Coders. Designers. Bloggers.
If you’re in Nairobi on June 21st, mark your calendar! We’ll be meeting at Jacaranda Hotel, going from 9am-5pm for Barcamp Nairobi ‘08.
What is a Barcamp?
“BarCamp is an ad-hoc gathering born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment. It is an intense event with discussions, demos and interaction from participants.”
All you need to know is this: it beats the hell out of a normal conference.
There is no pre-planned schedule of events, or speakers. There are set timeframes and rooms for anyone who comes in to sign-up for a time to speak in. You attend the ones you find the most interesting. It’s also less speaking than it is conversation and discussion around a specific topic.
Ideas for Barcamp Nairobi ‘08
I’m sure you’ll come up with plenty of other items that are well worth having a discussion about. Here are some of the things on my mind that I hope to hear and/or talk about:
- Local mapping (Open Streetmap, Green Map, etc.)
- Blogging tools and trends
- Mobile phone apps (Android in Africa, FrontlineSMS and RapidSMS)
- Using Google’s App Engine for building web and mobile services
- I’d love to hear from some of the EPROM guys that worked with Nathan Eagle
- OS curriculum for universities
- Studying users (mobile and web)
- Building into social networks
Of course, I’ll do a talk on Ushahidi. Not just Ushahidi though, but some of the really interesting and open areas surrounding the crowdsourcing of content in Africa using mobile devices. Then, augmenting that content with web services like Google Maps, Flickr, Facebook, YouTube, etc.
Oh, I didn’t mention that Ushahidi will be providing free t-shirts for attendees. You have to be signed up on the Barcamp wiki to get one, so head on over!