Awesome Birthday Night at BarCamp Manila - Ready for DemoCamp?

If you’d asked me a year ago how I would spend my 24th birthday (2008) — I never would have ventured a guess that I’d be at Bar Camp Manila! Met some cool freelance and full-time designers, developers, and tech-preneurs — all with sponsored fried chicken, pizza, and free-flowing beer! I should probably say something about the presentations, but my mind was honestly more on getting to know the tech-forward people around. I wish we could get that “Silicon Valley” vibe everyday in our Makati HQ.

A 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 attendees.

BarCamp Manila1 - All Hail Jerome!

With the prodding of Jerome Gotangco (Morph Labs), BarCamp Manila finally became reality on Thursday, August 21, 2008. I didn’t sign up at first, thinking I’d do something else for my birthday, but JP and I had a late start that day and were munching at Glorietta; Mau had to stay in the office and rush some client projects and I was too lazy to find a shuttle to get to my parents’ house in the south so it became BarCamp Birthday for me. Going to Barcamp took a lot of heart. If you’ve ever seen the Ayala MRT station at 6pm, you know what I mean.

Saw some awesome 3D action in Relief (Nap Ramirez), Google Gears implementation by i.ph blogs (Randy NivalesBrian Feliciano), another rendition of the SMS/MMS API of Globe Labs (Greg Igaya), using GIT for version control (JM Ibanez), and Syndeo Labs (Luis Buenaventura), and Call Log on Morph Apps (Jen/Diana).

With Globe Labs Challenge coming up, it was helpful to get some serious insight into mobile app development from Melvin Dave Vivas.

View the complete list of presentations of BarCampManila1.

Lessons for Startups

Calen Legaspi pointed out 7 random lessons from starting a software company. He advised startuppers to not be afraid of debt — I definitely agree with leveraging on OPM (other people’s money), whether it be money lent or money invested if you can take the risk but sadly, for the Philippine case, banks aren’t too keen on lending to tech startups just yet. Family and friends are still the feasible way to go — if you don’t have the business know-how to prepare a complete business pitch and business plan. Dr. Paco suggested starting with rent-to-own equipment — does anyone know vendors who’ll allow this? It’d be awesome to have option to buy iMacs and software licenses on installment.

Are we ready for DemoCamp?

Most of the presenters and attendees of BarCamp Manila know their frameworks, APIs, UX, latest web technologies. Still a lot are bootstrapping their webapps by taking on client work (I wonder who?) or keeping day jobs. We can’t wait forever for the government to realize they should be supporting tech startups. Ready to demo your app at DemoCampManila1? How does 1st week of October sound?

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