Barcamp Tampa Bay - A First For Tampa

September 5, 2008

I have known about this event for some time as I was at the one of the original planning meetings for it. But, yes, the Tampa Bay area is finally hosting its own Barcamp. There was one over in Orlando, however I haven’t yet made it over to that one.

Barcamp Tampa Bay will be taking place October 11-12, 2008 at the University of South Florida College of Business. From the website:

Topics may include, but are not limited to: open source software, startups, UI design, entrepreneurship, AJAX, hardware hacking, robotics, mobile computing, bioinformatics, RSS, Social Software, programming languages, and the future of technology.

This will be my first Barcamp. I’ve been to a lot of tech conferences, but never been to a Barcamp before and I’m stoked that it is going to be taking place right in my hometown.

As I have said for some time, Tampa is a hidden powerhouse of technology. Hell, Florida is. Most people in my field tend to think California, Silicon Valley, the SF Bay Area, perhaps Seattle. I, for one, am tired of having to traverse the country for so many tech conferences. We have a lot of people living here on the East side of the country, and a lot of them right here in Florida.

Registration is free, although they are asking for a voluntary contribution to help pay the bills. Hope to see you there.

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