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My Year 31 in Review as a Developer and Content Creator

· 5 min read

This November, I turned 32. Living in a country with an average life expectancy of 60-65 (Nepal), I started thinking half of my life had gone. Now I needed to start documenting my life a bit more. Start recording how I spend my time, what I achieve and what I fail at. And this blog is the outcome of that thought.

Let me tell you about me. I am Damodar. I work as a Software Engineer at Appwrite. I’m a father to two kids, a son, and a daughter. I also contribute to open-source and developer communities here in Nepal. I’m also an author (recently published) and content creator. I write articles and make youtube videos related to computers, technology, and programming. In this article, I will try to account for what I learned, what I achieved, and what I failed in year 31 and set some goals for next year.

This will be my retrospective for November 2021 - October 2022.

Let me start with failures to tell you that everybody fails, and the important thing is we get back and try again.

Failures​

  • Planned to complete my book in at least eight months; however, it took me over a year to complete it and eventually get it published.
  • Enrolled in Software Project management course in Coursera but was not able to complete it
  • Failed to get VISA in time and could not attend the Flutter Vikings conference.

Learning​

Learning is a never-ending journey of life. If we want to be happy, we have to keep learning and progressing. I believe progress is the only thing that keeps us happy.

  • Started learning game development with Godot. However, it has not become as effective as I planned it to be
  • Started learning Rust programming, however, haven’t made significant progress.
  • Participated in Redis Hackathon. I did not win. However, I learned a lot about Redis.
  • Constantly learning about effective content creation, solo entrepreneurship, smart work, financial freedom, and more on YouTube.

Open Source and Community Contribution​

  • Started running Flutter Kathmandu community and organized more than eight events in the past ten months, presenting about Flutter in a few of them
  • Organized Flutter Festival, a two-day virtual conference in Nepal
  • Gave open source-related talks at various Hacktoberfest events in Nepal and India virtually.
  • Organized eight-plus twitter spaces to talk about tech, Flutter, and careers in Nepal
  • Conducted Workshop for college students with Flutter Kathmandu organizing team
  • Gave a talk at the Flutter Yatra conference organized by Truenary Solutions
  • Gave a talk on Flutter & Appwrite at KU Hackfest 2022
  • Mentored participants at CodeFest 2022
  • Started building on Dart Utopia Framework, a back-end framework for Dart, using my knowledge of Utopia PHP Framework at Appwrite.
  • Published Appwrite Auth Kit package for easier integration of Appwrite authentication in Flutter
  • Updated Clean Nepali Calendar, a Nepali calendar package for Flutter to null safety.
  • And much more. Check my GitHub profile for my open-source contributions

Content Creation​

Travel​

This year I started my Travel journey in September 2022 and took my first-ever international Flight to Oslo, Norway.

  • First international travel to Europe, I entered Oslo, Norway, and met my favorite Flutter community members, Majid and Sarah. Then I took a flight to Amsterdam and visited the city also met with my colleague from Appwrite, Sara. Finally, took a train to Paris, met with my Friend Adish and visited Paris city and returned in a week.
  • Received an invitation to Google’s SAF Summit in Dubai, where I got the opportunity to meet Googlers and GDE as well as GDG organizers from Srilanka, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Turkey. As a part of this, I visited Dubai Media City for the first time.
  • On November 2022, I plan to visit Bangalore and attend FlutterConf India.

Apart from my work, content, and community contributions, I also treasure my time with friends and family. This year, I spent many hours with my family, my son and my daughter. They give meaning to my life and make me happy.

All the achievements I mentioned above manifested in my year 31; however, they were all possible because of my constant learning, working, and progress for the past 30 years. They did not come overnight. I had much hard work and struggled behind me like any human being.

Goals for Year 32​

  • Keep working at Appwrite
  • Learn game development with Godot
  • Keep organizing more events via Flutter Kathmandu
  • Launch Flutter Master Guide
  • Keep writing more content regarding tech and life
  • Publish at least 1 video on average a month on my Nepali language YouTube channel
  • Publish at least 1 video on average a month on my ReactBits YouTube channel
  • Help more developers learn and reach their potential through content publishing, talks, and workshops.
  • Start freelance consultations with individuals and companies regarding tech, architecting solutions, programming, career, and more.

Well, that’s all. Let me know what you think about my failures, achievements, and goals for next year. If you have any suggestions, do send those to me. In the end, don’t get discouraged by failures. Step on those, learn from those, and keep learning and working. Failures are the pillars of success.

Live, learn, enjoy.