The ultimate list of events, groups, influencers in Singapore’s developer community

Developers posing with Singapore Minister Vivian Balakrishnan at GeekcampSG. Photo: GeekCampSG.

The stereotype that programmers are solitary animals just isn’t true. Sure, they spend hours upon hours sitting in front of the computer banging out undecipherable commands. But if you want to become good at it, teamwork and social support can get you there.

Startups may start off with one CTO, but the team will grow, which means that lone wolf will need to take in a junior coder sooner or later. Open-source development work is fundamentally a collaborative effort involving discussions on Github and managing contributors.

Even learning to code is best done when you have a mentor to guide you. I picked up Ruby on Rails not only because it was beginner-friendly, but because I had friends who willingly taught me the ropes.

Singapore, fortunately, has thriving villages of developers. Every subgroup has their leaders and unique quirks.

There’s just so much going on.

So if you’re looking to get yourself immersed in the scene, here’s my attempt to make the most comprehensive (but alas imperfect) list of events, groups, and influencers in Singapore’s developer community.

This updated list is inspired by and built upon the works of Elisha Tan and Michael Cheng. Massive thanks to them!

Conferences

• Geekcamp.SG
• Barcamp.SG
• JSConf
• CSSConf
• Red Dot Ruby Conference
• DrupalCamp Singapore
• UX Singapore Conference

Groups and meetups

• Hackerspace.SG
• Singapore Python Platoon
• Singapore Python User Group
• PyLadiesSG
• Front End Developers Singapore
• Singapore JS Meetup
• AngularJS SG
• NUS Hackers
• HackAndTell Singapore
• Hackers and Painters
• Drupal Developer Network Singapore
• Singapore NodeJS User Group
• Singapore Ruby Group
• Singapore Geek Girls
• Rails Girls Singapore
• Arduino Community Singapore
• Raspberry Pi and Co.
• Little Hackers
• Singapore MongoDB User Group
• UX Singapore
• Singapore PHP User Group
• Singapore WordPress User Group
• iOS Dev Scout
• CodeAndroid Singapore
• Singapore Android Developers
• BigData SG
• GoSG
• Agile and DevOps SG
• Grumpy Gits Singapore
• Team Ubuntu Singapore

Hackathons

• Super Happy Dev House
• UP Singapore
• NUS Hackers Hack ‘n’ Roll
• PayPal BattleHack
• Hackatron Asia (by Tech in Asia)
• Travel & Tourism Hackathon

See more: The necessary evils of fixing Singapore’s engineering talent shortage

Influencers

• Arul Kumaran (runs Luracast, creator of Restler)
• Arul Prasad (works at i.am+, former Tech Guru at PlayMoolah, former lead engineer at FusionGarage)
• Arun Thampi (co-founder of Nitrous.IO)
• Ashish Awaghad (iOS developer at Pirate3D)
• Calvin Cheng (founded Odeon Consulting Group, started Little Hackers, LittleMakers.cc, GrowthHackers, Tripconomics, and Python IO. Now working on Algo Access.)
• Bunnie Huang (founder of Chibitronics and Sutajio Ko-usagi)
• Chang Sau Sheong (director, regional solutions engineering at PayPal, former director, HP Labs Singapore, published author)
• Chew Choon Keat (build SharedCopy, previously worked at SlideShare in SF)
• Chin Su Yuen (chief inventor at MokoMomo Interactive)
• Chow Loong Jin (assoc software engineer at Red Hat, package maintainer for Canonical – one of the Masters of the Universe)
• Chu Yeow (ex-CTO at Wego.com. director of engineering at Nitrous.IO)
• Derrick Ko (employee #1 KickSend, former Pivot at Pivotal Labs Singapore (now Neo)
• Erwan Mace (mobile entrepreneur, founder of Bitsmedia Pte Ltd, director at Magma Studio, ex-Google, ex-SoundBuzz CTO)
• Gibson Tang (consultant at Azukisoft Pte Ltd)
• Hazrul Azhar Jamari (founder of Singapore WordPress User Group)
• Herryanto Siatono (built BookJetty, worked at Yahoo Singapore)
• Jason Ong (lead developer in Tailored Inc, previously CTO at BoatBound. Ruby dude in SV)
• Kai Hendry (founder of Webconverger, Hack and Tell Singapore)
• Lakshan Perera (creator of Punch, developer at NitrousIO)
• Laurence Putra Franslay (runs Geekcamp.SG and Singapore MongoDB User Group, engineer at PayPal)
• Lester Chan (tech blogger, WordPress Plugins Developer, works at Tech in Asia)
• Lim Chee Aun (creator of HackerWeb and works at Viki)
• Luther Goh (co-founder of Hackerspace, co-founder and COO of Staircase 2 Productions)
• Marvin Sum (works at Palantir, previously with FoodSpotting)
• Michael Cheng (engineer at Neo Innovation, previously with Migme)
• Mugunth Kumar (creator of MKNetworkKit, iCashSG, published author, iOS trainer)
• Muh Hon Cheng (build the SGNextBus app and works at buUuk)
• Peter Jihoon Kim (CTO and co-founder of Nitrous.IO)
• Ridzuan Ashim (head of development at Publicis Singapore)
• Ruiwen Chua (JFDI Bootcamp Alumnus, Square Crumbs, 99.co)
• Sam Hon (founder of Singapore NodeJS User Group)
• Sam Mauris Yong (co-founder, HeartCode.sg)
• Sayanee Basu (contributing author at Nettuts, creator of Build Podcast)
• Sebastiaan Deckers (frontend co-founder at Cofounders Pte Ltd, co-founder at BeermatesJS, founder, project maintainer, lead developer at Pandion)
• Sidwyn Koh (founded The Pragmatic Lab, iOS dev, trainer)
• Stephan February (founder of SetupManual.com, CryptoPeer.com)
• Subhransu Behera (founder of iOS Dev Scout, senior software engineer at PayPal)
• Charles Corrigan (president of Drupal Developer Network Singapore)
• Thomas Gorissen (organizer of JSConf)
• Tim Oxley (open source evangelist, organizer of CampJS, started Singapore JS)
• U-zyn Chua (founder of Zynesis Consulting, created Ping.sg, created Opauth)
• Venkatraman Dhamodaran (co-founder of Flocations)
• Vinay M (the Artminister)
• Winnie Lim (worked at SimpleHoney and Medium. Now at stellar.org)
• Winston Teo (founder of Jolly Good Code, organizer of RedDotRubyConf)
• Wu Wenxiang (co-founder of Zopim)

Did we miss out anything or anyone? Comment below or tweet me at @terenceleejx and I’ll fix it right away!