I like to add following points to your summery. Initially we planned to have a small one day BarCamp event targeting 50 -75 people only with local speakers. With support from our sponsors and ASF finally it became a two day large event but the name remained as BarCamp. In fact we received 400+ registrations unfortunately with our resources we had to limit it for 200.
We are very keen on organizing a large event somewhere in next year probably ApacheCon Asia. We have a plan to start initial works within next couple of months and start a discussion with ConCom folks too. As we discussed involving into organize Europe event can be a important exercise for us. Myself and few others looking forward to actively involve in organizing Europe event. Finally I would like to thank ConCom folks and specially Nick and Ross for your contribution. Thanks ! On Sun, Feb 26, 2012 at 7:37 PM, Ross Gardler <[email protected]>wrote: > Today it was ApacheBarcamp Sri Lanka. An event organised on the > smal-events list (this mail cc'd to concom main ilst for info). Here > is a very quick summary of how the event went. > > It was held at the the University here in Columbo. But it certainly > wasn't a BarCamp. It was more like a mini-conference. Since I was not > involved with the planning I can't provide the background as to why it > was called a BarCamp but the format of a single track conference. > > There were between 150 and 175 people there, I'd say the vast majority > were students. All were enthusiastic. > > The first session was from Sanjiva Weerawarana, CEO of WSO2 - one of > the main sponsors. Sanjiva talked, as anyone who knows him would > expect, without mentioning his company. His focus was on the > importance of open source to the careers of those in the room, > including his own. He further highlighted the importance of open > source to the broader economic development of Sri Lanka. > > Next up was myself doing a fairly standard Apache Way talk. As is my > style I encouraged those present to interrupt and engage. I'm pleased > to say that they did and as a result my session ran over by about 20 > minutes, if it hadn't been for the arrival of tea and snacks it would > have gone on for much longer. The audience seemed genuinely interested > in Apache. Sanjiva had certainly caught their attentions. > > After tea Nick Burch gave a talk on how he got involved with Apache. > He also invited a number of committers in the audience to share their > experiences. This worked well. It seemed that hearing how established > committers have had patches rejected, emails ignored, RTFM style > answers and so on was encouraging for the audience. > > Nick was followed by Sagara Gunathunga (WSO2) who spoke on how to find > a project and take that first step in an Apache project. Again this > seemed to be very well received and Sagara provided some useful > starting points. > > Lunch was up next with the usual interesting chats. > > Next up was a panel discussion with past GSoC students on the panel. I > only caught half of this as Nick somehow found us a much needed coffee > at this point. What I did see focussed on advising the students on how > to apply for and succeed in GSoC (not just ASF). This was perhaps too > long, but since I wasn't in the room it might have been long because > the audience became engaged. > > The overrunning of the panel meant the final session, which was to be > Q&A panel for all speakers had to be shrunk to 20 minutes. So Kanchana > took a few minutes to announce her intention to create a women in open > source group in Sri Lanka (there were about 15 women at the event, all > of whom were interested in Kanchana's proposal). The rest of the time > was taken up by Nick and I turning the mic on the attendees and (in > some cases) forcing them to tell us what their main take away from the > event was. We got a great range of answers indicating that all the > most important messages had got across. > > In summary, this was not a barcamp, it should not have been called a > barcamp. It would have been nice to see much more engagement from the > audience. Certainly my session and the final session indicated people > were willing to speak up. That being said, the event was clearly a > success and it certainly complied with the policy in terms of Apache > representation and commercial impartiality (oh and it was free to > attend). The planners have already indicated that they would like to > do a larger event, possibly even an ApacheCon Asia. Nick and I had an > initial chat with them. We hope to see initial discussions once they > have had time to debrief and think about the future. > > Well done to everyone involved with organising it. > > Ross > > -- > Ross Gardler (@rgardler) > Programme Leader (Open Development) > OpenDirective http://opendirective.com > -- Sagara Gunathunga Blog - http://ssagara.blogspot.com Web - http://people.apache.org/~sagara/ LinkedIn - http://www.linkedin.com/in/ssagara
