With the Spring 2016 edition of Barcamp Bangalore, us Barcamp Planners have been succesfully organizing Barcamps for a decade now. The planning team has changed, some of the original campers still do visit us, some have moved to make something new.
We reached out to few campers to collect their thoughts about Barcamp and what Barcamp meant to them and how it has influenced, helped or otherwise changed them. Here’s what they had to say, in no specific order.
I remember very clearly attending the very first barcamp. I even have some pics from that (https://thejeshgn.com/2006/04/22/early-pics-from-barcamp-bangalore/) taken using my rudimentary camera.
I remember it being first of its kind. I met many on that day, that even today I remember and talk to when I go the barcamp now. I remember people being kind, happy and encouraging. I think its still the spirit at Barcamp Bangalore today.
10 years, wow, time flies.
It was my first such event and special memories associated with it. Coming from a pure telco world, some of those web technology was new to me, learnt a new words like ‘podcast’ and wordpress there only 🙂Plenty of interesting sessions that day, the first session I attended was Pinko Marketing by Tara Hunt. Another session which was well presented was Taazza by Arun Ram. News integration was quite popular idea then, a few more sessions on similar line, samachar, newsvine, newshound, meme trackingFlickr, Digg and Google maps, wikipedia were hot and there were a few sessions on integrating them. There was also a session on not so common zenrin maps, amazing isn’t? Another happening area was Amazon Mechanical Trunk, in fact a few sessions on mechanical turk. Someone from Amazon (possibly Amar Zumkhawala) presented on Amazon services. And there were more diverse sessions like spikesource, diango, sharpcast, 1 click blogging, A9 searching, junk prototypes, microformats, flex and even voicexml.While everyone were talking about web and web, something different was a session by Rajiv Poddar on his micro OS for small mobiles. Very cool it was.Not sure I gave you any quotable things but indeed it was my introduction to web technology world, has potentially influenced my start-up journey which was about to begin.And no, I didn’t remember everything. Some of them comes from my notes – attached are pictures of my BCB 2005 souvenirs 🙂
Having run Barcamp in the early days with the fellow volunteers the experience was humbling & inspiring. Barcamp gave birth to so many more specific collectives: both Headstart & Designday owe their seeds at Barcamp. The people I have met over years at BCB have become my close friends or partner in crime at other communities/activities. It has no doubt transformed the landscape of Bangalore and its culture. Looking forward to the next 10!
Barcamp holds a very special place in my heart for several reasons. The top-most of which is the fact that the beta launch of Eventosaur was announced at Barcamp. It’s been a very special journey and continues to be magical – the people, the sessions, the familiarity coupled with the unpredictable nature of Barcamp. It is surreal. I think and hope I’ll continue to attend, contribute and learn at Barcamp for decades to come.
Coming out of college at a time when such meetups were far and few, I always wondered how the whole Barcamp concept works. I would always hear about it from my close buddy Thejesh, but for one or the other reason never attended it till 2011. The first experience was more than what I had expected – made new friends and found common interests.My most memorable experience was the presentation of my wearable computer at Techlash during Barcamp Monsoon 2013. Except for making presentations in corporate meeting rooms to a handful of people, I never had any experience presenting to a crowd. The device being a very early prototype, I didn’t expect people to show much interest. The response took me by surprise. That one 20 min talk (which was expected to run only for 5 mins) opened up floodgates of networking. Now everyone from curious attendees to companies interested in funding startups were interested to talk to me. People were not just talking but were offering ideas and suggestions on what this device can be put to use. I’ve never seen this kind of sharing in corporate environments! Sadly I was not able to cash in on all this interest, mainly due to personal reasons.
Long time (and ongoing) planner Saurabh wrote about his journey of being a planner
I have been part of Barcamp Bangalore ever since and it has taught me a lot of things. More importantly it has kept my passion of technology alive regardless of what technology I have been working on in my day job. I could say a lot more about things I have learnt at Barcamp Bangalore but that for the next post.
And what he’s learnt of being a planner
Sometimes we feel intimidated because the folks, who have been around for sometime, are much more experienced or skilled. But it is important that you do whatever little that you can. It works in two ways — establishes the fact that you can do things, and secondly, helps other folks do more because you have taken some of their responsibilities. This was very critical when I had joined the team and had no credibility whatsoever.
Have some thoughts to add? Drop a comment and let us know.