June 2006 saw the first BarCamp being held in Cape Town – a co-created (un)conference for SA programmers and web-heads. As a result, many new friendships and business alliances were formed and an off-line trust community started developing. More recently we had the successful PodCamp Cape Town, more specifically focussing on new-media content creators.
The third installment in the Cape Town un-conference series is called *Camp (or StarCamp), it’s being organized be Neil Blakey-Milner and Jonathan Hitchcock. It’s a two day event on the 8-9th December, it’s for all the new-media rock stars – marketers, geeks, entrepreneurs and bloggers. There’s likely to be some great connections to be made and new hacks and opportunities discovered.
Attendance is free, although the organisers ask for your participation in order to attend – by giving a talk, blogging about it, sponsoring, or helping with logistics. Checkout the wiki for more.
When last did you get to hang out with one of the people rated by Time magazine as one of the 50 most Influential in the World? Well, if it’s been too long, I recommend that you book your place at the iCommons Innovation Series cocktail party in Joburg next Tuesday, and have a chat with Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia.
Jimmy will be talking about his vision for Wikipedia, Wikia, and the Academies he’s launching here next week. This is important stuff. This man gets the sharing economy, and is worthwhile learning from. Heather Ford puts it nicely:
Wikipedia is not exciting because its the biggest encyclopedia in the world. Its exciting because it gives us the opportunity to write our own history, our own textbooks, our own view of the world. Wikipedia is a practical expression of what makes the Internet special. And practicing contributions to Wikipedia is what makes us realise what the Internet is really for. It’s not just about using, its about being active participants in the creation of meaning about the world around us.
On Saturday night in Cape Town we had the second of 50 fabulous parties with Jimmy Wales and Heather Ford. The idea is that these will be held bring together the open-content communities in various cities around the world.
Heather made a very exciting announcement at the event:
There is going to be a free culture house built in Cape Town. Imagine a place you can pop into for coffee, and be exposed to the latest multi-media and open content, create and remix using the latest tech and open software, learn about and organise free-culture events, or just meet other enthusiasts to work on new projects. It’s going to be the first of many around the world.
Calling the Opensource Community (Content, Education, Software and Business): Next Saturday, Cape Town is hosting 1 of 50 parties that are happening all around the world in the interests of connecting people who have a shared interest in Opensource stuff.
Jimmy Wales (founder of Wikipedia and head of the Wikimedia Foundation) and Heather Ford (Exec Director of iCommons) are coming to town for the gathering, and will be sharing some ideas and insights for open projects and community development. Mark Surman (Shuttleworth foundation) also happens to be in the country, and will hopefully be sharing some thoughts with us too.
Attendance at the event is free. However we ask that you offer to contribute something to the Commons – a picture, an article, a Wikipedia edit, or even an application of your skills or connections.
Lastly, a little bit of sponsorship would go a long way… If we can get contributions totalling around R2000 then we can use that to pay for corkage on some wine Stormhoek has offered us, get a proper AV system, and perhaps even a musician. Please mail me or pop your name on the wiki if you can help out with the whole amount, or a contribution to it (the donation will be processed through iCommons, a registered NPO).
UPDATE: Ronald Wertlen of eKhaya ICT has put forward the whole R2000 that we needed to zoop up the party:) Thanks Ron!
And Stormhoek is providing the wine:) Thanks Graham!
To sign up to attend, please pop your name on the wiki >>HERE.
I'm a Digital Media and Marketing educator based in Cape Town, South Africa.
If you're interested in booking me for a talk or workshop you can check out my formal profile on the
About page.
June 2006 saw the first BarCamp being held in Cape Town – a co-created (un)conference for SA programmers and web-heads. As a result, many new friendships and business alliances were formed and an off-line trust community started developing. More recently we had the successful PodCamp Cape Town, more specifically focussing on new-media content creators.
When last did you get to hang out with one of the people rated by Time magazine as one of the 50 most Influential in the World? Well, if it’s been too long, I recommend that you book your place at the iCommons Innovation Series cocktail party in Joburg next Tuesday, and have a chat with 
Calling the Opensource Community (Content, Education, Software and Business): Next Saturday, Cape Town is hosting 
