Things are shaping up for us to have a dynamic crowd who are going to have a wide of array of topics to cover in the session breakdowns. Here are some of the ideas that have been suggested so far, although we'll definitely hear of more tomorrow:
- Intellectual Property and your code
- Localization of language interfaces
- Tropically Tolerant Design Patterns
- Developing for low bandwidth
- Seeding startups in Africa
- Mobile development
- Spreading Open Source technologies
- African/American approach to programming
- Mapping spaces and systems
With four, one hour sessions, we'll have some great spaces for conversations about these topics and more. Look forward to seeing you there!
It's happening this Sunday in San Francisco. If you haven't yet, register here and let us know you're coming.
Below is the general scedule for the day, October 4th:
12:00 - Doors open
12:10 - Welcome from by organizers
12:15 - Session scheduling on the board
13:00 - First session group
14:15 - Second session group
15:30 - Third session group
16:45 - Fourth session group
18:00 - Closing day remarks
We will have snacks and drinks available the event. A group of us will probably continue discussions and chats at a nearby establishment after the event proper at PariSoMa.
Hope to see you there!
The official stickers for AfricaCodeCamp have arrived! Because, what's an event without something to stick on your laptop to remember it? We'd like to thank Maneno for handling all the coordination on printing these and getting them ordered in time for the event.
Also, Creative Commons has been good to us promoting the event on their twitter as well as some of their staff stopping by to lend a hand. We hear they will bring by the very highly sought after CC stickers with the white background which are always a tough find. We're hoping that someone in their group might also want to lead a session on Intellectual Property and how Creative Commons agreements work with you protecting your code. Would love to hear about their progress in Africa to get their licenses extended there as well.
Also, Mozilla (yes, the Firefox people) are going to be sending out some swag and some of their people as too. We definitely look forward to it as Firefox is our favorite browser and pretty crucial to solid web development and testing.
In addition to being a great space, PariSoMa also has the benefit of having a very solid internet connection that allows for 3Mb both down and up. Their wifi also never seems to have any problems with large groups connecting to it. This is probably due to their hosting a great many events as well as the coworking space happening during the day.
That fast upstream link at PariSoMa means that if anyone wants to broadcast live video from the event, you won't have any problems. While the focus will be on having barcamp sessions, we encourage people to shoot any interviews they like and to be creative with coverage. The organizers will be twitting and blogging about everything (as well as others we hope), so any way that video can work to fill in or complement, would be highly encouraged. Naturally, if anyone wants to let us know they're volunteering at africacodecamp@gmail.com, we'd appreciate it.
The following groups have lent their support in a variety of ways to making the October 4th AfricaCodeCamp happen in San Francisco (register here!). We thank them heartily!
Providing the venue for the event, this very cool coworking space in the SOMA district of San Francisco, in addition to being a fantastic place to casually work, supports events and the arts in the area. One great part of faberNovel.
Ghana-based group that works to promote ICT in their country as well as in the diaspora, and who have organized several successful Barcamps both in Ghana and in Washington DC. They've been a great help to us in getting the word out about the CodeCamp as well as lending a hand in the logistics.
The blogging platform for Africa. They've been great in not only hosting our blog about the event, but in helping to get the word out and in some of the logistics too. They will also provide live coverage on the day of the event.
If you're helping to get the word out, let us know at africacodecamp@gmail.com! We'd be happen to mention you here as well, since a Camp can't happen without a good community behind it.
If you would like to be a material supporter by giving us swag for the participants, demo products, or helping out with the drinks, snacks or other logistics, let us know too!
For the AfricaCodeCamp on October 4th, we are creating a pay-what-you-can model with a suggested price of $5, but paying more allows for a larger event and more in the future. This price only covers the basic costs of putting on the event. Anyone who pays for registration will be automatically confirmed as attending, but everyone who intends to come (whether able to pay or not) needs to leave a comment on this post so that we can gauge attendance. The space is limited to 50 people so we need to place a cap on attendance.
Additionally we are looking for sponsors to the event. Some fine groups have already lent time, resources, and space to the event, but we are hoping to find others willing to donate $100 or more to expand the event. Also, you can support AfricaCodeCamp beyond monetary contributions, for example donating one of your products to give away to attendees. Please contact us at africacodecamp@gmail.com
The beauty of the barcamp format is that while it was originally born from a very hardcore geek background, it can be adapted to "camp" just about anything (BaconCamp anyone?). This has helped to popularize the unconference a great deal in recent years, which is fantastic for everyone. But through all of this, a group of us who met at the BarCamp Africa Silicon Valley last year have stayed in contact and met up at various other events. We talked about how having an event that returned to these geeky roots, which would be great, especially if it focused on Africa-related geeky stuff.
PariSoma, a cool co-working space in San Francisco's SOMA district, showed an interest in seeing it happen as they're hoping to establish co-working spaces in a couple of countries in Africa at some point in the near future. With their nudge and our desires to "go geek", so was born the AfricaCodeCamp, an event focused on being for African coders or those coding projects for Africa.
Why make the focus so "narrow"? Simple. Coding for the United States is different than coding for Europe and in turn is different than coding for Africa. For instance, multilingual interfaces aren't such a problem in the US and developing for low bandwidth isn't really a concern in the US or Europe, and these are just a few of many differences. African projects require rethinking one's approach and in that process comes different and unique innovations.
So on the 4th of October we'll get as many of these innovators as possible together in one place in San Francisco, to problem solve and work together to make all of our hacking even better. Hope to see you there or at another AfricaCodeCamp elsewhere in the world!
Date: October 4th, 2009
Time: 12:00-18:00
Location: PariSoMa
1436 Howard Street, San Francisco, California
Please register here. The pay-as-you-can registration fees will be used to cover drinks, snacks, and various swag.
We're looking for one or more sponsors to help us cover the basics to make this first AfricaCodeCamp an enjoyable experience.
Please contact us if you'd like to sponsor its: africacodecamp@gmail.com
