DevFest 2026: Build, Secure & Scale in the Agentic Era

🚀 DevFest 2026: Build, Secure & Scale in the Agentic Era
The Era of the Builder
The technology landscape is undergoing a massive shift. You no longer need to be a traditional software engineer to bring brilliant ideas to life. Today, developers are evolving to orchestrate intelligent AI agents, while product managers, designers, and startup founders are using AI assistance to build apps, automate workflows, and create scalable solutions faster than ever before.

Join GDG Faro for an unforgettable two-day conference exploring how to build responsibly and innovatively. We’ll be diving deep into Google Gemini (an advanced AI model that acts as a smart assistant to help you write code, analyze data, and automate tasks) and Google Cloud (the secure, enterprise-grade infrastructure that allows your apps to run smoothly and safely across the globe).

🌟 Who Should Attend?
The GDG Faro community is a safe, inclusive, and welcoming space for learning and collaboration. There is a seat at the table for everyone:

The Tech-Curious & Future Builders: Students, designers, and career-changers wanting to understand how AI and modern software actually work in the real world.

Startup Founders & Product Managers: Entrepreneurs looking to rapidly prototype, validate ideas, and leverage AI for business growth without needing a massive engineering team.

Seasoned Developers & Tech Leads: Deep-tech professionals looking to level up from writing syntax to orchestrating autonomous agents and building secure-by-default cloud architectures.

📅 Agenda & The Details

Dates: Friday, Nov 27 & Saturday, Nov 28, 2026

Location: Auditorium 1.3 & 1.5, Complexo Pedagógico – Campus da Penha, Faro

🤝 Ready to Build the Future?
Whether you want to prototype a startup idea or secure an enterprise architecture, this is where you learn to build it. RSVP today to secure your free pass and join the Algarve’s most vibrant tech community!

🔗 Register now and secure your spot at Faro’s biggest tech event of the year!

Agenda

Day 1

9:00 AM: Check in / Welcome / Coffee

• Welcome coffee

9:45 AM: Track 1.5 - Opening "Ceremony"

10:00 AM: Track 1.5 - Beyond the Screen: Building for Android XR - Carlos Mota

10:45 AM: Track 1.5 - The retention flywheel: designing AI products people don't want to leave - Madalena Costa

11:30 AM: Track 1.5 - Agentic AI, you are doing it wrong - Marco Peereboom

12:15 PM: Lunch time

2:00 PM: Track 1.5 - AI Doesn't Crash, It Drifts: Building continuous evaluation loops for AI Pipelines - Akshata Mohanty

2:45 PM: Track 1.5 - From Coder to Orchestrator: Building Software in the AI Era - Liliana Pereira

3:30 PM: Track 1.5 - Cooking is a messy-hands problem: when your fingers are covered in dough, touching a screen breaks the flow - Jaime Andrés

4:15 PM: Break

4:30 PM: Track 1.5 - Supercharging Observability with Istio: A Deep Dive into Service Mesh Monitoring - Israel Blancas

5:15 PM: Track 1.5 - The current status of AI agents: are sentient hacker systems coming to get us? - Bianca Ximenes

6:00 PM: Track 1.5 - Langfuse: Iluminating the blackbox in the AI era - Afonso Caboz

6:45 PM: End / Networking

Day 2

9:00 AM: Check in / Welcome / Coffee

• Welcome coffee

9:45 AM: Track 1.5 - Opening "Ceremony"

10:00 AM: Track 1.5 - Managed Agents in Gemini API - The no nonsense agentic baseline for consistent agent behavior - Ankur Roy

10:45 AM: Track 1.5 - Gemini + Chrome: Beyond Chat. Using AI to control the browser - Andrea Verlicchi

11:30 AM: Track 1.5 - Nuno António

12:15 PM: Lunch

2:00 PM: Track 1.5 - Your ADK Agent Just Hit Production: Deploy, Observe, Trace, Govern - Sijohn Mathew

2:45 PM: Track 1.5 - Building Websites for the Agent Era with WebMCP - Fellyph Cintra

3:30 PM: Track 1.5 - Ana Araújo

4:15 PM: Break

4:30 PM: Track 1.5 - Jorge Cabaço

5:15 PM: Track 1.5 - Brought to you by AI: The era of mediocre software? - Diego Coy

6:00 PM: Track 1.5 - Rui Barroca

6:45 PM: End / Networking

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Speakers

Rui Barroca - 42 WOOD (Founder & Managing Director)

Full-Stack Product Design Consultant | Founder at designFAO | Passionate about design & startups.
Rui Barroca is a Product Design Lead and founder of designFAO, a community-driven conference in Portugal that connects design, AI, and entrepreneurship.
With over 15 years of experience helping global brands like British Airways, FIFA+, and American Express, Rui now focuses on h…

Jorge Cabaço - Dengun (Executive Director)

With over 15 years of experience in digital marketing, I am a passionate and driven professional who leads, advises, and empowers businesses, agencies, and startups to achieve their goals and scale their impact. As the Chief Marketing Officer at Dengun, a startup studio and digital agency, I help founders and companies with business strategy, growth marketing, fundraising, VC relationships, an…

Liliana Pereira - Coverflex (Software Engineer)

Liliana Pereira is an experienced backend developer with over 15 years in the field. Specializing primarily in PHP and more recently in Typescript and Elixir, she has worked internationally, holding roles with a direct connection to the markets of The Netherlands, England, Germany and currently in Portugal.
Having grown up in a small town in the interior of Portugal, she truly believes i…

Andrea Verlicchi

Andrea Verlicchi is a Google Developer Expert for Web Performance, he has extensive experience in this sector, having worked with some of the largest companies in the world to improve their web performance. Andrea writes about the web in important specialized magazines and regularly shares his know-how in conferences and Meetups all over Europe.

Marco Peereboom

Marco Peereboom brings over 30 years of leadership in hardware and software security, with deep expertise across technologies ranging from low-level CPU architecture to web-scale systems. A longtime advocate of open source, he has contributed extensively to projects like OpenBSD and Linux, with a strong focus on secure and resilient system design. Marco’s work in cryptography and decentralized…

Sijohn Mathews - AclarityTech (GDE GCP | Co-founder | Solution Architect)

I am a Cloud Architect who has navigated the major paradigm shifts in software engineering—from the early days of monolithic development through the rise of microservices, and now into the current frontier of Agentic AI. Based in Stockholm, I currently design retail technology solutions at Aclarity Tech, where I focus on leveraging the full potential of the Google Cloud ecosystem.

Madelena Costa - Human x Intelligent (AI product experience strategist & consultant | Host of Human × Intelligent | Keynote speaker & workshop facilitator)

Madalena is co-leader of Ladies that UX Lisbon and an ambassador for Google Women Techmakers, actively supporting inclusive tech communities.
A frequent speaker, instructor and workshop facilitator, Madalena focuses on practical strategies for improving product operations, leveraging AI and building high-performing teams. With a background spanning UX, strategy, marketing and operatio…

Carlos Mota - GDG Coimbra (Google Developer Expert for Android)

Carlos Mota is an Android GDE. He can easily be spotted either working on Android applications written in Kotlin or developing them along with Kotlin Multiplatform. An enthusiastic about new technology and always trying to reach the last 20% of all of his side projects that seem to be really far away. He loves to share his knowledge with others either by giving talks, teaching, writing, or along …

Fellyph Cintra - rtCamp (Google Developer Expert, DevRel)

Front-End Engineer who is passionate about learning new things. With14 years of experience developing websites and understanding how to improve products. Front-end background includes JavaScript, Web Components, React, Modern HTML and CSS. With experience with Java on the back-end, as well as PHP and recently have been interested in modern stacks such as JAMStack and Serverless applications.

Ankur Roy - Online Partner AB (Solutions Architect at Online Partner AB | Author | Podcaster | Public Speaker | Whole bunch of other stuff)

I am a Solutions Architect at Online Partner AB. I have worked on several projects involving Google Cloud services and Google Workspace along with multiple other technology stacks and platforms.
Some important things to know about me:
I have all 11 GCP certifications.
I have recently published a book on the use of Python in DevOps and am currently working on a book regarding p…

Akshata Mohanty - Google Developer Expert in AI/ML (Head of Engineering - Tilla)

Akshata is a software engineer and cloud architect. She is a Google Developer Expert (GDE) in AI/ML.
Currently, Akshata leads engineering at Tilla Technologies in Berlin. In 2024, she founded Keis in Singapore, focusing on helping companies launch generative AI products on Google Cloud.
Akshata graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur in India. She is an active t…

Israel Blancas - Coralogix (Software Engineer)

Software Engineer @ Coralogix. Google Developer Expert in Google Cloud. GDG Organizer. From Granada (Spain). Observability and magic 🧙‍♂️ 🎉

Diego Coy

Afonso Caboz

Bianca Ximenes - Google Developers (AI and Machine Learning Expert)

Bianca was recognized by Google Developers in 2021 as one of 21 women around the world who are technology trailblazers. Is Chief Data and AI Officer at PUR, a French environmental engineering company. She also holds a PhD in Computer Science from UFPE/CIn with a focus on Ethics Applied to Machine Learning and is a Google Developer Expert in AI/ML. Her work and research address the development …

Ana Araújo - New Line Marketing & Neuromarketing (CEO, Strategic Marketing and Neuromarketing Specialist)

Nuno António - itBase - Soluções Informatica s.a. | NOVA IMS Information management school (CTO | Professor | Data Scientist)

Hosted By

Daniel Jorge, GDG Organizer

I’ve always been passionate about overcoming challenges. Building products is exciting, but what really drives me is tackling real-world problems head-on. Whether diving into mobile development or working in backend, every step has been about finding the right solutions and pushing myself to grow.

As my career evolved, I took on the challenge of leading teams, using the same problem-solving mindset I’ve always had. Now, as Tech Director at Dengun, I lead the product builders tech team, guiding others to overcome challenges and build great products. It’s been an incredibly rewarding journey, filled with constant learning and growth along the way.

Alongside my technical work, being part of the community has been a huge part of my growth. I’ve been fortunate to help organize events with Flutter Portugal, co-organize GDG Faro, and co-create Flutter Faro. These communities have been a source of inspiration and learning, as we work together to push the boundaries of what we can build.

Tiago Fernandes, Founder / GDG Organizer

👋 Hey there! I'm a Software Engineer, Fractional CTO, Founder based in sunny Portimão, Algarve, Portugal.

I'm passionate about:

🚀 Entrepreneurship & product development
🛠️ Software craftsmanship as a service
💎 Ruby/Rails, AI,📱 Flutter & open source

Beyond code, I love all things tech, drone photography and sports.

Sérgio Henriques, Dev

Software Engineer with Web Development background. Senior in Data Structures, Databases, RESTful APIs, Back-End Applications, PHP, Javascript, MVC frameworks (CakePHP and Laravel). Currently learning DevOps, DevOps applications, Container Management Systems and Flutter.

Past Professional Experience: Back-end Assistant Developer, Database Design and Administration (MySQL, SQLite, MS-SQL Server), Infrastructure as Code (Crons, log automations, monitoring report automations), Core & E2E testing in hotel business applications.

Artificial Intelligence (Decision making systems) and Interface between AI and robot behaviors.

Specialities: Web APIs, Financial Data, Database design, development and optimization and soon... DevOps :D.

João Cardoso,

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Partners

UALG TEC CAMPUS (https://www.linkedin.com/company/ualg-tec-campus)

Dengun (https://www.dengun.com/)

Algarve Evolution (https://algarveevolution.pt/)

Algarve Blockchain Community (ABC) (https://bento.me/algarveblockchaincommunity)
We are dedicated to fostering a vibrant community where members can learn, share ideas, and network with like-minded individuals passionate about Web3, cryptocurrencies, NFTs, blockchain technology, digital assets and more.

GeekSessions (https://geeksessions.io/)

Algarve STP (https://algarvestp.pt/)

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Complete your event RSVP here: https://gdg.community.dev/events/details/google-gdg-faro-presents-devfest-2026-build-secure-amp-scale-in-the-agentic-era/.