This weekend was Barcamp Oxford, and suffice it to say it was utterly fantastic. While a delicious ham cooks, I just thought I’d jot down some notes.

The day for me started early on Saturday with a walk into town (Oxford’s buses being resoundingly useless), still it was a lovely sunny day and I had some good tunes on my mp3 player so I didn’t mind working on my tan for a while.

Anywho, got to the Oxford Club in time for registration and for the slots to be put up… a dizzying array of very interesting possible discussions were soon put up.

Obviously I couldn’t go to all the sessions, but those I did go to were fantastically useful.

Highlights were a thought provoking, passionate and mature discussion of women in technology, and education in general. Additionally, met a bunch of very cool people who I hope to keep in touch with!

The beeper has just gone on my oven so I must tend to my food. Suffice it to say, I found the event both highly enjoyable, stimulating and very very useful.

Props to all the people who worked so hard to make this happen, you are all awesome!

Same time next year?

Image by Sylwia Presley

Just a quick post to say that Oxford Twestival 2010 starts today at 7pm at the Living Room. A night of music and general merry making, all in aid of a good cause!

Barcamp Transparency is helping out as a sponsor, and it’s looking like it’s going to be a fantastic event.

There are still tickets available, so I hope to see you there.

Also today, I’m going to be on a panel session from 2pm talking about social media and internet technology in education and the 3rd sector.

Busy day!

Gosh, it was a busy day yesterday, and in all honesty I haven’t quite assimilated it yet!

The day began (albeit a little bit late) at the young but fantastic Oxford Geek Jam, where we all got together at the Jam factory to hack on some code.

What we were working on this time was an automatic string tagging and contextual linking api for arbitrary strings. I’m sure one of the other guys could provide a link for this!

I left the code jam early in order to get to my next commitment of the evening – the #oxtwestival!

Live music, political poetry, auctions and raffles. All good fun, and as I mentioned before all for an excellent cause!

I’m delighted to report that (thanks I hope in part to my rather ad-libed auctioneering attempt ) we broke our target – details to follow I’m sure!

Anyway, I need to head back fixing this blinking migration script, so all I have left to say is a BIG thankyou to everyone who came, performed, tweeted and donated! Because of you some families in Africa will have safe water and sanitation!

Thanks! You’re awesome!

Amused by this video made by my co-organiser @ernmander over at the Oxford twestival blog.

Very well made (even that bit with the long haired chap) and asks you a very important question – have you got your ticket yet?

Oxford bloggers is a new site spawned from a conversation at last week’s highly successful Oxford Tuttle which seeks to aggregate blogs from those based in and around Oxford.

This is pretty cool, and will help further bring together the thriving (but until recently somewhat underground) Oxford technology and innovation scene, currently centred around Oxford Geek Nights and the Oxford Tuttle.

Things are really starting to come together in Oxford, with some really interesting projects and companies being started. Hopefully dispelling the myth that you need to be in the valley to do anything fun.

Anyway, welcome Oxford bloggers!

Logo from the Oxford Bloggers website