As we gear up for another year of building apps & games, I can't help but get excited about the upcoming events in the Android and React Native developer communities. These conferences are more than just network gatherings; they are opportunities to dive deep into the latest frameworks, share new projects, and connect with the folks that are shaping the future of how we build apps.

Here’s my round up of the top events I’m excited to attend either in-person or virtually:

All the local droidcons in 2024! (multiple dates)

Droidcon remains a cornerstone in the Android development space and one that I love attending. Each city has a slightly different spin on where they focus and it’s worth attending to learn about the evolution of Kotlin, what’s new with Flutter, and how to keep your Android apps working across devices and form factors.

Personally, I’ll admit I’m a bit partial to the London droidcon since I end up learning so much each time I attend. Definitely consider attending Droidcon for keeping up to date in the Android space.

A look inside last year’s DroidCon London main hall

Mobile World Congress - Barcelona, Spain (Feb 26-29th)

MWC continues to be the place where Android and streaming announcements are made — and one that is useful for app decision makers to attend. It’s primarily focused on mobile and phone tech and has expanded into fintech, sports, and related spaces.

I’d recommend first looking up the sessions and sponsored pavilions to decide if it’s worth making the trip — MWC is one of those events that you will get the most out of if you plan ahead of time. Here’s a write up from the 2023 event to give you a sense of the size, scale, and focus of MWC.

JSWorld Conference - Amsterdam, Netherlands (Feb 28th - Mar 1st)

JSWorld is a community favorite and offers a WIDE array of topics for attendees to learn from and discuss with peers. Expect over 2500 attendees for the 3-day in-person event. Last year there were over 75 talks with topics including React, React Native, VueJS, Vercel, and gRPC.

You can listen to many of their previous tech talks on the JSWorld podcast site: https://jsworldconference.com/jsworld-podcast

React Native Connection - Paris, France (April 23)

RN connection is a popular single-day event focused on building React Native apps for mobile, desktop, and the web. For local developers, Le Tech Connection is running a networking event the day before dedicated to the React framework here. I’m excited for how they mix up the conference format to offer a mix of small group and 1:1 opportunities through the event.

App.JS Conf - Krakow, Poland (May 22-24th)

The team at Software Mansion runs this stellar conference for React Native & Expo app development. Poland continues to be the central hub of RN developer events and App.js Conf is one of the keystone moments each year in the industry. Make sure to check out some of the past talk recordings on their YouTube channel.

Chain React - Portland, Oregon (July 17–19th)

Chain React is hosted by the team at Infinite Red. This is a great conference for North American developers to connect in person on common topics. Infinite Red also hosts the React Native Radio podcast, maintains Ignite (the most popular boilerplate for Expo and React Native), and writes the React Native Newsletter.

React Native EU Conference - Wroclaw, Poland (Sept 5 - 6th)

My friends are regularly telling me to make it out to the React Native EU conference. “RNEU” for short is known for consistently delivering on the promise of deep technical insights. Run by the team over at Callstack for multiple years in a row, RNEU is now Europe’s biggest community-driven event.

The talks and panels are organized by a global team of world-class React and React Native experts who care about giving back to the community. It’s worth attending (live or virtually) if you’re looking for major announcements from RN leaders and new tools for improving your development process with RN across devices and app stores.

My teammate Anisha delivering a talk on StoryBookJS at 2023 RNEU

Android Enterprise Global Partner Summit (Virtual)

Each year Google puts on a enterprise focused event for Android app builders. Enterprise-level Android app development introduces unique challenges, and the event is focused on the tools and strategies for building secure, scalable applications for enterprise customers. While the in-person attendance is limited, the team posts the sessions online for anyone to watch after the event. Check out the 2023 sessions here.

Where to find more events and meetups?

There’s a lot more happening in the space and I’d recommend reading through Diego from Thoughbot’s detailed post on 2024 events since it includes ticket prices, locations, and which tech stacks are covered.

Make sure to check out the React team’s page on RN communities along with their comprehensive list of upcoming events for React. In addition, turn on notifications for React Native events happening on Meetup and Eventbrite.

Whether you’re attending conferences in-person or virtually, I hope you set aside time to learn new ways of building and meeting fellow devs solving similar challenges. My team and I will be at many of these events, so I hope to see you in 2024!

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