The Entrepreneurship-Cell, Mumbai and the Amity Innovation Incubator, organized a three day workshop on Android Application Development under the APPLAB Initiative by Amity Innovation Incubator on 4th, 5th and 6th February, 2019. The workshop was addressed by Dr. Anil Kumar Giri (Assistant Professor, ASET, Amity University, Noida), Mr. Sahil Bhutani (Manager, Amity Innovation Incubator, Noida) and Dr. Artee Agarwal (Head, Amity Innovation Incubator, Mumbai).
The three day workshop was enthusiastically attended by about 25 students across different departments and schools with a common objective: to advance their entrepreneurial goals through the development of mobile applications. The students were not only guided through the technical aspects of developing an Android application but also mentored on how their entrepreneurial ideas can foster in the digital age.
Day 1: The first day of the APPLAB launch event was kicked off by Dr. Giri with an introduction to the three tier architecture of the software development paradigm. Dr. Giri explained different technologies used for frontend, middleware and backend development and some key concepts of database design. After a lunch break, the students were introduced to the first steps of developing an Android application through Android Studio, the most popular Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for android application development. At the end of the session, all the students had a “Hello World” application on their phones. Mr. Sahil concluded the day with an encouraging talk on pursuing an entrepreneurial journey through problem-solving and inspired many students to reflect on interesting ideas as they left for the day.
Day 2: The second day started off with as much eagerness as the first. Dr. Giri started the day with User-Interface (UI) design along with an explanation of User-Experience (UX). At the end of the session, the students were able to create a form layout using XML files. Dr. Giri started the second session of the day with a demonstration on how to get data from the frontend. The students were also taught how to make different activity pages and link the different activities with each other within the application. At the end of Day 2, Dr. Giri, Mr. Sahil and Dr. Aggrawal had discussions with various students regarding their application ideas and how to take their entrepreneurial process ahead.
Day 3: The third and final day of the workshop was begun by Dr. Giri giving an introduction to Firebase, Google’s mobile platform that helps develop high-quality applications. The students were taught on how to use databases with Firebase, and tested out a live example which showed how the database updated with user input from their applications. In conclusion, Dr. Giri gave his advice on how to go ahead and develop high quality mobile applications.
After Dr. Giri covered all the technical aspects, Mr. Sahil gave a presentation on how the Amity Innovation Incubator helps startups become full-fledged businesses. The students were made familiar with the different startups currently being incubated through AII. All the students were excited to come up with different ideas once they realized how AII could help make a difficult path much easier through mentoring from experts, assistance in different aspects and financial support. As the workshop ended successfully, Dr. Aggrawal gave a vote of thanks from E-Cell, Mumbai towards Dr. Giri and Mr. Sahil for taking the time to come all the way from Noida to conduct this workshop. Dr. Giri and Mr. Sahil responded warmly and were content with the fact that many students didn’t want to come to a standstill but take larger strides in application development. All the students were awarded a Participation Certificate for taking part in this workshop. Last but not the least, the students took a picture with Dr. Giri, Mr. Sahil and Dr. Aggrawal as memories from their first step towards mobile application development.