila Somasiri

Google DevFest 2019

The event also facilitates networking with IT professionals from across the world. This year’s DevFest saw over 850 visitors, with over 35 series of informative technical sessions. Described by many as the most sought after tech community event, DevFest is the best place for experience-sharing in a phenomenal atmosphere. GDG is an open and volunteer tech-savvy community which creates exciting projects and shares experiences about Google technologies with a passion.

Parallel to the activities of GDG DevFest Sri Lanka 2019, PickMe Engineering hosted an online gaming competition in association with Yaala Labs, with a grand stall to complement the theme of the event which was put to good use with engaging stall activities and technical sessions. Participants were able to witness PickMe Engineering’s knowledge and state-of-the-art technologies, such as a micro service-based system written using Golang with a Kafka messaging backbone running along with a state-of-the-art data science platform.  

“It is a great honour to have partnered the highly-anticipated GDG DevFest Sri Lanka 2019 as a Platinum Sponsor. We are more than happy to be able to impart lasting, cutting-edge technological knowledge among the youth of Sri Lanka, as we at PickMe always strive to seek and expose budding talent in the tech space of our island nation. With the presence of PickMe Engineering at this internationally recognised event, we are sure to prove that PickMe is more than just a ride-hailing app,” said PickMe CEO Jiffry Zulfer.

PickMe Engineering’s expert team successfully conducted full-day lab sessions on Go Zero to Hero (Golang), which saw the presence of IT professionals from the industry and university students. PickMe’s Chief Technology Officer Mithila Somasiri delivered an insightful session on ‘Emerging Tech Trends and Opportunities’, another highlight of the event which saw over 700 IT professionals and IT students in the audience. 

Following these sessions, PickMe Engineering also hosted the ‘DevFest Gaming Challenge’, an online gaming competition which saw over 1,300 contestants competing to get into the top 10 of the leaderboard to win special prizes. The challenging competition drew an enthusiastic audience of local and foreign IT industry professionals and university students.

Following the final rounds, the winners of the exciting competition were announced and prizes were handed over by Mithila Somasiri and Yalaa Lab Chief Architect Manoj Bandara. Lahiru Madushanka secured first place, winning Rs. 10,000 in PickMe Points, while Jagodage Hasitha Chandana came in second, winning Rs. 7,000 in PickMe Points and Ikshura Keerthiratne finished in third position, acquiring Rs. 5,000 in PickMe Points. 

PickMe Engineering, which houses an expert team of over 100 engineers, is located at the MAGA ONE Tower. It innovates and builds solutions that push the boundaries of the mobility space using state-of-the-art technology. PickMe is a multi-cloud platform handling nearly 500 million events every day across a distributed event-driven system. As the market leader and Sri Lanka’s most successful start-up business, PickMe Engineering has grown rapidly with over a million app users. The platform has evolved significantly with greater reliability and advanced architecture. PickMe is the product of the vision shared by the versatile fraternity that make up the board of directors and warehouse of the best local talent in the country. Its journey continues with its Founder Chairman Ajit Gunewardene and CEO Zulfer offering their visionary leadership.