Welcome to APIAddicts! APIAddicts boasts one of the largest communities of API practitioners with an extensive international presence in Spanish-speaking countries including Spain, Perú and México with 5,000+ APIAddicts worldwide, and over a million visualizations.
APIAddicts hosts multiple events throughout the year for developers wanting to discuss, learn more, and contribute to the growth and integration of APIs. Many details are provided in the interview below. APIAddicts Days is one of the most important events hosted by them annually. Companies and professionals share their experiences while analyzing the successes and failures in the current framework that supports API. To find out how APIAddicts Days was in 2020, click here.
APIAddicts has a strong education focus. Their School of API’s aims at helping professionals improve their use of APIs. At the end of the courses, you are awarded an API Evangelist Certificate / Recognition / Diploma.
We wanted to learn more about their upcoming events and the latest updates in the API world, and what working with the OpenAPI Initiative would look like. We talked to Marco Antonio Sanz, founder of APIAddicts, to find out more!
How was APIAddicts born?
In 2013 five very techie friends and colleagues were working in large companies managing APIs and realized a lack of APIs documentation and education in Spanish at that moment.
So they started giving a series of informal talks to share their knowledge. Meetup groups were created, which are still active today, to connect with other people interested in digital transformation and we started to meet monthly to talk about news or updates in the sector, actually the first meetings were in a bar in Getafe, until it was gradually formalized.
This was growing and finally formed what today is APIAddicts, the largest Spanish-speaking community around APIs with more than 5,000 APIAddicts in Spain, Chile, Peru, Mexico, Colombia and Argentina.
How hard is it to get an API Evangelist Diploma? What are the main benefits?
The evangelization of APIs and the training of professionals in it is so important, so from the Foundation we wanted to go a step further and help companies to qualify their teams with the most updated knowledge and from the best experts.
We had already been doing the API Owner course for years, which is in great popular demand today, and we decided to complete the training with the specialization courses in Security, Testing, Design and Architecture. This way you can get an overview of the entire APIfication process of a company and learn how to manage each of these phases optimally.
All the courses involve a total training of 50 hours with 80% of hands-on practice where students can apply the knowledge they have learned. Once the courses are finished, they present an API project to the teachers, who evaluate and assess the documentation.
If they achieve the API project taking into account the requirements and concepts of the courses, they obtain the certifications of each specialty and the API Evangelist Diploma, the highest certification for an API professional.
Nowadays there are many companies that trust in the courses of the API School of the Foundation and with them they specialize their teams, PM, QA, Technical Lead, Analysts, Coordinators… Taking these courses guarantees you knowledge in the whole APIfication process and a clear management of the necessary tools. This not only increases your job projection but also your career within the companies.
What is APIAddicts mission in the evangelization of APIs?
We have always been aware that, although APIs are a key factor in companies that want to be competitive today, it is a term that generates a lot of confusion. Therefore, we could say that the APIAddicts Foundation’s evangelizing mission began in 2013 when APIs were already being used but no one fully understood what they were for. In fact, the role of our community has been essential to introduce the transformative potential of APIs in Spain.
In this sense, we carry out annual studies, Open Source tools, training courses, 3 large events: Webseries, Startups and APIs and APIAddicts Days and more than 20 annual meetups. We are the community that has created more API documentation in Spanish and now we hope to continue doing so with OpenAPI.
We believe that if we had to define what our main differentiation is, it would be that we always try to have the best referents of the sector to inspire in the use of APIs and always from a close treatment, being a real community. That is why, for example, all our API School courses are not recorded because for us this makes you lose an essential part of the API training: sharing experiences and real cases with the live expert.
Finally, every day, and more and more strongly, we continue to do what we were born for: to bring the knowledge of APIs to every Spanish-speaking corner of the world, in a disruptive way.
What is the relationship between APIAddicts and CloudAPPI?
After starting the evangelization of APIs through talks and meetups, the community was gaining popularity and with it came business opportunities. This became a turning point in which they decided to leave their usual jobs to set up their own consulting firm, outside the bases of the association, because on one side runs the foundation and on the other the company, but they could accompany each other as partners in their growth, both approaching the life cycle of the APIs from different points of view.
Therefore, today the relationship between both entities is based on sponsorship, so they actively participate in different events. However, the Foundation supports itself with its own budget thanks to the other sponsors, courses of the API School and prices of some of the tickets for our events.
We always had it clear, the Foundation was born altruistically by a group of teckie friends who love APIs to promote the knowledge of APIs in Spanish and will always remain so.
Why did APIAddicts join OpenAPI Initiative and why now?
In these last few years we have been trying to take API Evangelism further in all formats: Open Source tools, international events, new broadcasting formats such as podcasts, specialization courses… Within all of this, we saw the need to be part of a development community as essential for the future of APIs as the OpenAPI Initiative.
This way we can offer added value to our community and increase the role of the Foundation in the future of APIs. We want to help to improve the specification and thus improve the level of the tools that allow the implementation of API First methodologies, such as API Tools.
We enjoyed hearing from the APIAddicts team and learning about the fantastic work they are doing. We appreciate the value they place in community building and vocalizing the needs of the API community.
OpenAPI Resources
To learn more about participate in the evolution of the OpenAPI Specification: https://www.openapis.org/participate/how-to-contribute
- Become a Member
- OpenAPI Specification Twitter
- OpenAPI Specification GitHub – Get started immediately!
- Share your OpenAPI Spec v3 Implementations
About the OpenAPI Initiative
The OpenAPI Initiative (OAI) was created by a consortium of forward-looking industry experts who recognize the immense value of standardizing on how APIs are described. As an open governance structure under the Linux Foundation, the OAI is focused on creating, evolving and promoting a vendor neutral description format. The OpenAPI Specification was originally based on the Swagger Specification, donated by SmartBear Software. To get involved with the OpenAPI Initiative, please visit https://www.openapis.org
About Linux Foundation
Founded in 2000, the Linux Foundation is supported by more than 1,000 members and is the world’s leading home for collaboration on open source software, open standards, open data, and open hardware. Linux Foundation projects like Linux, Kubernetes, Node.js and more are considered critical to the development of the world’s most important infrastructure. Its development methodology leverages established best practices and addresses the needs of contributors, users and solution providers to create sustainable models for open collaboration. For more information, please visit us at linuxfoundation.org.