BarCamp Bangalore

BarCamp Bangalore was held last Saturday (April 22nd) at the Yahoo! Bangalore office. This was my first time attending a BarCamp and I found the whole concept of unconference interesting and intriguing after I understood how the system worked. Anybody can walk up to the board and put a sticky post-it note and book a slot and a room and talk about their latest technology fascination or project in the Web 2.0 and related space.

As expected, the place was filled with geeks and techies, who were eager to to talk about Web 2.0 technologies, mobile computing, cyborgs, podcasting, Pinko marketing, and other emerging technologies. Many people were blogging live at the event. At one point the wi-fi connection at the event was totally maxed out...that is how many people were using the connection. And by the way, we could watch Google Video here (not sure how that happened, but it did) and a couple of people walked up wanting to find out how we accessed Google Video. I had quite forgotten that Google Video is not accessible in India.

The whole atmosphere and energy at the BarCamp reminded me of Silicon Valley in the late 1990s. Everyone then wanted to open an online company and go IPO. This time around while the infection and enthusiasm is the same there is a difference, and the difference is in the sharing and community-based approach to find solutions. It is not surprising then social networking, mobile computing etc were the hot topics at this event.

Atul Chitnis, who describes himself as a disruptive technologist, spoke about mobile computing in India. He gave an interesting and powerful demonstration on how easy it is to use mobile devices to surf, listen to music, watch films and send email. He used his Palm PDA for the demonstration. Atul's basic premise is that an awareness and an attitude change needs to be created in people to think that computing is not limited to desktop PCs or laptops, but can extend to mobile devices. And once this awareness is created, you, the user, is free to roam anywhere and do your work. You don't have to be chained to your desk.

Tara Hunt, chief blogger and marketing person for Riya, spoke about the company's face recognition software, and it that turned out to be a huge crowd-puller. If you have not heard about Tara you might want to read her blog. She does not kid when she says that the the world is mega uber bloody flat. She literally appears to have jet wings attached to her as she jets from one part of the world to another evangelizing about Riya. While I did not attend her talk on Riya'ss product, the one thing that struck me about the software is their privacy issue and how they handle it. If you are on Riya's photo database then you can be easily identified I guess. Perhaps, that was the reason I resisted getting photographed early on in the BarCamp session, where every candidate was being photographed.

Satish and Jayant floated an idea for podcasting called Podshala. It was fascinating to watch the birth of an idea and the feedback that the people gave them about their podcast idea. Aside: I was quite amused and a bit taken back to learn that bunking college is a regular feature in Bangalore and that people resort the the desi version of Cliff Notes to pass their exams.

There were a whole lot of people blogging live at the event. I chatted with Anita Bora, who was busy attending various sessions and blogging away. Vikrant Aivalli was another live blogger. Until recently Vikrant was with Amazon and has taken time off from his work before he joins his next start-up. He was very helpful and showed me some basic PHP sites that will help me brush up on my non-existent PHP knowledge. Sumeet was another live blogger, who was busy trying to hold a spot survey to find out who the most popular LiveJournal blogger is. I wonder who got that title.

Over 200 people had signed up for the event, but I think quite a few people did not show up.

If you have not been to a BarCamp event, do go. It is a learning experience and gives you some semblance of an idea of where this whole Web 2.0 phenomenon is headed.