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Upcoming Tech / Geek Events

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I like to keep my colleagues up to date with what’s happening in Sydney’s geek communities so I thought I’d put together a bit of a post about what’s happening in the next few months. Wow there are a lot of events. Here’s a slightly modified re-post of that list.
BarCamp Sydney
BarCamp is an excellent event. It’s an un-conference. Based on the idea that one of the best things at conferences is sometimes what happens impromptu in the hallways and the people you meet. The content of BarCamp is entirely up to you. You rock up on the day and you decide if you are going to talk on a topic, and put a note on the time slot that you want to talk. If people are interested in your session, they attend. The last two BarCamps have been fantastic both in the content and the wonderful people. Focus of each event so far has been different – the first one was quite geeky and the second one was quite entrepreneurial but there was a lot of pure tech stuff also.
BarCamp is at the UNSW Roundhouse on April 5 and 6 (Saturday and Sunday). On Saturday evening there is drinks at the Roundhouse bar. On Sunday afternoon there is an Entrepreneurial Soapbox event where people can get up and promote their start up or their next big idea and get advice from other entrepreneurs.
To register and find out more details go to www.barcampsydney.org.
Geek Girls Dinner
The last Geek Girls Dinner was excellent and this one is going to be really great – it’s at Google’s offices in the City and you get to have a tour around their offices (ok they’re not as good as Google’s Zurich office if you’ve seen those pictures online, but it’s apparently pretty good).
You need to register online for this one. Click here for more details http://girlgeekdinnerssydney.blogspot.com/2008/03/dinner-2.html
User Groups
Sydney Business and Technology User Group – SBTUG
This is a really interesting user group as it’s more business focused as well as being tech focused. Last month’s talk on unified communications was great. Next month it’s Mitch Denny talking about the future of Software Agents – little bots that go around the internet finding info for you.
This one is on the last Wednesday of every month at Microsoft at North Ryde.
Go to http://www.sbtug.com for more info.
Sydney .NET User Group
This is one of the oldest user groups around – I started going about 9 years ago when it was the Access User Group. Last month’s presentation was on the fantastic workflow tool by Atlassian called Jira. This month it’s on building Facebook applications.
This one is on the third Wednesday of every month at Microsoft at North Ryde.
Sydney SQL Server User Group
This one is VERY techy, but also very interesting. Last month was about PerformancePoint, this month is about Understanding SQL Server Execution Plans.
This one is on the first Tuesday of every month in the city.
Go to http://www.sqlserver.org.au/ for more details.
Conferences
Wireless World 2008
This may be just another conference about Wireless products but it’s also got one very interesting stand from the Free Wireless movement. People from FreeSydneyWireless and FreeCanberraWireless groups will be hosting the stand to promote sharing your internet connection to your neighbours and community through the use of mesh networks.
For info on Wireless World see here http://www.wirelessworld2008.com/
Wireless world is on Wednesday and Thursday 2 and 3 April.
Cebit
Cebit is the major tech conference in Sydney this year at the exhibition centre. It is a conference plus expo. It’s usually enough to go to the expo to get an idea of the latest in tech.
  1. Tuesday 20th May 2008 (10am – 6pm)
  2. Wednesday 21st May 2008 (10am – 6pm)
  3. Thursday 22nd May 2008 (10am – 5pm)

The team at Scouta recently won a free booth at Cebit for winning the first prize at the Australian Startups carnival a few weeks ago. You can read about that here http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/03/21/australian-startup-carnival-highlights-antipodean-startups/

see www.cebit.com.au for more details.

Re-Mix
Didn’t get to Vegas for Mix08? Well don’t worry there is always Re-Mix. Re-Mix 08 is a one day event highlighting the major topics discussed at Mix. Re Mix 08 is in Sydney on 20 May. See here for details http://blogs.msdn.com/ausdev/archive/2008/03/19/remix-australia-dates-confirmed-for-sydney-and-melbourne-20th-and-22nd-may.aspx

TechEd
This is Microsoft’s major Developer event for the year. The report from last year on the Gold Coast were great. This year it’s on 2-5 September. See here for details http://www.microsoft.com/australia/teched07/index.aspx


Web Directions
Web directions is the premier web technologies conference. It is held each year in Sydney and Vancouver. Last year Web Directions was the inspiring catalyst that made me change careers to work in the IT industry.
This year Web Directions is holding two small conferences in Melbourne and Canberra before the main event in Sydney in September. This one is worth attending.
See details here http://www.webdirections.org/


So this is a lot of events, but if you only go to one, come to BarCamp. Otherwise I highly recommend Geek Girls Dinner SBTUG and Web Directions.

Comments

  1. Dave Birchall says

    Hi Jodie and thanks for your intro last night at SBTUG.

    I have had a look at twitter and signed up so I will see you on there. I have also set up a website for networking events and social networking.

    http://www.sydneynetworkers.net

    Feel free to have a look or to add events in their. The more people use it the better.

    Regards

    Dave

  9. Damana says

    Hey Jodie, thanks for mentioning Girl Geek Dinner #2 for Sydney.

    You’ve also inspired to try out the Sydney .NET user group. Thanks!