My name is Kevin Lewis and I am Director of Developer Relations at Directus.
In the past I ran a developer events agency called Underland Events as well as a development studio called Underland Dev which specialised in building proof-of-concepts for clients. I have also worked at Deepgram, Orbit, Vonage (previously Nexmo), FutureGov, Rebel Uncut, Major League Hacking, Digiotology, Rewired State and Young Rewired State moving between engineering and developer relations roles. I've also done quite a lot of contracting for folks like GitHub, Twilio, and Clarifai.
I'm Director of You Got This! - a set of community conferences focusing on core skills needed for a happy, healthy work life. Themes include professional development, self care, ethics in tech, creating a more inclusive industry, and self advocacy. Being Lead Organizer means running a few events a year, and supporting organizing teams in New York, Poland, and Germany run their events. I also look after the ongoing online presence between events including the website which hosts a freely-accessible talk library.
I am also Director of Hack Labs - a hackathon consultancy where we assemble the best group of experts from our vetted network to answer client challenges. We aim to create a fun and enjoyable engagement where hackers are paid for their time, while ensuring business outcomes are met.
Some of my previous projects include BASH Festival - a week-long coding festival for 13-17 year olds, Sex Tech Hack - a series of hackathons focused on intimacy and sexuality with technology, UKGovHack - a series of civic tech hackathons, and Hacksmiths - a hacker club which grew 500% while I ran it while improving diversity to be 49% not-men.
My degree is in Creative Computing from Goldsmiths, University of London, and I co-authored a paper on the data players use when strategizing in social deception games. I live in Lincolnshire, UK, with my partner and two daughters. I am a shameless Disney adult and love boardgaming.
Speaker Information
I am happy to talk or deliver workshops at events on JavaScript, git, serverless, APIs, running events, and more (try me!). I prefer delivering content for people earlier on in their career as that's where I believe I can have the most impact. I do have some requirements of events that I attend as a speaker or facilitator...
- Events must have diverse lineups. If you have no or very few speakers who are not white men then I won't be able to take part.
- If you event is not free to attend, you must provide some avenue for folks who cannot afford it to participate. Ideally this will focus on groups who generally get fewer opportunities.
- I won't pay to speak, and this includes tickets to your event.
- You must have a Code of Conduct and a clear plan on how to enforce it. I'm an events organizer - so I know what I expect to see.
Speaker Bio
Kevin runs Developer Relations at Directus and is Director of You Got This - a learning hub to help developers improve their core skills. He is an avid boardgamer, tired dad, and shameless Disney adult. He is based in Berlin with his partner and two kids.
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