BarCampDelhi - lowering the bar for shared learning

If you happen to be a technology enthusiast living in Delhi/NCR, you must book your date with BarCampDelhi. This is a technology ‘unconference’ and the first-of-its-kind in Asia. The first BarCamp started out of Silicon Valley in mid-2005 and ever since they are springing up across tech ghettos in the US & Europe.

BarCamp, as the name suggests is about ‘lowering the bar‘; it’s an event for the tech community to come together and learn from the experience of others in a shared & open format. Well, that’s true for all conferences but BarCamp comes with a difference- instead of a few privileged/eminent folks presenting to a big audience, in BarCamp, anybody can sign up and make a small presentation that showcases your product, technology or experiences etc. There is no restriction about who can speak- people working in startups or micro ISVs, mid/large sized corporations, students, independant consultants /practitioners et al. To promote participation, we have deliberately kept the conference theme broad & inclusive - ‘Next Generation Internet: Web 2.0, mobile computing, and other cool stuff’.

The idea for organizing BarCamp at Delhi came from my colleague, Jon, who was at the inaugural BarCamp in Silicon Valley. We bounced the idea off Gaurav and Manik and they felt it was a great idea and certainly doable in Delhi. While this is currently a one day tech meet, if successful, this could become a rallying point in weaving together a small technology microcosm in Delhi.

BarCampDelhi is slated for 4th of March; it’s a day long event and the venue is the Adobe office in Noida. We are extremely grateful to Adobe India for offering to host the event.

Here’s how you can participate -

1) If you wish to attend - go to the DelhiBarCamp site and add your name to the list of ‘campers’ (the site is a wiki, so anybody can edit it)

2) If you wish to make a presentation - add your name to the list of ‘campers’ and then add your name & topic in the section marked as ‘proposed sessions’. The conference venue will be wi-fi enabled, so in case you have a laptop, carry it along with you; if not, carry your presentation as a PowerPoint file in a CD/jump drive. We shall go all out to accommodate as many sessions as possible, though a one day event does limit the number of potential speakers.

3) If you wish to contribute - get in touch with any of the planners mentioned on the site.

We need your help in spreading the word around, so please blog this as loudly as you can; tell your friends, colleagues & acquaintances.

For more about BarCampDelhi, check out Gaurav’s post or Jon’s post.

For more on BarCamp as a concept, check out this & this.

Help us make BarCampDelhi a smashing success.