Frequently Asked Questions

What is BarCamp?

BarCamp is an ad-hoc gathering born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment.

It is an intense event with discussions, demos and interaction from participants who are the main actors of the event. BarCamp is a cool place for young, motivated and talented people to hangout. More importantly, it is where ideas get shared, created and advanced. This is not a formal gathering of black suits but an intense camp of those who strive to achieve.

BarCamp is in essence a conference without a preset agenda. We prefer the term 'unconference' actually. BarCamp is an 'unconference'- organized by attendees, for attendees. There is no audience, only participants. So host a session, help out with planning, ask questions, spread the word- Everybody is invited. There really are no walls.

The word BarCamp also represents the international network of user generated conferences — open, particripatory workshop-events, whose content is provided by participants.

How are BarCamps organized?

BarCamps are organized and evangelized largely through the web, harnessing what might be called a Web 2.0 communications toolkit. Anyone can initiate a BarCamp, using the BarCamp wiki. BarCamp "open-sources" their organizational process of, documenting it in a publicly availble wiki. In addition to the BarCamp-branded network, it is also a model for user generated conferences in other fields or for more specialized applications.

While loosely structured, there are rules at BarCamp. All attendees are encouraged to present or facilitate a session. However this can be intimidating and unwelcoming. Everyone is also asked to share information and experiences of the event, both live and after the fact, via public web channels including (but not limited to) blogging, microblogging, photo sharing, social bookmarking, twittering, wiki-ing etc. This open encouragement to share everything about the event is in deliberate contrast to the "off the record by default" and "no recordings" rules at many private invite-only participant driven conferences.

Usually, the events of the BarCamp are broadcast on the internet using audio and video streaming tools and platforms. Such broadcasts may be done "live" or "recorded".
(from: wikipedia)

History of BarCamps

In 2003, Tim O’Reilly of O’Reilly publishing invited 200 of the smartest people in the technology industry over the weekend. He called this event Foo Camp (Friend’s of O’Reilly Camp). The event had started as a joke between Tim O'Reilly and Sara Winge, O'Reilly's VP of Corporate Communications. Sara had always wanted to run a "foo bar" — an open bar for "Friends of O'Reilly" — at one of O'Reilly's conferences. That joke morphed into a brainstorm after the dot com bust left O'Reilly with lots of unused office space, creating the opportunity for Foo Camp. There was eventually a Foo Bar at the camp!

In 2005, a complementary alternative was created by a past attendee of Foo Camp and a few individuals who were interested in organizing their own version of Foo Camp. Taking from the two words ‘Foo Camp’ and ‘Foo Bar’, it was called ‘BarCamp’ and hosted at the Socialtext offices in Palo Alto, California by Socialtext founder Ross Mayfield. It stood out from Foo Camp in that it sent out an open invitation to anyone who wanted to join. Since then, BarCamps have been held in over 350 cities around the world. It is being held in Kathmandu, Nepal for the first time on August 8, 2009. BarCamp is an ad-hoc ‘unconference’ born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment. It is a casual yet intense event with discussions, demos and interaction from attendees. Anyone with something to contribute or a desire to learn is welcome and invited to join.

An ‘unconference’ is exactly what it sounds like – the opposite of a conference. It is not centered on an agenda with just the host making a presentation or a speech. As such discussion is not limited to just one topic, but a wide range of topics. It is participant driven to the core and everyone is invited to share by default.