Last week, our office in Antwerp buzzed with excitement as we hosted the Flutter Belgium Meetup #22 ! It was an evening packed with insightful talks, engaging discussions, and plenty of Flutter enthusiasm. For those who missed it, don’t worry—the videos of all the talks are now available on YouTube! Here's a quick rundown of what went down: Lightning talks ⚡️ Widget of the Meetup : Baseline by Jens Gyselinck ⚡️ Fancy Fortune Wheels by William Verhaeghe ⚡️ Is the Hosting of My Mobile App Production Ready? by Johan Soetewey Talks 📣 Full Stack Dart by Brent Van Vosselen 📣 Publishing a Production-Ready Flutter App in 20 Minutes with the Codika CLI by Romain Pattyn A huge thanks to all the speakers, attendees, and organizers for making this meetup a success. Stay tuned for more updates on future meetups! 🚀 Join the Flutter Belgium meetup

The Belgian React Native community is back! On Thursday, December 5, ACA Group hosted the very first React Native Belgium meetup at their brand-new office in Antwerp. With around thirty enthusiastic participants, engaging talks, and a vibrant atmosphere, the event was a resounding success. Reviving the React Native community 🚀 "The React Native community in Belgium had been dormant for years, but with this first meetup in Antwerp, we’ve brought it back to life", says Jeffrey Vanelderen , who organized the event together with ACA colleague Jana Mineur . "The goal of this meetup is to bring people together, share knowledge about new developments, and spark inspiration for personal projects. It’s also a great opportunity to network with peers and get a pulse on what’s happening in the IT world." Inspiring talks The evening began with an informal reception where participants enjoyed pizza 🍕 and drinks. ACA Group then kicked off the night with two compelling talks : Talk 1: Accessibility in React Native apps Joren Vos , Mobile Solution Engineer at ACA Group for over 10 years, discussed accessibility in React Native apps . Drawing on his experience with projects at De Lijn , he shared insights on building accessible apps that are user-friendly for everyone, including people with disabilities. “As a developer, it’s crucial to always consider accessibility”, says Jeffrey. “Many people rely on screen readers and additional component explanations in apps, and Joren provided practical tips on implementing these features.” Talk 2: Latest updates in React Native architecture Tim Claes , a seasoned Mobile and Web Engineer with over 15 years of experience, explored the latest updates in React Native’s architecture . He discussed improved performance and the impact of upgrades on existing projects. “Tim addressed questions we developers often have”, adds Jeffrey. “For example: Is it worthwhile to upgrade our projects? What are the risks? How does it impact our code?” The talks were well-received by the audience. “The participants were extremely enthusiastic” says Jeffrey. “We saw this excitement even beforehand, as registrations came in quickly, proving the community is still very much alive.” Looking ahead to more successful React Native meetups! After the talks, there was time for networking. With drinks in hand, participants exchanged ideas and experiences. “A meetup like this is about more than just sharing technical knowledge”, emphasizes Jeffrey. “It’s also about building connections within the community .” The organizers are already looking forward to the next edition. “We’ve received interest from other companies wanting to host the next event”, says Jeffrey. “Hopefully, we can keep the community active with a new meetup in the spring of 2025.” With this successful kickoff, React Native Belgium has established itself as a platform for knowledge-sharing and collaboration in the Belgian tech scene. We are looking forward to the next meetup! 📲 Want to stay updated on the React Native community in Belgium? Join the community!

The museum pass, the most comprehensive museum subscription in Belgium, launches a digital version of the pass. From now on, subscribers can use their smartphone to visit museums. With the museum pass, visitors gain access to more than 200 Belgian museums and exhibits. Together with publiq , we previously took care of the technical implementation of the physical museum pass. This current physical card, which serves as an entrance ticket, is now complemented by a digital version on a smartphone. This way, museumPASSmusées wants to continue their efforts concerning digitization and user-friendliness. Digital museum pass is available right away Erika T’Jaeckx from museumPASSmusées explains the digital pass: “From subscriber surveys from last year, we learned that new subscribers don't like waiting for the shipment of their museum pass.” The interest for a digital version, therefore, was substantial. “New subscribers have access to the digital museum pass right away after their purchase. That means they're able to visit museums immediately and that is an enormous improvement, especially today since contactless is becoming the new standard.” In the new app, users will find a personal QR code, which acts as an entrance ticket at the reception desk of museums. The app will soon be expanded with content about the range of museums to visit. Proud of our close collaboration Since ACA Group already had experience with the IT behind the physical museum pass, we understood the context very well and were able to develop quickly. Together with publiq, we worked in close collaboration to be able to offer users a beautiful and user-friendly app. We carefully crafted the app's UX and UI thanks to a lot of best practices, feedback and prototyping. We're proud of the result and the trust between ACA and publiq! Populair pass The popularity of the museum pass has only increased since its launch in 2018. Last year, 90,000 passes were sold, which accounted for half a million museum visits. The payments of museumPASSmusées to the museum industry increased to 2.5 million euros, a new record. The amount of participating museums is on the rise as well. The Suske Wiske museum in Kalmthout and the AfricaMuseum in Tervuren have recently joined the ranks, for example.