Attention to all of you who want to get inspired by the latest Google Cloud novelties, possibilities and customer stories. It’s almost time for the yearly Google Cloud Summit in Amsterdam, one of the most highly rated Google Cloud events in the BeNeLux. Google Cloud Summit 2019 is coming up this week Thursday 10th of October at RAI Amsterdam. It promises to be one of the biggest Google Cloud events ever in the region. In this post, I’ll cover what you can expect from the event and what you’ll take back to the office at the end of the day.
If you’re an IT professional with any interest in the Cloud, you probably know about Google Cloud’s flagship event in the United States: Google Cloud Next. Every year, the Google Cloud Next conference becomes a bigger and bigger event – showing Google’s ambition for and commitment to their Cloud business.
This year, Google Cloud Next 2019 took place in San Francisco. With more than 35 000 attendees and 122+ announcements about the Google Cloud products and solutions, Next 2019 was a huge success.
What is a Google Cloud Summit?
Building on the success of Google Cloud Next, and knowing that San Francisco is still a long way to travel to for a lot of IT leaders and professionals from all over the world, Google Cloud is organising smaller events like Next in every region around the world – called Google Cloud Summits.
For the BeNeLux region, Amsterdam is every year the place to be for the IT community to discover all possibilities of Google Cloud, as Google Cloud Summit Amsterdam is being organised there yearly. And as Google Cloud keeps growing at rocket speed, the same as the Google Cloud Next event, also Google Cloud Summit Amsterdam is becoming bigger and bigger every year.
What to expect at Google Cloud Summit Amsterdam?
So, yes, as an IT professional or executive you definitely don’t want to miss out on Google Cloud Summit Amsterdam, organised on 10th of October 2019 at RAI Amsterdam. But why should you go there? What will your day look like and which learnings will you take back to the office?
10/10 is the opportunity to talk 10X. To share ideas with developers, engineers, and fellow experts to explore the latest innovations, exchange ideas, and share challenges and solutions. – Google Cloud
Why go to Google Cloud Summit Amsterdam?
There are a ton of reasons why you shouldn’t miss out on the yearly Google Cloud Summit appointment.
For starters, you will be able to get up to speed with the latest Cloud technology from Google. Attending Cloud Summit will allow you to explore the latest technology trends yourself. Product updates, new announcements and roadmaps for what’s next for Google Cloud technology will be shared at the Summit through keynotes and sessions. Importantly, you will be able to see that cutting edge technology coming to life in live demos and through the customer stories of customers who already put the technology to the test for their business and use cases.
The general topics at this year’s Cloud Summit are Infrastructure modernisation, data management and smart analytics, application development, productivity and collaboration, and industry solutions.
Secondly, there is a huge opportunity to meet product experts from Google and partners; giving you the latest insights on the Google Cloud technology and applications to your own business case or tech stack. You can ask these experts for their guidance if you’re in doubt whether to use a certain Cloud technology at your company. And you can ask away all the questions you or your colleagues might still have about certain solutions or products.
Of course, thirdly, there is also the other networking aspect of connecting with likeminded experts and Google Cloud customers with whom you can exchange ideas. No doubt that you will get inspired from hearing how others tackle their business challenges and IT pain points.
What will your day look like at Google Cloud Summit Amsterdam?
Google Cloud Summit Amsterdam kicks off at 9:00 in the morning with an hour-and-half keynote which you shouldn’t miss, so be sure to arrive at least half an hour earlier to register and pick up your badge at the entrance of the Summit. Early birds can already register from 08:00 in the morning. Knowing Google, coffee will be provided, so getting there early is recommended.
Breakout Sessions
Then, your day at the Summit continues with break-out sessions scheduled for the whole day until a break and closing keynote at 17:15 in the afternoon. There will be 4 breakout rooms, so our advice is to take a good look at the Summit’s schedule before going there, already deciding beforehand which sessions you really don’t want to miss out on. Arrive always 10mins. or more before the start of a session if you want to be really sure that you can get in, because just like at Next the breakout sessions sometimes get full.
Concerning the break-out sessions themes, there is really a wide array of topics to choose from for everyone. Fancy a more technical deep-dive? Then attend the technical break-out sessions. More into the business side of the Cloud implementation? No problem, then attend the sessions focusing more on the business value and benefits the technology can bring. Breakout sessions most of the time consist out of a Googler explaining the topic of the breakout, followed by a customer or partner who dives more into the details of how you can use the technology in a concrete business case.
You can find the full program with break-out session titles, descriptions and speakers over here.
In-between Sessions & Recharging energy
Don’t worry about your energy level during the day: Google will make sure it remains high with a complimentary lunch plus coffee and other beverages all day. Knowing Google, there will also be plenty of space for you to rest or to do some work that can’t wait in between of the sessions.
You have a gap between sessions, or you can’t find a session that interests you for one of the time slots? No worries, you won’t get bored! There is a whole floor with booths by Google and partners, where you can talk to experts or see the technology at work in some demos.
Finally, the day wraps up beautifully with an hour of networking that is foreseen after the closing keynote at 17:45. If you didn’t have the chance to network yet during the day, take your last chance to do so!
What will you take back to the office after Google Cloud Summit Amsterdam?
Needless to say that you will get back to your office the day after Cloud Summit with a lot of inspiration, new insights and new contacts.
If you prepared yourself well for the Summit, you will take home answers to all the questions you had before attending – and more. If you didn’t prepare all that well, and went there just to see what’s happening in the Google Cloud world, you will be impressed with what’s possible with Cloud technology in your field of business.
And of course, if you took a tour of the partner & Google booths at Google Cloud Summit, chances are high that you will also go home with some nice goodies & other freebies.
Customers on stage at Google Cloud Summit
The Google Cloud customers that will be on stage at this year’s Google Cloud Summit are not the least, which already shows how enterprise-ready Google Cloud has become in the last few years.
The nice thing about attending Cloud Summit Amsterdam is also that the customers on stage are more local than the ones that you’ll see on stage in the United States at Google Cloud Next. This creates more proximity and you will probably be able to relate more to these customer’s business cases, as they are operating in the same market as you are.
Our customer Royal Belgian Football Association on stage at Google Cloud Summit 2018
And as a Google Cloud Premier partner active in the BeNeLux, we’re very proud to have two of our customers speaking on stage at this year’s Google Cloud Summit Amsterdam: Multipharma and PwC Belgium.
Multipharma
At 11:40, go to Breakout room 1 (this is the same one as the Keynote room) to hear the customer story of our customer Multipharma, about Transforming SAP on Google Cloud. Dirk Dussart, lead enterprise architect at Multipharma; and Kevin Moens, SAP solution architect at Multipharma, will join Googler Wessel Gans on stage to share their story of moving Multipharma’s SAP workloads to Google Cloud Platform.
PwC Belgium
At 15:25 you can go to Breakout room 2 to see Grégory Renier, manager online communications of our customer PwC Belgium, talking about the transformation of PwC Belgium internal communications and collaboration with LumApps social intranet on top of G Suite.
In sum, Google Cloud Summit Amsterdam is a yearly event to highlight in your calendar if you want to stay up to date with Google Cloud technology. Did we make you enthusiastic about attending Google Cloud Summit? You can still register for this year’s edition! Did we mention that it’s free?
Short notice for this year, but you want to be there next year? Keep an eye on our Google Cloud Events page, where we publish all Google Cloud events coming up in BeLux!