Digesting Barcamp Nairobi 2008 - June 21 2008

The People:

We had all sorts of people :

• bloggers
• all sorts of programmers: web, mobile, etc
• people in the telecoms industry
• Govt represented by the ICT Board
• photographers
• students (even high school)
• the plain curious

Courtesy of Ushahidi, we had about 120 Barcamp branded T-shirts available (based on those who'd signed up to get one) so apologies to those who didn't get one.

However, roughly 228 people showed up!


Great - lots of ladies came :)

Sessions and Topics:

We had 3 concurrent 30 minute sessions conducted in three rooms (Ushahidi Room, ICT Board room, and the Google Room) throughout the day. At the beginning of the sessions, in typical barcamp style, campers were asked to come forward and write down what they wanted to talk about, then the topics and agenda selected based on what people wanted to listen to. A bit like acclamation (politically) but not as noisy.

A rough listing of the resulting topics:

Room: Ushahidi

• Buglabs session
• Web apps with Jahazi
• Wordpress optimization tips
• GPS/Google Maps: S60 as a platform... and a bug
• Developing for the iPhone
• Internet/Network Security
• Renewable Energy Kiosks & Impact on Rural IT

Room: ICT Board

• Google Maps Session
• CMS - Zope/Plone
• Blogging Tricks
• Open-e Data Storage
• Application Development Procedures to code for Government
• zunguka.com (web|mobile|you)
• Bandwidth Management and Optimization

Room: Google Room

• Where are the developers?
• Software Localisation
• Ubuntu and LTSP
• Blogging for cash
• Google Maps and Mobile applications
• Linux as a development platform for engineers
• Kiania's informal session :)

We also had a 'lightning session' lasting about 55 minutes where anyone with something say was welcome to for a 5 minute period. Here's the list.

• Michuki - IETF & KIXP
• Erik - Ushahidi recruiting
• Kahenya - Creative Commons
• Alex Gakuru - F/OSS organisations listing, ICT government study
• Mike K - kenblogs
• Stella - Fahamu - ICTs & Human Rights
• Paul Kukubo - The Kenya ICT Board & Vision, goals.
• Edward - Moi Uni
• Limo - Data and records
• Gee - Web design tips
• KenyanPoet - Publishing
• Gichingiri - sokoletu
• James - Computers for Schools/e-waste management
• Mike - Archiving, Record keeping
• Anne - Law, defamation & blogging

Thanks:

• Our main sponsors: Google, Ushahidi, Kenya ICT Board
• Strategic Lee, Deep Space hosting
• Wananchi for the free wifi
• Openworld and KENET for projectors
  
• Yahoo, O'Reilly, Wordpress for the giveaways
• Bug Labs for letting us borrow one of their new BUGbundles
• Brian Muita & Gichingiri for the snazzy poster
• Eric (Magutu) for running around :)
• Erik (Hash) for the great blogging
• Mich for MC'ing
  
• Everyone who helped organize, setup and clean up afterwards
• Everyone who came :)

Some photos
Also check out Hash's blog