The idea behind GeekCamp started from Kamal Fariz’s tweet:
I’m going to run GeekCamp. All technical talks, single track. No offense to marketers, *preneurs, social media experts but you can suck it.
It received overwhelming responses over Twitter, and Kamal couldn’t have suggested a better date/time scenario — right before/after the MSC Malaysia event.
What is GeekCamp?
Its a platform for all technical talks to take place, in a single track kind of scenario. There will be no marketing pitches, no entrepreneurial talks, and nothing about social media — just focus on good technology talks. There will also be an emphasis on great food, laid back learning and sharing environments, and after parties.
Be a caring geek, by sharing your knowledge openly. Don’t go up on stage, to speak on git(1), when you don’t know how to use a SCM… you’ll end up looking like a git.
Do you know all the cool tricks to tunnel connections, and make SSH do wonders, with all the variety of configuration options in the ssh config file? You’re probably entitled a lengthier lighting talk session, then, I’m sure :)
Do you know how to write a search engine in about two-hundred lines of Ruby? Do you know how to index email metadata at the server level, and provide a Spotlight/Beagle styled search on the server side? Do you know all the nooks and crannies behind making Apache scale? Do you know what the most common ways websites get broken into, and how to fix XSS, and other things? I think you’ll definitely get a session that way ;-)
What resources are there for GeekCamp?
We have a mailing list, a a Twitter account @geekcamp, and a poll to decide when to hold GeekCamp.
We are actively looking for a location, somewhere in central KL, preferably available for FREE (as in beerteh tarik).
Attendance is expected to be free, ala Barcamp style. All this of course, provided we get a free location. Food, drink, et al – BYO (bring your own). After all, you’re coming to learn, and hack on stuff.
Anything else?
Once the location is decided upon, there are thoughts to have a proper “call for papers” session. However, unlike many other conferences, the CfP process will be public, and chances are you can vote on Doodle, like you are doing for the location.
Let’s make this as open, and geeky/technology-oriented as possible. Kudos to Kamal for kicking this off.
If you’re coming in from overseas, once we have a location, we’ll recommend hotels.
Comments? Send them to the mailing list.
Takeaway
- Let’s decide how many days and when it should be – vote here
- Let’s decide where to hold it – a hall for the sessions, and another room for hacking/socialising – read more about the requirements
- If you do want to sponsor the event (not with marketing materials, thank you very much), we’ll be looking at food and drink