The Hindu : Kerala / Kochi News : BarCamp Kerala on May 3

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, May 01, 2009
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Kerala

Kerala - Kochi

BarCamp Kerala on May 3

T. Ramachandran

Thiruvananthapuram Technopark to host the event once again

An earlier BarCamp Kerala held at IIM, Kozhikode.

KOCHI: Technology enthusiasts and professionals in the State are looking forward to yet another BarCamp Kerala, to be conducted at Technopark in Thiruvananthapuram on May 3.

BarCamps are the ‘in’ thing in IT circles, especially among young people, who find their easy informality and freely structured sessions appealing. There is no set agenda; the choice of speakers from among the participants is made by consensus. Those who attend the camp get the chance to network and also learn about the interests of others like them. They benefit from the sharing of knowledge as well.

“When you come, be prepared to share with BarCampers. When you leave, be prepared to share it with the world,” explains the general site www.barcamp.org, which provides a pithy introduction to the practice of ‘BarCamping’.

Participants are expected to publish on the Web the content of the presentations they make at the sessions. This is a typical BarCamp convention, just as blogging and ‘Tweeting’ about the goings on is. (Tweeting is keeping the outside world abreast of happenings using the social networking tool Twitter).

The State, it seems, is yet to come to grips with the barcamp concept. “In Kerala, the word bar is associated with everything negative, so we find companies and colleges hesitant to associate (themselves) with BarCamps,” says Anand Subramaniam, one of the organisers of the Thiruvananthapuram BarCamp. He met the organiser of the first camp Kenney Jacob online, and along with Niju Mohan, has been involved in organising this one too (web site: http://www.barcampkerala.org/blog/). They are young IT entrepreneurs.

Such camps fall into the category of ‘unconferences’, for they are not formal meetings with their traditional format — the mandatory welcome address, inaugural address, presidential address and so on, till the formal vote of thanks. Participants do not have to pay a fee for attending them. And just about anybody who attends the camp can make a presentation, provided the others think it worth listening to. People can walk out of a session if they think it is too boring. But everyone who attends it must support it one way or the other.

The first BarCamp was held in the U.S. in 2005 and since then they have been held in about 350 cities across several continents, says Wikipedia. And BarCamps need not be restricted to IT itself.

The first BarCamp Kerala was conducted in November 2007 at Technopark and it is returning to the same venue again after three sessions, held in other parts of the State — the second in February and third in December 2008 were both organised at Cochin University of Science and Technology and the fourth in January 2009 was held at the Indian Institute of Management, Kozhikode.

“Usually we see around 100-150 people turning up to these gatherings and we expect it to touch 250 this time around,” says Mr. Anand.

Software professionals, students, web developers and bloggers are likely to make up the bulk of the participants this time. There is no registration fee. There have been sponsors for some of the earlier BarCamps; this time Technopark is involved — it is providing the venue for the event and Wi-fi access, says Mr. Anand.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Kerala