GDG Brunswick Newsletter
GDG Brunswick Newsletter
September 2026 Edition
September 2026 Edition
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A note from Naomi
A note from Naomi
Happy September, builders!
The question I get most is some version of "am I technical enough for this?" After two years of this chapter, here is what I know: the people who ask it are almost always the ones who get the most out of walking through the door.
So we built October around them.
DevFest Brunswick 2026, The Smart Marsh, is three linked virtual weeks that move from building a working thing, to making it better, to standing up and showing it. No experience required, and I mean that as a design decision rather than a nicety. You bring an idea about the coast or your community. Mentors build alongside you. Cameras are optional, resources come out in advance, and Demo Day has a whole division just for first-time builders.
And on October 8, ahead of all of it, a Small Business AI Clinic with GDG Baltimore for anyone drowning in manual tasks who suspects AI could help but does not know where to start.
We are 541 members now. A volunteer chapter in a small coastal city, still choosing to build things that matter for this place specifically. 🌊
Naomi
Community snapshot
Community snapshot
Chapter numbers, September 2026
Chapter members 541 | New members last 90 days 45 | Community events co-hosted 7
DevFest Brunswick 2026
DevFest Brunswick 2026
The Smart Marsh
Three Wednesdays · Oct 14, 21, 28 · 2:00 PM EDT · Virtual · Free
Build for the coast. Build with community.
Week 1 · Make It Work
Wednesday, October 14 · 2:00 to 3:30 PM EDT · Virtual
Bring an idea about the coast or a community issue and leave with a working prototype. Mentors support live, collaborative building, and AI tools mean you do not need a coding background to make something real. Cameras are optional. Resources are shared in advance.
Week 2 · Make It Better
Wednesday, October 21 · 2:00 to 3:30 PM EDT · Virtual
Take what you built and improve it. This session focuses on accessibility, structured peer feedback, and one additional technical skill. Open to new and returning builders both, so you can start here if Week 1 was not possible. Cameras optional, full materials provided.
Week 3 · Demo Day
Wednesday, October 28 · 2:00 to 3:15 PM EDT · Virtual
Show what you made. Two divisions, First-Time Builder and Open, because a first demo and a polished one should not compete against each other. Share the wins and the parts that broke. No experience required, and you are welcome to come purely to cheer for other people.
Submissions close Monday, October 26.
Why the series is shaped this way 👆🏽
Why the series is shaped this way 👆🏽
Most technical events hand you a finished tutorial and send you home. This one does the opposite. You arrive with a problem you actually care about, you leave Week 1 with a working prototype, and the next two weeks make that same prototype better rather than starting you over. Returning builders never restart from zero.
It is also deliberately open. Not just developers. Educators, small business owners, students, retirees, anyone who has looked at something broken on this coast and thought someone should build a fix for that.
#DevFest · #GDGBrunswick · #TheSmartMarsh · #BuildForTheCoast
The Expert Column
The Expert Column
Encore · What “coding” means now
By Ramanathan Sivakumar, Knowledge Sharing Lead · first published August 2026
Siva wrote something in August that has been quietly shaping how we designed The Smart Marsh, so we are running it again on purpose.
In the AI era, the baseline definition of “coding” has fundamentally shifted. Chatbots and LLMs can increasingly handle the heavy lifting of writing syntax. The modern developer’s ultimate superpower, and what we must teach the next generation, is computational logic, problem identification, and system design.
Why we are repeating it now. Look at what Week 1 actually asks of you. Not a language, not a framework, not a stack. It asks you to notice something broken on this coast and describe it clearly enough to build against. Problem identification. That is the whole entry fee.
This is why the room is open to educators, small business owners, students, and people who have never deployed anything. If syntax is no longer the barrier, then the barrier we should be removing is the belief that you need permission to build.
Siva
Got a project, event, or coastal tech update our community needs to see? Drop it in our submission form, and let's feature it in the next issue!
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