My Day at Barcamp London: An Unconference Adventure

Last Saturday, November 11, I attended the BarCamp 2023 event, which was recommended to me by my manager, Joe, after I moved to London 🤩.

This year, the event took place at the London Academy of Excellence, Lilywhite House, which is a 48-minute train ride from the center of London.

The format of Barcamp is different from other events I've attended. Barcamp is a free, one-day unconference for designers, developers, and geeks of all types 🤓.

An unconference is a type of conference or meeting where organizers do not predetermine the agenda and topics but are instead determined by the participants at the beginning of the event. It is a participant-driven, collaborative, and open format for gatherings, often used in tech and creative communities. 👾

The reception was very warm, and everything was well-organized: the venues, the talks, the reception area, the activities, and the coffee break areas. I really enjoyed being there!

Let's see how BarCamp works. Everything works around the following board, which has the classrooms where the talks will be held as rows and the hours with a 40-minutes intervals as columns.

So, the person interested in presenting their topic writes it on paper and places it in the available classrooms at the desired time. Then, everyone who approaches the board knows which talk is taking place in each classroom. Interesting, isn't it? I liked it!

Fulfilling the event's objective, I added my card: "Docker 101: Intro to Docker Containers"

I attended some talks after lunch. There were a variety of plates and desserts, which were plentiful and delicious.

I attended Dan Pope's talk: "Making an Online Game Show Buzzer" and "My Adventures Doing VR Stand-Up Comedy" by Lowie Christie. The presentations were very informative and fun! We were part of live games and stories at Stand Up Comedy with VR.

Then came the time for my talk. Woohoo! I spoke about containers and did a demo with volumes and databases. I felt different while presenting this time; I was less nervous and less anxious! It was great! 🥳

We wrapped up BarCamp with a Talent Show competition. Everyone put their creativity and talent to the test by developing inventions derived from a single empty box. It was a lot of fun! It's how we closed the event with a lot of energy and laughter. 🫶 🙌

Take advantage of BarCamp next year! It was a lot of fun!

You can follow BarCamp on Mastodon, and Twitter, and if you want to learn more, visit the BarCamp website. See you at BarCamp 2024!

See you in my next blog post! 👩‍🌾