Season 1, Episode 11

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This is a transcript of one episode of the Samsung Developers Podcast, hosted by and produced by Tony Morelan. A listing of all podcast transcripts can be found here.

Host

Tony Morelan
Senior Developer Evangelist, Samsung Developers

Instagram - twitter - LinkedIn

Guest

Diego Lizarazo
Senior Developer Evangelist, Samsung Developers

Instagram - Twitter - LinkedIn

In this episode of POW, I interview Diego Lizarazo, Senior Developer Evangelist at Samsung. Diego is a self-proclaimed tech geek and he is all about coding apps. Both Diego and I work together as part of the Samsung Developer Program and I have invited Diego to be a future guest host on the podcast. Where my specialty is design, Diego’s specialty is coding, and his tech geek personality shines as we chat about his path to Samsung and how he is helping the developer community.

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Topics Covered

Journey to Samsung
Developer Conferences
COVID-19
Future of Gaming
Game Development
Global Developers
Spanish Webinars
Learning to Code
Hackathons
Tizen Tidbits

Transcript

NOTE: Transcripts are provided by an automated service and reviewed by the Samsung Developers web team. Inaccuracies from the transcription process do occur, so please refer to the audio if you are in doubt about the transcript.

Tony Morelan 00:02

Hey, I'm Tony Morelan. With this is Pow! Podcast of Wisdom from the Samsung Developer Program, where we talk about the latest tech news trends and give insight to all of the opportunities available for developers looking to create for Samsung. On today's show, I interview Diego Lizarazo. Just like me, Diego is a Senior Developer Evangelist here at Samsung. And I actually work pretty closely with Diego since we're both part of the Developer Program. Diego is a self-proclaimed tech geek and he's all about coding. And I wanted you to get to know Diego a little bit because I've invited him to be a guest host on some of the upcoming podcasts where he can let his inner tech geek personality shine. Enjoy. So I am super excited to have Diego Lizarazo on the podcast today. First let me ask who is Diego?

Diego Lizarazo 00:49

mystery man. I am a senior developer evangelist with Samsung. And in general, I'm a developer that likes to create with people who likes to talk blog, so you're going to hear that during the podcast during this episode, that you're going to ask me one thing, and I'm going to want to answer like 20 different things, because that's why I do what I do. I really like to talk, I would like to connect with people, and to try to figure out the kinds of things that people really are passionate about. I really like to spend a lot of time doing things that are like, and people can like notice, you know, and that's the kind of thing that I like to find in other developers. So I started my career as a developer, I still do coding bad in general, what I do right now is to use the technical knowledge, to be able to connect with older developers, and try to find their passion, the kind of things that really take them and the kind of things that they would like to create.

Tony Morelan 01:47

So for those of you who don't know, both Diego and I are developer evangelists, we actually work together. We've been working together now for how long has it been? It's over a year, I would say yeah,

Diego Lizarazo 01:59

over a year. Now Yeah, absolutely.

Tony Morelan 02:01

That's great. So before you join Samsung, were you already an evangelist for another company?

Diego Lizarazo 02:06

Yeah, yeah, I actually have been doing developer relations for like seven years now. So different companies, the first time that I did, it was with Microsoft, and he had the same chance to do something similar way that red hat and also with a company that Franken automotive, you're going to be able to find that a CA technologies that one get acquired. And now Well, I've been doing that with this role with Samsung for a little bit over a year, like I said,

Tony Morelan 02:35

so how was it that you actually first learned about this role at Samsung?

Diego Lizarazo 02:39

Well, at Samsung, he, I think I was looking for another opportunity like it, like I said, CA get acquired. So I wanted to continue doing things on Developer Relations. And I started looking and Well, obviously, whenever you see something like a name of Samsung, that's going to pop into a search, you know, So it's such a big company so influential that immediately like, wow, developer relations with Samsung. So I immediately honing into that and well immediately applied and fortunately for me, it worked out.

Tony Morelan 03:14

Yeah, no, we were really excited. When you joined. I will say Diego is an absolute character. He is so much fun to work with. But outside of his very outgoing personality, he is truly a tech guy. I mean, I am amazed at the knowledge that you have that you that you brought to the team. I do remember during the interview process, you were the one of all the applicants that really blew us all away because you went above and beyond already creating some great code as part of the process that we just said, oh my gosh, we need to we need to have this guy. Now something unique is that even though Diego and I work together in the same team, we are actually on opposite sides of the country. So I'm based in the West Coast and you are on the east. coast. So tell us a little bit about why you're there on the east coast where you are and how did you end up there?

Diego Lizarazo 04:06

Well, I am in Atlanta in Atlanta Metro. So in Georgia, I have been here almost seven years. So I moved here for my first Developer Relations position. So that was a position that I mentioned with Microsoft. And they had an opening here. And I end up moving before that I was living in, in Texas. Before that. I lived in Michigan for a couple of months before that I lived in Spain. And before that, I was living in Colombia. So it was kind of like a long road to make it all the way here.

Tony Morelan 04:42

And your birthplace is Colombia, correct?

Diego Lizarazo 04:45

Yeah, yeah, I'm Colombian. And that's where I started my career. So that's where I went to school to be developers. So I'm going to start working as a web developer. So from then they move to Spain aid candidates. Some consulting. So that's going working for Yeah, like a company better and you really like your client. In my case, it was our telecommunication companies. So like for anyone that is in Europa, they may have heard like Telefonica or BTS, or British telecommunication and which one orange, orange was the other one. And but after that, I started doing something a little cooler. That was the making designer. So I had the chance to work as a game designer in Spain with a Spanish company. And the funny thing is that I really well, it was like getting to hang out. That's when I had kind of like these big realizations, but I could do something else with my background. And is that as a game designer, you don't really have to program. You don't really have to code. But you have the chance to work with developers. So I Well, I was a developer, so I had to create game documents and talk with the developers but also had to talk with artists with publishers with marketing. So I figured out like, I can take that technical knowledge and actually learn how to explain that to people that may be technical may know how to program or that have no idea about those technical issues or problems or aspects of a game. So at the time is kind of like, well, I don't know what to do with this cool. And But later, like at two positions later, when I move here to the US, it was like Oh, do supposition that actually does the entire point, like, program and talk with other people. So I'm sure that it really worked out. Yeah. And I think that's one of the best things that you bring to the team is your ability to communicate. So not only do you have all this amazing knowledge when it comes to coding, but you do a great job as far as teaching. So I am I am super honored to work alongside you. So I have to ask you though, too. So do you do a lot of gaming yourself? I mean, do you play games now not as much because Most of the time, or I'm working, or my kids that have several kids, they are calling jumping on me. Literally, I'm playing with them. So and the other times that I have to opportunity to do something with games, usually I'm creating game demos, you know, like small games and things like that. So I don't really have much time. I have a few, like, mobile games that I play constantly. Bad note, like serious gaming, like I used to do, like, the times when I was single back didn't have any worries in the ward. And then the Xbox was feeling my free time. And that that is not happening anymore.

Tony Morelan 07:36

So originally, you were a gamer that coded, but now you're a coder that games when from time to

07:43
time.

07:45
Yeah.

07:47
That's correct.

Tony Morelan 07:48

That's great. Tell me you've been with Samsung now for a year we've actually done a lot of events together. We've actually done some traveling together, which has been great went to Korean and both visited our headquarters there. We've been to many conferences across the US, I'm sure you've come across a few challenges. So tell me similar, like, what are the biggest challenges you faced in your role here at Samsung?

Diego Lizarazo 08:09

Well sometimes is the entire thing of trying to figure out what's the best thing that you can, the best knowledge that you can bring to a certain audience. So Samsung has a lot of technologies. And fortunately, we have a lot of fans around the word. But sometimes, some people are going to be more interested in some technology or another one. So I don't think we have anyone in the company that can know everything about every single aspect of Samsung. Well, obviously I have a focus like watches smartwatches phones, gaming, bad sometimes some people can only come in like, hey, do you know about this screen or like, I didn't even know that we had that screen? Do you know what is the price of this older device? I didn't know. So many times. I have to go back and tell them like Look, let me check or give me your email and did not respond to you. And I'll try to figure it out. Because seriously, Samsung is covering a lot of different technologies. Yes, Samsung Electronics, Betty vehicle by they brought her company, and we have hundreds of thousands of employees around the world. So it's really hard to know every single aspect of Samsung. Other times it has to do a little bit more like with challenges in in conferences, and things like that. But fortunately for me for something, I think most of the conferences, most of the events, they have gone really well. And it's more like trying to figure out like, what is it that people want to do? What is it that people want to talk about and bring that content to them?

Tony Morelan 09:38

Yeah, you know, and I have to agree with you because when I joined Samsung as an evangelist, this was the first time that I actually not only was in a role like this, but the first time that I worked for a company. Prior to that my entire career. I was just a self-employed freelance graphic designer. And that was my challenge was when somebody when we were out at an event. Someone would ask me a technical question that I just didn't know the answer. I felt like I was supposed to know that answer. So it took me a little while to understand that you know what, you don't have to know everything. Fortunately, we've got great contacts. And you know, pretty quickly, I could probably get an answer for you. But, yeah, as an evangelist, we're here to help teach, but sometimes we have to go do a little research ourselves.

Diego Lizarazo 10:23

Yeah. To understand, but he's, I think part of the like, the fun thing, the questions you get during the conferences.

Tony Morelan 10:31

Oh, yeah. No, and I love how eager you are, whenever there's a new challenge that's posed to you. Or someone said, Hey, can we you know, can we try this? You're like, give me a little bit here. And let me let me figure that out. But yes, definitely. So that being said, what is the best part of your role?

Diego Lizarazo 10:46

those weird questions, those ones that that you are kind of like, Wow, I didn't have any idea that someone is even interested in Dad, you know, or the people that come and tell you. I have really weird story, and that you are like blown away because like, wow, like the really are doing things that I didn't even know that you could do, you know, so with Samsung technologies or other technologies, and I have had some people, some developers that come to me and show me like a small demo. And then I even like wonder, like, how did they do it? You know, like, if I was going to kind of like, start doing that by myself right now, I have no idea how to do it, or like, it's going to take me some time. And then that kind of like forces you to say like, hey, what kind of thing Do I need to learn next? And specifically with Samsung, I think we really get a lot of innovation. We get new devices every year or sometimes even like, two three times a year. And then you are never short in terms of like, what is it that I need to do next, there's always something that you can do some sort of like project but it could be like a personal project, where we could be whatever, but, but you are always going to like you have something it's not static. Even before we started, like working under COVID circumstances, I think almost every month we were trying to figure out like, Okay, what is the next event? What is the next conference? What is the next thing that we're going to do? And now it's like, Okay, how do we do the same things without even like, really reaching in person, you know, like older developers into different communities. So it's always challenging and I think challenge is one of those words that is quite interesting because a lot of people see it as something then I usually see it as something good. If there's a challenge that means that that I have something new to do something new to learn and, and data that I really like about my job and about this position. You know,

Tony Morelan 12:54

it was just this morning that I was reading one of the comments on a tutorial video I had posted on YouTube. The person asked like, you know, so how do you do this it was he wanted to show the rotating progress bar on a watch. And I had I had known how to do it. I just hadn't put that out to the community yet. And I thought, you know what, this is a perfect time for me to do that. So I quickly just threw up, put together another video tutorial, posted it to YouTube, basically just answering this question. But you know, here, it was a great opportunity for someone in the community to reach out to us and ask a question and, and, you know, I'm able to respond right away with another tutorial video. So, yeah, that interaction with the community is great. And also one of my highlights. You had mentioned a little bit about COVID and how it's affecting, you know, the world, our group. So give me some specifics. How is that actually impacting your role and your challenges as an evangelist to reach developers?

Diego Lizarazo 13:53

Well, one of the things that I guess we, I would say did work and unfortunate is that I did You know, this year, we were thinking about doing more events live. So we were What are you putting our calendar, and we're going to take it easy we were going to, to figure out when to start doing that. So really the big change is that we have to accelerate that response. We have to move to create content online faster than we were expecting. But we were already in the process. So that's something that I think we're fortunate that we didn't have to come up with something out of nowhere, if we were already in that process. But apart from that is sort of weird, not traveling as much as what we were doing. Not having the chance of like going to the booth is something smooth and getting all these people sometimes like the randomness of conference when people just only walk by you and you're like, Hey, you have like a couple of minutes to talk about something that you can already do online. But then you have older kinds of randomness like the ones that we get on our YouTube channels or to forums or, or other or things like that. So that I think is like one of the biggest things. The other thing is that I think right now it would one after so many months is beginning to get a little bit of like online like a little bit like tired a little bit jaded is like I don't want to do another videoconference. I don't want to do another, like video call, because everyone is doing that. You know, so you have to, like figure out like, Okay, what kind of like new content is going to keep people entertained? How do we change the format and things like that, I think is a big challenge for anyone living in these times. But at the end of the day, it's part of the challenge and the challenge. I am looking forward to the time that we can start like doing again, conferences are going to be a little bit of refreshing. And I think a lot of the ideas that we had four this year that we're going to jump to start executing on that bad but yeah, you It's his day to day thing. And personally, I have felt always going to change like everyone else. But I've been working remotely for over seven years. So it was not like a huge process of a patient. I think it was more for you, for example. Exactly. Yeah.

Tony Morelan 16:16

So our team, our team is based in the Bay Area in Northern California. Diego works remotely in Atlanta. So yeah, I can totally understand that you kind of already had your set up. For us, it was a little bit more of a shock because we no longer went into the office, you know, we all kind of had to put together our home offices. I was fortunate because I had done it for, you know, close to 20 years. So I still had my nice little setup here at home. So it's worked out. Well. I would agree with you that the, you know, one of the biggest impacts has been that face to face opportunity to meet with designers and developers at conferences. That that's, you know, we're missing out on that. You are correct when the New Year began. big push was, hey, how can we broaden our reach? How can we make our teachings or information accessible globally? So we were already, you know, five steps ahead towards that type of content delivery. Yeah, like you said, we just had to put it in gear and move a little faster once this all hit. Yeah. You know, when I think of Diego, I think of a tech guy. Like I said, I'm totally impressed with how much knowledge you have, you know, up in your head, where did that start as a child? I mean, were you always like, motivated by technology when you were a little kid?

Diego Lizarazo 17:37

I like technology itself. I think it was a little bit of like knowledge. I think my entire life. I've been quite geeky. So there are some people that dad account like find the term offensive. Like No, I've always kind of like known that I'm geeky and I embraced it. So it's like I really have perhaps they have a little bit of OCD and he's like, Okay, if I if I get to know something I just really love to learn about it. So that helped. And, and really, the thing is that for me, most of the programming especially, it comes as a problem. You know, it's like you have a problem in some almost like puzzle. And then the coding is really the process of solving the puzzle. So it gives me a lot of, like, almost personal pleasure, you know, to see like, okay, I want to do X, and I have no idea how to do it, and then start putting it together and solving it. The big difference has been an evangelist is that many developers stop there, you know, then you solve the problem, and then perhaps move to the next problem. As an evangelist, you're supposed to kind of like take that knowledge and somehow figure out to share it with someone else. So it could be a blog post, it could be a podcast, like what we're doing right now, which could be a media bad, but then you have to do that part of sharing what you learn in in that is also kind of like an additional layer of Like what I do, and apart from that, like you mentioned about like being a gamer or being a programmer it really, the funny thing is that I actually started learning how to program because I wanted to create games. So that was sort of my main motivation back in in Colombia, I didn't really have any degree appealable to me, at least on game programming game designing. And so I say like, Okay, I'm going to the closest thing that he's learned how to program and I started the career there and then the gaming part coming like he pretty much later, but it was kind of like a really roundabout way to get around things better. Well, it's kind of like the path you sometimes you don't even like have a lot of control on how you end up getting to the place that you want to be in.

Tony Morelan 19:44

That's, that's great. So let me ask you them. What is the perfect game for you? Are you into action games role playing games, puzzles, sports? I mean, what is that perfect game for you role playing games,

Diego Lizarazo 19:56

you're playing games, like I mean, I enjoy all kinds. I really suck at action games. So all shooters I think my brain has kind of like a disconnect on 3d on a screen. So I tried to shoot in one direction and I'm kind of like getting killed and the other day I cannot really coordinate that but role playing games it has always been countered me thing because they usually tend to have a story something engaging and at the same time you have the interactive part so to me it feels almost really interactive book and then having like to develop that story and trying to figure out like all like how all the characters interacting and making this story a little bit my own story. That's like one of the things that I really like, obviously, like I said, I don't have the time sometimes to kind of go into these deep stories. So right now I'm not doing a lot but if you asked me like what are like my, my favorite games, pretty much all of them are role playing games. So like, Final Fantasy six, fable and wonderful latest ones that I didn't play the original one, it was my kid that ended up picking it for switch, sell the breath of the wild. And that thing totally blew me away. I still haven't finished it. Because it takes so many hours. And they cannot just do like the main, the main path through the game, I have to do all the side quests. And that takes forever. So if they go into one of these online sites and tells you like, hey, this game is going to be 100 hours. If it's sort of a role-playing game for me, that's going to be $300. So I can't know just Sue did the main quest. So yeah, like I think we're playing games is really the thing that is close to my heart and competitive. Well, they're complicated to create. And there are some that are much more engaging than others. But

Tony Morelan 21:49

yeah, that's funny. You know, I can tell you, this is what we're the opposite. I am not into role playing games. I need games simple. So I am into racing. Games. So, you know, speed is pretty much it or like, you know, just the simple arcade style games, the, you know, the old retro games, two dots, you know, just using really simple puzzles. Yeah, that's about as deep as I get when it comes to comes to gaming.

Diego Lizarazo 22:18

Well, but believe it or not, like when I actually create games, those arcade games are the ones that I really go for. Because usually, it's about a mechanic, they can have like one or two mechanics that are incredibly polished, and they're repetitive, bad, bad day, and it really gives you the, the satisfaction as a player to accomplish something. So like a platformer, or like the typical thing of like, Space Invaders that you just really get into sown and your brain is not really like thinking much is just kind of reacting. Those are also great, you know, and especially the old style of the old school games. Oh man, I don't know how many hours I spent. Going out like playing DOS, an actual arcade but even at home in an arcade?

Tony Morelan 23:05

Yes, much of my childhood was spent out it was called Merlin's castle, down in Saratoga in California. That was the place to be every night, we would go down there and drop our quarters in, play asteroids don't kill the plays close up. So I'm going to actually date myself here for a moment. When I was growing up, one of my friends, his father worked on the very first game, which was Pong, very well known that this is the very first you know, computer generated game. He actually brought it home before it was publicly released. He's like, he got to come over here. I've got this game that you hook up to our television. So I actually got to play Pong before it was out into the public and let launched obviously this amazing genre of games.

Diego Lizarazo 23:58

I would have I would have left in the house of your friend, if, like I would have tried to break him somehow and Well, everyone is just leaping, tried to just play into their living room or whatever they have the game. So yeah, that that that is a little bit of an addiction that I had growing up. But it was kind of like the cool thing. It was not the thing that I it was like, Let's escape and let's do this really cool thing for a few hours. And then let's go back to the ad. Well, in my case, the ad is reality that it was around me. And then well, let's go and check the next game, you know. So it was it was really cool. And somehow, I think those simpler games. In many ways were kind of like, more fun that some of the orders I think people didn't take it didn't take them as seriously, they were just to steal games. The It was not kind of like the entire thing like my life revolves only around this game. It was like, well, they're incredibly cool, but I know how to count like braid the two. So I think the perhaps like the entire thing that you begin to listen that it like simpler times, so perhaps they were in immediate games, at least they were simpler. And I think their interaction that he had with the players were simpler to him. So I recall, you know,

Tony Morelan 25:16

yeah, definitely. So if we could then jump into the future, how do you think or how would you like to see games evolve?

Diego Lizarazo 25:25

Now you do see the trend already of the esports so they are going to turn more into kind of like a well I sport so like, global entertainment. So just watching the game is going to be part of entertainment, which I don't particularly like because I think one of the coolest things about games is playing the games you know, but Well, I've also enjoyed watching some people like it really cool ones really good ones, but they do doing dad but I think you're going to count like how it's kind of weird to say it on one end. stream like more complex, more technically advanced games. And then on the other hand, you're going to have the hyper casual. When you when we start getting like even more and more mainstream technologies like AR and VR, then you're going to start having like more of those games that are going to get to the general public, not just like gamers, but kind of like everyone else, and then more gamified experiences. So then you're going to have things that I don't know, you could go to the store, and they directly own the stands, you're going to be able to have like minigames you know, because there's going to be so simple that you could pretty much put a game on anything clicking the wrapping of candy or something like that. It's going to be possible. And then some of these interactions, at some point is going to be similar to what happened to the two technology in general. They're just going to be in so many places. That's some point you're not even going to realize that you're just playing a they're going to be just so immersive. And so, so commonplace that you're just going to be playing without realizing that you're playing. Or you're going to be working with some gamified aspects. And I think all that obviously has some good aspects to that and some aspects that we should reconsider our society. But well, that's not really up to me to decide what's right and what's wrong. I think the those who are going to be kind of the main things that we're going to see more and more.

Tony Morelan 27:34

Yeah, no, I definitely agree. You know, my son's a gamer. And when he's not gaming, I'm like, Okay, cool. He's off, you know, the game and he's just chilling out. And then I'm like, so what are you doing? He's like, Oh, I'm just watching videos of other people gaming. That's when I realized that like, oh my gosh, so there's this whole you know, social community around gaming that is more than just individuals playing the game. I mean, there's just so much to the community. So, yeah, that was that was interesting. So let's talk a little bit about building apps. You know, I want to know what your approaches when you want to develop an app. Do you first like outline what the concept is? Or do you just start like playing with a code and kind of build out from there? What's your approach to that?

Diego Lizarazo 28:19

Usually, for me, it has been, at least have a problem or have a, like, at least the concept, you know, that I build the app around. So it could be I'm trying to solve something, or somehow, I was able to, for example, with games that happens a lot that I already have a game mechanic that I really like and he said, like, where is it going to, to fit? So usually, I don't just come and start playing, I usually start playing with the with the code. When I already have like a skeleton like a base that is the year and then it's like, okay, let's figure out like all the other aspects, the ones that may not be as important how, how can I do that? Obviously, to solve that initial core concept, or that initial problem solving it, you end up calling like trying different approaches. But additionally, and that's something that I do in many other many other things, I like to at least have an outline, you know, like a, grab a piece of paper, and say like, I want to do ABC, and C, and then try to figure out how to do that. And then that Mabel, or Dan may stay in into those original ideas bad. But usually, I like it. I prefer it, when there's something that guides me like, in goal, even if I if he didn't stop changing, but at least have a general idea where I'm going.

Tony Morelan 29:42

So tell me about some tools or tips that you may have, that you can recommend for someone creating their first game app.

Diego Lizarazo 29:49

Well for game, so I have a couple of things that that I can share. So for games in general, I think one of the things that will People don't realize is that games can be sometimes hard to program. So I have like two tools for a person that has no idea how to create games that I recommend. And the first one is construct three, I think that we can put the link in the notes. So the company is called Sarah. And you can create games like JavaScript games that are going to run on your browser. And you don't really need to do a lot of programming. So it gives you a good idea of how to start creating games without doing a lot of the understanding what of what goes behind. So that's really good. If you already have a little bit of experience programming or want to learn how to program a also would recommend something like phaser, but it's also a JavaScript game, but you do have to write the code so it gives you the idea. If you're going to teach a kid perhaps then you can find things like a scratch. So those are a little bit more visual programming languages and it helps you to understand, like a lot of the logic on how like, Yeah, well eaves, Wiles loops, things that you still need in programs and you know, in apps in general, and specifically for games. If you're currently trying to create a new app. I have, well, the game is a good way to do it. But there are like several code several like places that you can learn how to do some programming. I think JavaScript is really great. Not just because of the language itself bad is because you can find it almost anywhere. Whenever you visit a website. Usually it has a little bit of JavaScript. So I know that a lot of people are going to complain and say like new it's better to start with Python or is better to start with other programming languages. But I think for someone that is starting to learn how to program is really easy to create a piece of code with notepad and then it means Run it using a browser. So you don't need a lot of tools. And you can see results right away. And it's so extended a they can find so many resources, look at no free code camp.org or w three schools, that they give you a lot of tutorials on how to start creating. And those are counting Gen. Now, if you're a little bit more experienced, and perhaps you know how to code and you want to create, let's say, your first like big game, unity is a great way to go about it. It could be a little bit hard at the beginning, because it has so many options. It has so many buttons, the UI is really complicated. So if you open it for the first time, and you don't know what you're doing, just go to YouTube, or go to one of the Unity pages, because you're going to be overwhelmed. So that's why I'm saying like, I think it's a great tool. It's just that if it's your first game, you may be a little bit like whoa, whoa. So that would be a good thing. And if you're going to start creating apps in general Well, I would recommend to start creating something with Android. So it could be Android Studio or even with Tyson or for Samsung, it could be like a, you could go to tyson.org or the developer.something.com page and you are going to also have the chance to start creating mobile applications or applications for smartwatches. And well even look like if you just want to see something with a smartwatch it's a no that follow Tony, because he's going to give you a lot of places where you can go and Well, I think I'm going to share with Tony like a lot of older things that data developers are counting tips and things that you can use. So places like if you are like most developers a little bit design challenged. There. You could find like cool images like pixels or game art that is open game art. Or if you want to just kind of like find like colors, the right colors for you UI. You could go to places like wireless coolers Not colors but cool or schoolers Casio and immediately gives you like a palette that you can use in your in your application. So you break now there are fortunately, a lot of resources that you can find online and well, quickly we can put some of the links in.

Tony Morelan 34:18

Yeah, definitely. Yeah. So as you'd mentioned, we'll include everything in the show notes. You're giving a lot of great information, a lot of great resources. So we will link to all of that down in the show notes. So thank you. Thank you a bunch for that. So one thing that's been wonderful, you joining the team is see speak Spanish. So you've been able to reach out to the Spanish speaking community, you've had some very successful live chats and webinars that you conduct all in Spanish so and our reach is global. So as you know, you know, when we're doing or live chats or videos and whatnot, they are reaching countries all around the world. So I want to ask you, how do you think the developer communities differ? Around the world,

Diego Lizarazo 35:02

I think it's a little bit of a level of, of engagement, you know, like it. In the US in particular, a lot of the technical content is already created an English, you know, so sometimes is really easy for a developer or anyone that wants to be a developer, just go online and search for whatever. And you immediately are going to find a response. No, like it's right there. In other places, especially places that have where English meaning have become like a Yeah, kind of like as extended, then then it could be a little bit more of like people that really want to get the answers though sort of ones that somehow or have to learn English or try to kind of like understand more of the content that there is there. But also, sometimes even they are the ones that try to translate, you know, they figure out like, Hey, I have this I found this awesome video and no one has that in Spanish or a translation in English and then be recruited that same content. So I think it's a matter of kind of, like availability of tools and resources. And sometimes you see a little bit more of those dynamics in in user groups, you know, so a lot of people kind of like, some are more motivated by that. And notice, on the other hand, feel a little bit shyer. You know, it's kind of like, Well, I know that I'm not going to get older with all the responses that I needed. So you have to kind of like work around that whenever you're coming, like reaching older countries in and people from other languages, but yeah, it's really interesting. And also, you see that sometimes certain technologies are more popular in certain countries. And sometimes you don't even understand why. He knows like, why that that programming language is so popular in Brazil. I don't know that it is more popular in Brazil, you know, or websites and things like that, because well, they'll be Communities evolved differently.

Tony Morelan 37:01

Sure, you know. So my specialty is design. So I help a lot of developers from the design aspect for their apps. And I'm always amazed at how many Russian watch face designers there are. So when I've been communicating with them, you know, exchanging emails, or responding to different posts and whatnot, you know, I'm conducting all this in English, and we're having these great conversations. Well, I reached out to a couple of them the other day to invite them onto a phone call, and came to find out that they don't speak English. They've just been using Google Translate in their comments. Exactly. It just hit me and I'm like, so for all these months that we've been carrying these conversations, this is all just been Russian translated using Google Translate though. Exactly. Pretty neat to see the board is really, you know, taken down.

Diego Lizarazo 37:50

Yeah, and Exactly. So sometimes, certain content like videos. I personally prefer videos, but then in order to places they may prefer the text, you know, or code, because it's something that you can easily copy paste somewhere else and get a translation. So in a video, you may not get the accent, or you your understanding of the language is not as great. So then you still can have like a barrier there. But it well, people, if they really want to do it, if they really want to, like get to the content, they figure it out. It's just like the how, like how the solve that problem could add like a couple of steps there in the process.

Tony Morelan 38:32

So we've talked a lot about conferences, you know, we used to do a lot of outreach in person. So can you tell me about some of the experiences you've had at these conferences? Have you had great experiences? Have you had any challenging experiences? Tell me about maybe unique people that you might have met at some of these conferences?

Diego Lizarazo 38:52

Yeah. So I'll tell you one, like that. It was challenging. That was not what Samsung But I was going to man booth in a conference for another company. And we had a product. And a like, this is called like the entire thing about demos, whenever you have some product, if you don't pay attention, or if you don't cross your fingers long enough at sometimes a demo is going to fail. And they told me like, okay with the confidence, let's say start Tuesday, 9am. And I came there early, set up everything, everything's ready to go. And they put my computer there to show the product. everything's working, and it suddenly stopped working. So I had like half an hour before people who started coming to the floor, and they had to show things and I literally had to call like go outside of the of the conference floor, and start pretty much figured out what was the error and at some point, it was called, like calling someone from the team and trying to figure out it was of course the most stupid thing like a package got updated last minute automatically and then bad one had a company With something else, and then you just can't change one file and magically everything is working. But it is incredibly stressful to try to solve something like right before you have to show it. And I have had some things like that, even in webinars and things are dead and you're like, what do I do now? And you have to figure out like the solution right in. But that one was, like really stressful for me. A really cool one. On the other hand, for example, in Adobe Max, which you were last year, so like a good portion of our team was there last year, I had the chance to talk with a really cool developer. So his name is Derek Miller. And he went back and talk with us. And what really blew me away for ones is that well, he's a teacher. I have his video. That's something we did we never really just share outside of our team, because we wanted to really give it the promotion that we wanted, but it was a little bit hard sometimes to promote some of these things. But the thing is that he had a real-life problem sometimes we're talking about apps and, and games and, and really well if a game does work or doesn't work usually doesn't change anyone's life. But in his case, he was dealing with diabetes. And he wanted to be to have well pretty much a regular life in and figure out how to do it use technology because he knows how to use technology he lived he teaches a lot of like, maker things who are things with Raspberry Pi's and things like that. And pretty much he designed and implemented a full system to be able to check his level, his blood level, you know, like glucose and everything in in to be coming in that regular stable state, regardless if he was on the road or if he was changing his diet, etc., etc. So he kind of like told us all about that and he was using something technologies and I was blown away again because at the time It's one of those things since I don't have dad disease, I don't have that problem, that health problem. I never thought about that, like how to solve it. And then he was already explaining, like, Hey, I did this. And I can't create the keys for him for my sensor. And this is how it connected my phone. And I was asking, like, how long do you meditate? He was like, Oh, well, like one or two days and was like, really, it would take me forever for me to do that, you know, and it is because obviously, he had a personal need. And he had a personal problem, a real-life problem. And he really wanted to put his knowledge into something that that could be used by him or by anyone else. And he figured it out without even having can like a commercial solution for that and he was still able to figure it out. So that was one of the times that I felt good at that I get kind of like a personal satisfaction to see someone using their knowledge to solve a real problem and it was amazing and he was, again randomly we were in a design conference that is Adobe max last year. It wasn't even about guest programming, he was more towards like the design part. And he just came to our booth, you know, to be able to talk with us and show us the kind of things that he was doing so, so that wouldn't really blow me away.

Tony Morelan 43:16

That's, that's great. You know, I think that for me, I've had a few of those experiences where I've met some really unique people from the design community since that's been my primary focus, whether it's meeting individuals that are just happen to be coming by our booth, or meeting some of the other people who are at the conference to present I've met some of what I call like my rock star designers in the community out there. Andrew Kramer, who's done a lot of work with motion graphics. He worked a lot on Star Wars. I follow him he was the one who truthfully his tutorial videos are what inspired me to get into motion graphics many years ago and Here I was at a conference right next to him. And next thing you know, we're starting to open a conversation and we must have chatted for about 30 minutes, just the two of us chatting away. And I just still couldn't believe it that I was, you know, next to him, Mr. doodle who's an amazing artist, he was at Adobe max. So just being able to see these people in person was just so rewarding. I can't wait for us to get back out into conferences to get back into that environment.

Diego Lizarazo 44:28

Yeah, absolutely. And, and, and we think that's one of the cool things that are, you asked me before about this kind of rolls, sometimes we end up talking with some people that eat or know, that have such an amazing experience. So personally, for me, like and well, you can share this one. I have always kind of like beanie to, like you say to the role-playing games that are also games are not just like the video games, you know, like, also tabletop games. And there is this one that that is numbered masquerade. So it's called Dungeons and Dragons. But couldn't like darker green here because it was the 90s. And I was a real fan. And I came here to Georgia. I had the bugs. I played that. And they didn't know that that game actually started here in Atlanta. And at some point, someone told me like, Hey, you should come and talk with Andrew. Sure. And his name is Andrew Greenberg. And right now he's the president of the Georgia game developer Association. So he helps like videogame developers, but also tabletop game developers, and a lot of people in the gaming industry and entertainment industry. And he started talking with him. And then later, I found out that he was one of the original developers, not the Creator, but one of the original developers of this game. So it's one game that have been kind of like fanning out for I don't know how many years since I was a teenager. And then I was able to, like meet someone that literally was in the offices creating the content that I was reading and all that and you don't know in these conferences or like when you go to use groups who you're going to be able to find me, it could be like someone that already has a lot of expense. Or it could be someone that 15 years from now could be the next. You know, maybe the next genius, game creator or app creator, and you don't know, you don't know. And that's why I really love to talk with people, because that's when you make these connections.

Tony Morelan 46:21

Yeah, no, definitely. which then leads me to hackathons in Game Jam. So we've talked a lot about conferences and some of our outreach. Let's get specific and talk about hackathons. What's your involvement around that?

Diego Lizarazo 46:34

Yeah, so well, a hackathon is pretty much usually they have this format of let's get doing a weekend or let's get for a few days. And let's put together like an application or a system, or do some coding to create something cool. Sometimes the hackathon could have like a theme. So let's create something around a specific technology or like any API, or let's create something to solve this problem, or it could be something more specific, which it would be like a game jam, where it would be a game Jeremy's car, like, let's get together. And instead of having a music jam, where we're creating cool things that sound cool, it would be let's create some games that look cool and play cool. So sometimes they end up creating like a small game sort of times they are a little bit more polished, but usually that everything is created in that span of 4872 hours. Sometimes there's orders a little bit longer, like half a week or something. But there's always this entire element of pressure of Let's be creative, like pretty much on the moment. And let's meet people that we haven't met before. So sometimes some teams can like form right there on the spot, and have been able to kind of like it participate in many of those. Some are a little bit more professional, more enterprise sort of thing, or is mean in universities or game associations. For example, usually around the end of January. They have the Global Game Jam. So I had the chance to go there. And sometimes a sponsor and sometimes, like talk with people. I always go like in depth like not participating myself creating that I always click start creating like a concept that I'm going to end up doing. And I end up doing something else. So it doesn't work out. But he's really great to go and see the results of the apps that people created hackathons or the games and the people are game jams. And it's something that brings a lot of energy from young people creating cool things together.

Tony Morelan 48:28

Yeah. And I think that probably what I enjoyed the most around that is, everybody there is they're all there for like the same reason. You know what I mean? It's to be creative. I one time participate in a 48-hour film project. So this is where different teams break up. And you have 48 hours to put together a film. And you know, so you're writing your script, you're filming it here, you're editing it, you're doing everything all within 48 hours, and just being around You know, like minded people. So I can totally understand that when you're at a game jam or at a hackathon, just being around the energy of all those people. I mean, that's got to be pretty, pretty exciting.

Diego Lizarazo 49:11

Yeah, yeah. And sometimes people come up with, like some things that you were like, how did you even come up with that idea? You know, and it's really cool. So and last year with something we had one in Washington DC, that one was created in conjunction with MIT, and it was around health and coming up with liquid use to help people in the health industry and the health sector to well help people that will have actual diseases or health problems, etc., etc. And we were able to talk with some teams that were coming up with so many incredible solutions. So one of them and one team was kind of like chicken India, the smartwatches, the Samsung smartwatches and have to do with elderly care. So like, trying to check things around the gap, how it could take someone falling, you know, someone that is older and could be falling and maybe the gyroscope he did watch could help with that detection, or how they could collect information like I don't know, like the heartbeats or their sleep patterns, things like that. So they were calling and saying like, we already have this awesome house record, how do we do? How do we use that to help others? And I thought that it was incredibly interesting, and usually don't do anything that has to do with health. So that particular hackathon was kind of like, Oh, that's, that's different than that. Yeah, that's the entire point, to bring some creativity and bring, like, two different things that sometimes don't go along and put them to work together.

Tony Morelan 50:51

Yeah, no, that's, that's so true. I once went to a meetup group, where people were presenting their apps and somebody had created app for the elderly, the chance of them falling down and this person who had worked their way through this app, not realizing that when people fall, they don't fall like a tree falling in the forest, they crumble. So this app developer hadn't really thought of that, that the motion is not, you know, a tree falling. It's just someone kind of collapsing down. And that was because of the, you know, the people that attended that Meetup group that then helped this app developer, you know, understand kind of, you know, a basic thing that it was just an oversight.

Diego Lizarazo 51:35

Yeah, but I don't think you'd seen a bit of an oversight is that sometimes that happens a lot with developers, and you can see it with a lot of technologies that didn't have to be adopted. And it has to be that way. Sometimes, developers end up solving problems that don't really exist, what are the problems, something different?

Tony Morelan 51:53

So you've done a great job on reaching out to the community and sharing your knowledge and no one of yours A very popular series is the Tyson tidbits. yet you've been publishing on YouTube. Can you tell us are there any other upcoming topics that that you have planned?

Diego Lizarazo 52:10

Yeah, actually, I it's kind of fun like how these things work. And coming back a little bit more to towards the gaming side of things. So I'm going to be putting a little bit more like short videos on showing how to create games with Samsung technologies. And in general, I'll try to put like different technology. So right now we have so many technologies that you can use so many platforms like Apple face or construct two dimensions before and unity. And so it would be cool to solve the specific things that have to do with games and did help to publish them. Because I think, I think sometimes when you are creating a game or an app, if you are not forced to share with others, then it can stall. Otherwise, if you know that you want to publish it in the app, regardless if it's successful or not. You still have kind of liquidity That a goal to achieve that is shared, like that game. So, so that's where quite likely I'm going to start creating and you actually have to finish a video in the next couple of days around that. So we'll see how that goes. So I already have like a few that I need to record. Well, I have to start one by one. So we'll see how long it takes me to create him and publish them.

Tony Morelan 53:24

So if developers want to get in contact with you, what is the best way?

Diego Lizarazo 53:29

Well, they can go directly if it's especially something technical, it's great to send me an email and you can use my Samsung email so you're going to see it on the notes. That's DiegoRivera@partner.samsung.com. So like we'd like it's better that you check the notes. So you can send me an email there and specifically we are talking about an error. It's great that you send me like a screenshot. Sometimes people describe their and like, well, it's given me a lot of information, screenshots sometimes works best. If not the still can find me online. So the best thing that usually I go by helo777. So that would be like the translation of ice in Spanish. So that's H e l o 777. And you can find me like that on Twitter, in our Instagram, etc., etc. So Twitter, I receive a lot of messages so I can respond directly there. Leave dog, like I say to my email, that's a good way to get in contact with me.

Tony Morelan 54:28

When you're not coding when you're not working, what do you do for fun?

Diego Lizarazo 54:32

Spending time with my family, have a big family. So literally get some popcorn, get in front of the TV and watch an animated movie. I have still like little kids. So we were still not at the age where we can all just watch like people on the screen. They still have to be cartoons. At some point we will graduate to real people and live action bad in the meantime is dad or going on some road trips. So I'm kind of fortunate did an around the area, we have many other smaller cities and towns that we can visit. And every other month we are currently going somewhere so that with my family that's its own adventure just like taking them one hour down the road. That that's still interesting.

Tony Morelan 55:15

Excellent. Well, hey Diego, absolutely appreciate you taking the time to join me on the podcast. This has been a ton of fun. I am glad to even get to know you. Better than I knew you before. So thank you again. Oh, thank you, Tony.

Outro 55:25
Looking to start creating for Samsung, download the latest tools to code your next app, or get software for designing apps without coding it all. Sell your apps to the world on the Samsung Galaxy store. Check out developer samsung.com today and start your journey with Samsung. The Pow! Podcast is brought to you by the Samsung Developer Program and produced by Tony Morelan.