Join the Refresh Conference

Refresh Conference

If you’re interested in design and front-end development, you should definitely drop by the Refresh Conference on November 8th, in the Aa-Kerk. The second edition of this conference hosts a cool mix of leading international, national and local speakers and a wide range of subjects.

Refresh is a Groningen based, nonprofit, community-driven initiative by techies, nerds, and designers who work for leading development and design companies. The first Refresh Meetup was organised in 2014 as a way to exchange ideas and knowledge. Since then, over 25 successful and well attended meetups have taken place. The second conference is organized by Rebecca Brands, Hester van Wijk, Ron van de Graaf, Patrick Loonstra, Sythe Veenje and Joël Kuijten.

 

Sharing knowledge, building a community

“We have an active design and front-end community in Groningen, but it has always been a little fragmented”, Refresh organizer Joël Kuijten says. “So with this conference and the meetups, we want to build a community and actively share knowledge. We all have a passion for our profession and we love Groningen, so we want our professional field to grow and flourish here and collaborate more. Designers and front-end developers are in demand, but that demand exceeds the supply, so hopefully we can get a lot more people interested in pursuing a career in the field.”

“I’m also amazed by all the help and support we got from sponsors and partners in organizing this conference”, Joël continues. “It’s really awesome to know people believe in what we’re trying to do. We invited speakers with amazing stories this year and I’m really proud of that. It’s a diverse group of people and a wide range of subjects. It’s also really interesting if you don’t know that much about front-end development or design.”

 

International icons and trending on Netflix

There are 13 speakers in total, a combination of big names in the field as well as awesome locals sharing their passion, like Jeroen van Eerden, Jantine Doornbos (Dropper) and Diem Do (CodeGorilla), who won Amsterdam TEDx Women of the Year Startup Award last year. “I’m also really looking forward to Rachel Andrew’s talk about the new CSS layout. She is a real icon in our profession”, Joël says.

“And we also have a speaker who recently went viral on Netflix's The Mind: Explained with Emma Stone. Yänjaa Wintersoul is a world-record-holding memory champion and the star of multiple documentaries, TV shows and commercials including various talent shows around the world like Sweden's Got Talent, doing feats like memorizing the entire 328-page IKEA catalog in a week. That’s certainly something you wouldn’t want to miss.”

Check out https://www.refreshconference.nl for more info and tickets.