barcamp5 bangalore, winter edition

today was the first day of barcamp5 bangalore, winter edition and my first experience in being in such a gathering. there was quite a crowd, well I think I spent the day well, meeting some smart people, learning a stuff or two in technology, and sensing a spirit of entrepreneurship

the venue was really good, but a place you could get really lost, infact there were many posters by the organizers, claiming they were lost too, and not to worry about it, now that's a relief

good part of the morning was spent in breakfast, setting up wifi, exchanging names and interests, memorizing types of coffee (the rooms were espresso, latte, doppio, cappucino, ristretto, machiato and matz - the mattresses), decorating self with stickers, lugging some mattresses for seating and deciding which collective to stick to (never thought this would be a tough decision, but believe me it was)

I attended two sessions, one pre-lunch and another post-lunch. the first session was about extreme programming by Aman King from thoughworks, it was quite interactive, finally got a hang of the terms like stories, burndown charts, velocity charts, swim line but still clueless about how I would apply such a methodology at work. the second session was on Flex and AIR by Mrinal Wadhwa from SAP, this was one of the session I was looking forward too, due to some newly inspired idea. wasn't disappointed at all, had some technical take away and got introduced to the flex bangalore group (seems to be quite active)

at the end picked a t-shirt of the event, grabbed a latte (not the room, the drink) and set home, for once I was not swearing and was taking time in the slow bangalore traffic to think about the day and all the learning, its the feeling that you just got a little wiser at the end of the day, feels nice

the event continues tomorrow and its going to be as interesting if not better, I plan to attend a collective on Semantic web by Harish Kumar, the rest will be impromptu

overall a great experience, and a reason to give "blogging regularly" another shot....

Labels: barcampbangalore, barcampbangalore5