Congratulations on the successful Barcamp Saigon

Posted by admin on 17 November 2008 under Saigon1 | 4 Comments to Read

First of all we would like to extend our gratitude to all the sponsors, volunteers and technology enthusiasts from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi, from Vietnam to Singapore as well as Cambodia, those who had supported Barcamp Saigon 1 (Barcamp Saigon 2008) so much that we had a great Barcamp Saigon on Saturday November 15. A detailed report of the day is as follows (our apology that it comes this late, for we were busy gathering photos, videos, and information on Barcampers and session leaders):

According to the schedule, registration started at 8:30AM but the organizers and volunteers arrived at 6:30 to prepare for the event.

8.30: Bryan Pelz, Preetam, Christine Trần were among the earliest Barcampers registered.

Bryan Pelz. Courtesy of PC World VN.

9.00:The Opening Ceremony took place at the Melbourne Theatre. Around 150 people were already present.

Organizers and volunteers near the session schedule.

Thoại - Schedule manager

It’s time for attending the sessions!

Xem lịch

11.30: Time for lunch

Too crowded! =.=

Tea break

The closing ceremony took place at 16.30. Here, each barcamper was asked how they felt about Barcamp.

Goeffrey Cain - freelance reporter of Reuters, UN,...

After that, Barcampers headed to Ngọc Thảo for the free #beercamp!

There were shortcomings though due to subjective and objective matters, which made Barcamp not as “perfect” as it was expected to be . Wifi did not work out of the box because we had to go through the Proxy. As such, efforts to live broadcast the event via DDTH, JavaVietnam.org, Twitter, Pibb and other communcation channels were thwarted. However, MegoTV, an online streaming service, managed to live stream a session by our beloved Huyền Chip.

Despite our efforts to gather all the information relating to the sessions, many still remain unreachable. Should you know of those session leaders as well as the comments on their presentations, please leave a comment below or send an email to us at barcamp.saigon@gmail.com Thanks a lot!

You can download the slides of BarCamp Sài Gòn here. Session leaders please share your slides with everyone by uploading them to Slideshare with the tag “barcampsaigon” or sending them to chip@huyenchip.com so that she can do it for you.

Morning sessions:

1. eXtreme Programming - A Practitioner’s Approach by Lê Vi Khanh and Huỳnh Vi Quang - Stanyang Group

2. Python for the rest of your life- Nguyễn Thành Nam - CEO of Bluemoon. FYI, Bluemoon security group just won 1st place at HITB contest, one of the biggest security contests in Asia.

3. ????Machine Perception Pattern Recognition (Chip making)

4. ????Experience in Learning English - T.Tran

5. Global Positioning System - Nguyễn Đình Bảo - MXI, Raytheon

6. ?????RUP by Minh/IBM

7. How to Twitter (and Why) by Thomas Wanhoff. He’s one of the most famous postcasters in Germany.

8. Using Ubuntu Linux at American International School by Kevin Miller

9. Mobile GIS - Lê Ngọc Quốc Khánh, admin của http://javavietnam.org A pretty useful presentation for programmers.

10. VoIP using Linux (En/Vi) by two guys from GHP Far East - Anthony Fernandes (CTO) và Nguyen Duy Phong (IT Administrator)

11. Web 2.0 in China, Korea, Japan & World. Interesting MobileWeb Services by Preetam RAI - one of the most admirable bloggers and travellers of mine. He’s everywhere!

12. ????Learn and remember effectively (En&Vi)

13. Intel Technology and what you can do at Intel by Huan Dương from Intel Vietnam

14. Virtualization (system) by Stephane Masse IT Director Apple Tree and Le Trung Cang, IT Manager Archetype

15. ???????Open CV eigen face recognition by D. Minh

16. Echo-o and Google App Engine by Nguyen Tien Loi - Multinc

17. Microsoft Sync Framework & the future of WebApp by Lê Trung Hiếu - Global CyberSoft

18. ?????Linux is good for geeks

19. Vietnam Online: A macro view on a troubled but growing market by Bryan Pelz, CEO Vinagame

20. ??In space application. Machine vision by Vu

Afternoon sessions:

21. ???Adobe AIR development by Quang Tran

22. Linux and Enterprise by Võ Hồng Quân from GHP Far-East

23. Scalable cross-language services development with Apache Thrift (It’s cool!) by Thai DN - CSO from Dong A Bank. Did I tell you guys he’s one of the best hackers in Vietnam??

24. Surface Computing by Eric Hosick - RMIT lecturer & Mr. Cuong

25. How to make money online? Is online advertising the only way? by Rick Rodgers (Cross-Trade Border Director at PeaceSoft) & Trần Ngọc Thái Sơn (SonnyMotives) - (Representative of Vega Corp in HCMC (En&Vi). Interesting topic and it attracted a lot of barcampers. Of course, who doesn’t love money

26. ????Truck management (use GPS, GSM) by Dang Viet Hung

27. Roundtable: Startups in Vietnam. Share Experiences, lessons learned and tips for starting companies. For entrepreneurs: “Future Entrepreneurs” - By James Vuong (Vice President - Investment & Technology) and Hiep Do (Vice President - Investment & Technology) from IDGVV together with one of our organizers Daniel Shupp from Tech Propulsion. It was really great and helpful. Whoever wanna get funding from a VC should join it!

28. Ingredients of a successful web business by Chris Harvey, Genaral Director Navigos Group

He seems to be a very nice guy but he left too early.

29. E-learner Platform 2.0 by Nguyễn Anh Hùng, a young talent from FTU and one of Barcamp Saigon’s organizers. His E-learner Platform once implemented can help a lot of people.

30. ???Python by Nghia

31. “Social Networks” in Vietnam: Voices from the street by Phạm Anh Khoa and Đạt. Khoa is the founder of VietAbroader and an expert at Vietnam web market. But I have no information about his friend: Đạt until now.

32. ????Key Information on Webpage

33. IT Strategy: “Advancing your future” by Leon Sikes from VinaConsulting

34. Ask me anything about Drupal or Open Source or starting a non VC company by Jordan Lougheed - He seems to be very confident and a great freelancer.

35. Internet Television by Lê Quang Duy, one of BarCamp Saigon’s organizers: enthusiastic and willing to help. He’s going to be a very nice film maker.

36. Roundtable: Bringing Linux servers into a wintows network: products that will sell it to your managers!! by Urko Masse (SSIS Tech Coordinator)

37. ???Experiences Running a company in Vietnam (for foreigners) by Eric

38. Meet Sexy Cambodian Bloggers (Both Male/Female) - Preetam and 2 sexy Cambodian bloggers: Rath and Ramanagal.

39. Vietnam Web Services Portal. Go Global! by me (Huyen Chip). I know I made bunch of mistakes but that’s the way I can learn. Thanks everyone for joining and supporting me.

40. How to collaborate with Google Docs by Thomas Wanhoff.

41. ???Info SEC by Nam

42. ????iPhone Dev and Echo-o by Quang Tran

43. Entrepreneurs Anonymous by Christopher Zobrist (VSVN)

44. Sáng tạo? Bạn đang nghĩ gì? by 2 extremely active high school students from Lê Hồng Phong (one of the best high schools in HCMC) Bình - An. They were the youngest orators at BarCamp Saigon 1, and I’m sure they’ll do much better when they reach our age.

45. How I use Second Life and Virtual Worlds in my class - Preetam Rai

46. ???Echo-o and Android Application

Prepare for BarCamp Saigon 1

Posted by admin on 13 November 2008 under Saigon1 | 2 Comments to Read

We’ve been quiet but we’ve been busy preparing for our exciting BarCamp Saigon 1 event, finally coming this Saturday!

The attendee registration list is full. And we will have some very interesting sessions to satisfy our thirst for technology knowledge.

First off, if you cannot attend BarCamp, we kindly request that you let us know now so that we can “un-register” you. This will help us better prepare.

For the rest of you, here is some important information for the event.

Event information

• Date: Saturday, November 15, 2008
• Time: 8am to 5pm
• Location: RMIT Vietnam, 702 Nguyễn Văn Linh Boulevard, Tân Phong Ward, District 7
• Lunch will be served
• Parking: there is plenty of motorbike parking, but no car parking
• Public transportation: public bus lines 34 & 102

More details will be posted on the web site as the event approaches.

How to prepare now

• Bring business cards (name cards)
• Bring a laptop. BarCamp is an online-offline event. Having a laptop with Wifi is very important to help you participate and communicate.
• Bring a camera if you would like take photos.
• Bring a video camera if you would like to make videos of the sessions.
• If you have available job postings, we will have a bulletin board where you can display them.

Lead a session

Remember BarCamp is about participation. This event is for you and by you. If you haven’t started yet, now’s the time to start preparing your session.

• Possible formats: a presentation, a round-table discussion, a technology demo, or …
• Time length: 25 minutes or 55 minutes long
• Equipment available in every room: a whiteboard, a lectern at the front, and a projector. Ideally, you should bring your own laptop if you give a presentation.
• If you have a presentation in English, you may want to have your presentation translated into Vietnamese for the benefit of everyone. The same thing goes if it’s in Vietnamese. We can help with some of the translation. For help, email your slides to barcamp-translation [@] reml [point] org and we will put them on Google Docs so that everyone can help in making it bilingual.

How to be even more prepared!

• You can already get familiar with the maps inside RMIT.
• As with all BarCamps, the schedule and location of the sessions will be decided on the day of the event by everyone. Most of the schedule is set during the assembly at the beginning of the day. After the assembly, the schedule will be placed on a big board in the BarCamp Lobby, where you can check it for updates as the day progresses. You an also check a copy of the schedule live online from your laptop throughout the day.
• In the morning at reception, you will get a namebadge. Start thinking of 3 tags that describe you, your interests, and your affiliations. Having written tags on your namebadge is a great conversation-starter with other BarCampers.

Collaborative Technology

To fully communicate during BarCamp, it’s important to be familiar with certain technologies, preferably before Saturday:

• You can chat with other BarCampers using Pibb (If you’re already logged in, search for the channel “Barcamp Saigon”)
  • You don’t need to create an account, you can use OpenID
  • There is a different thread for every session room
• You can follow live news from BarCamp participants at Twitter updates for #barcampsaigon
  • You should create an account and use the hashtag #barcampsaigon when sending your own tweets during BarCamp so that people can track
• You can follow live news from organizers at Twitter updates for barcampsaigon

Another important activity at BarCamp is sharing the session proceedings with everyone in the world. During and after the event, try to upload:

• presentation slides to SlideShare with the tag barcampsaigon
• photos to Flickr with the tag barcampsaigon
• videos to YouTube with the tag barcampsaigon
• web links to delicious with the tag barcampsaigon

More Questions

If you have any questions, just send an email to barcamp-saigon [at] googlegroups [point] com

We have a confirmed venue and date!

Posted by admin on 18 October 2008 under Saigon1 | 3 Comments to Read

This is it folks, we have an official venue and date!

RMIT Vietnam generously offered to host BarCamp Saigon 1.  This is quite forward-thinking on RMIT’s part and demonstrates that they are very interested in helping bring the IT community together to share and learn.  And this is great for BarCamp because RMIT has the most state-of-the-art facilities a venue could offer–you will be impressed.

We are expecting a full house.  There will be people from all walks of life, all interested in technology.

So mark your calendars because it will be a very educational and fun Saturday, November 15, from 8am to 5pm.  And register early and start thinking about a topic you would like to share with everyone

Presentation 101: Nobody Does It Better

Posted by admin on 13 October 2008 under Saigon1 | Read the First Comment

The key to every Barcamp’s success lies in the participation of its audience, which essentially means your stepping up to lead presentations or discussions on a variety of topics ranging from Technology to “How to pick up a Vietnamese girl/boy?’. While this seems a relatively comfortable task for some, it’s a daunting one for others. The organizers of BarcampSaigon realize the only way to help us all overcome such FUD - Fear , Uncertainty, and Doubt - is to provide as much information as possible about what’s needed to be a good presenter. It’s not that hard, but it takes some learning and practicing

Do let us know if we’re doing a good job

Episode 1: Nobody does it better

In 1977, Carly Simon had her hit song, Nobody Does it Better, peak at #2 on the Billboard charts.  You may remember the opening line and chorus:

Nobody does it better

Makes me feel sad for the rest

Nobody does it half as good as you

Baby, you’re the best

This song was obviously written about love and not public speaking, but did you think, “Baby, you’re the best” about the last person that presented to you?  Probably not.  I didn’t.

John F.  Kennedy once said, “The only reason to give a speech is to change the world,” and each day there are about 30 million presentations given across the country. It’s hard to imagine that these presentations are positively changing and impacting lives. They’re probably ending lives due to the overuse of PowerPoint and bullet points. In all seriousness, there is clearly a lack of presentation training in America.  We live in a business culture that abuses presentation software and the art of public speaking.

Let’s change it.

So how do we do accomplish this great task?

Read more of this article »

Welcome to BarCamp Saigon!

Posted by admin on 08 October 2008 under Saigon1 | Be the First to Comment

We’re very excited to get the ball really going on the first of many BarCamp Saigon’s.

We have a great team of motivated organizers made up of local Vietnamese and foreign expats, all with the shared goal of launching a very successful “unconference” for tech enthusiasts in Vietnam and around the world in record time.

Subscribe to the RSS feed for this site to keep up with updates and see you at BarCamp!