Barcamp Saigon a Huge Success

Hard to believe that nearly 5 months ago, I posted an entry about organizing the first Barcamp in Saigon.  Nearly 5 months later, Barcamp Saigon was held at RMIT Vietnam.  Nearly 300 participants attended Barcamp Saigon 1.  Barcamp Saigon had visitors from Cambodia, Singapore and far away as the US (Washington, DC).

VinaConsulting helped sponsor the event.  It was nice to see that the two VinaConsulting banners were well placed.  You can see the banners on two of the five photos from PC World Vietnam‘s piece on Barcamp Saigon.

Both Leon and I gave presentations.  I decided not to present on Open Source Business Applications at this Barcamp.  I will save it for next year.  Instead, I wanted to focus on my use of Ubuntu Linux at the American International School, where I teach IT.  You can see my presentation at Slideshare #barcampsaigon.  You can view the presentations from other Barcamp Saigon presentors as well.

We had to keep our eye on the Live Schedule to figure out which sessions to attend.  I missed many good Linux presentations.  My favorite presentation focused on virtualization.  The Sexy Cambodian Bloggers session was enjoyable though many of the popular Vietnamese and Expat Vietnam Bloggers were not present at Barcamp Saigon.

I really have no complaints for Barcamp Saigon 1.  I did not even notice that the WiFi was down until some people complained about it. Despite this, RMIT should host Barcamp Saigon 2 next year.  There was even a discussion to collaborate with the organizers of Barcamp Phnom Penh and host a joint Barcamp Southeast Asia in 2009.  In short, Barcamp Phnom Penh would host the event on a Saturday.  At the end of this event, then participants would board a bus for Saigon and attend Barcamp Saigon on a Sunday.

Here are some good links and reviews in regards to Barcamp Saigon:

• Barcamp Saigon Live Schedule
• Slideshare Barcamp Saigon Presentations
• Barcamp Saigon (Chris Harvey)
• ducban’s blog entry about Barcamp Saigon
• Thomas Wanhoff’s entry on Barcamp Saigon
• Goodbye BarCamp Saigon
• Barcamp Saigon 1 Recap
• PC World Vietnam on Barcamp Saigon
• Barcamp Saigon Flickr Photos
• YouTube Barcamp Saigon Videos

(Introduction of Barcamp Saigon by Huy)

(Chris Harvey’s Presentation on ‘Building a Successful Web Business)

(Hung talking about ELearning 2.0)

(Leon speaking about IT Strategy for VinaConsulting)

(Closing Ceremonies for Barcamp Saigon)

See you all Next Year.

Edit: Subtracting volunteers, staff, and RMIT students, the actual number at Barcamp Saigon 1 may be around 200 participant.  Barcamp Saigon 1 and the Google Devfest 2008 had roughly the same attendence rate.

Edit 2: There were some complaints that Barcamp Saigon should have been hosted at a Vietnamese university, not at a private university such as RMIT.  They argued that RMIT was not representative of Vietnam or the Vietnamese people.  Unfortunately, we had little choice since the other venues candidates were either not ready or never showed interest in barcamp saigon.

Edit 2: Actual number of participants, excluding organizing committee and volunteers, was around 159.