Barcamping in Eastern Europe

ByCamp, Miensk (Belarus), June 7, 2008

By Oleksandr Demchenko

Outline

1. Barcamps : WTF?

2. Overview of Barcamps in Eastern Europe and Central Asia

3. Regional Barcamping Features

4. Future Trends

1. Barcamps: WTF?

Origin of Barcamps

O'Reilly's FooCamp and FooBar Barcamp as an opensourced version

of Foocamp First barcamp: 2005, Silicon Valley Several hundred barcamps in 3 years

WTF?

Self-organized (user generated) (un)conference. Wiki is usually used to set up a barcamp

Brief sessions with no topical division to give an opportunity to everyone and to mix up the audience

Generaly on new media or ICT related topics, but not limiting to

Great spirit of creativity, information exchange ant extensive networking

2. Overview of Barcamps in Eastern Europe and

Blogcamp CIS and Baltics 2007 Kyiv, Ukraine (no visa for both EU and

CIS citizens), Oct 13-14 OSI granted, also supported by TOL and

Internews 300 participants 60 sessions within 2 days in 3

simultaneous flows 700 blog posts covering the event Promoting barcamp format as one of the

aims

Barcamp Baltics 2008

Riga, Latvia, Feb 8-10 Both commercial and non-commercial

sponsors Venue is city's best hotel 450 participants from all post-USSR

countries Barcamp is only one day Innovation incubator and pecha kucha

next day

Moscow's 1st Educational 'Samosbor' Moscow, Russia, Feb. 24 'Samosbor' is a linguistic purist

translation of barcamp Intel's educational program

Education 2.0

Moscow, Russia, March 28 Google's educational conference ½ of event pre-scheduled ½ in barcamp format

'Blogcamp' on Internet and Business Conference 2008 Near Moscow, April 17-18 Leading Russian internet annual

conference Mis-using word 'blogcamp' instead of

barcamp Participants are free to propose their

sessions on conference website Online voting for proposed sessions: most

voted items included in program of the conference

Code:Camp

Lviv, Ukraine, April 19-20 Set up in frames of Decoded annual IT

festival Sessions given only by sponsors and

Kyiv blogcamp community Local community isn't informed

enough about barcamp format

Bridgecamp

Riga, Latvia, April 25-26 «Bridge» is for bridging ICT and NGO

communities One session flow educating NGO

people about ICT Another one educating ICT people

about non-governmental activities

Barcamp Caucasus

Tbilisi, Georgia, June 7-8 Georgia is a safe ground for

Armenians and Azerbaijanis to meet About 150 participants Lack of local barcamp community

Mediabarcamp

Lithuania, June 6-8 Media activism in focus Mostly for Belarusians Hosted by Belarusian Greens At Baltic seashore Simultaneous with Barcamp Caucasus

iCamp

iCamp - near Moscow, Jul 30 — Aug 3 'Ethnomir' resort About 450 participants Devided into sections (blogcamp,

startupcamp, educamp etc.)

And more...

Barcamp (Central) Asia - Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, Aug 29-31 (See Kristina's presentation)

Barcamp Azerbaidjan - Baku/Lenkoran, Aug 29-31

Barcamp Kazakhstan - Almaty, Sept 12-14

Blogcamp Central and Eastern Europe 2008

Kyiv (Ukraine), Oct 10-12 Region shift: from CIS in 2007 to CEE

in 2008 821 participants from 16 countries 101 presentations Investor day – about 130 projects

contesting Best Ukrainian Blog Awards

Educamp

Kyiv (Ukraine), November 15-16 Not a barcamp! Seminars in Universities on new media

prior to Educamp (up to 600 participants)

Up to 400 students took part Blogcamp community were presenters

in 3 session tracks Educamp in Donetsk on Dec. 18th

SocialCamp

Kyiv, December 13 Some 100 participants 3 simultaneous session flows Focus on new media for NGOs and

activists

ByCamp

Here you are!

Minibars and minicamps

Minibars are thematic gatherings of Moscow iCamp community

Minicamps are Ukrainian (Kyiv) monthly meeting of this kind

In other countries word 'minibar' is sometimes used for barcamp presentation meeting

3. Regional Barcamping Features

Non-governmental support

Open Society Institute is granting main barcamps

Supported by: Internews Ukraine, Internews Network, Transitions Online, European Journalism Centre, Swedish International Liberal Centre...

Travel grants for barcampers from other nations

Investment event

Named Innovation Incubator on Baltic and Caucasus barcamps

Special activity on barcamps to get together investors and startupers

Both business and non-profit projects

Wiki is not the only option Wiki was used for Blogcamp CIS and

Baltics and Samosbor Wordpress used for Barcamp Baltics

and Barcamp Caucasus. Registration for the event was realised with registration in wordpress

Special CMS will be used for iCamp and Blogcamp CEE

Miscellaneous (outdated a bit)

Traincamps and aircamps — participants of one nation are travelling to barcamp to another country together

Barcamps of Eastern Europe are generally more 'organized' and attract more participant than a typical barcamp

'How to organize your barcamp' is a typical end session

4. Trends

Commercializing

OSI to end support? Commercial sponsors are better

acqainted with barcamp format Organizers are more experienced Barcamps are cool

Getting lesser in size, more topic-specific

More specialized barcamps 'Normalizing' in size

De-barcamping?

Not barcamp elements: investment event, pecha-kucha etc.

More control of content: thematic sections on iCamp, voting for sessions

Some not-barcamp events but inspired by barcamps are called barcamps or ...camps.

Boil-out?

Barcamps are loosing their `inspirational spirit

Searching for new efficient formats (e.g. discussions in groups as at ByCamp and and Barcamp Baltics 2009)

Blogcamp CEE 2008

Oleksandr Demchenko

http://demchenko.info