A HARD LOOK AT PROGRESSIVE WEB APPLICATIONS

This a discussion around Progressive Web Applications (PWAs). We walk you through what a PWA is, how they work, the huge potential for benefit, the limitations of the current browser implementations of them and practical advice from a real world project trying to use them. The speakers have been working on an open source, MERN stack platform with a unique targeted audience - Indigenous users. Which means, any platform to be used on a regular basis must be able to withstand unreliable Internet connections - ergo Progressive Web Applications. The audience should hopefully walk away better prepared for the new world of offline applications. Technical requirements - The audience should be able to follow along, however I will go into more specifics regarding React and PWA caveats. So some understanding of web applications and React would be a plus. Why I’m the strongest person to talk on this subject - As a lead developer at OCAD University in Toronto, Canada, I work closely with a group of anthropologists, academics, Indigenous artists and curators, and developers. I have been a part of the project from the initial development stages until now, and have been adamant about implementing Offline techniques. I have also worked with a group of international developers in Denmark on another PWA project.