W4A Camp

Conference GridW4A Camp sits on the Wednesday morning (yes Just Half a Day) after the main conference. It is free anyone can attend BUT there are no facilities – we may be ‘reclaiming the streets’, squatting in the hotel lobby or bar,  under a tree in the park, or in someones hotel room, and sniffing for Wi-Fi where ever we can get it. In-short anarchic and very flexible – BUT with the advantage of discussing work, ideas, research collaborations, demoing projects, giving advice to PhD students, reading and feed-backing on papers, or looking at what went wrong with your submission this year!

Either way it will be exciting and productive with just a small amount of structure (leaders); you choose the topics, the presentations, the thread of the camp. We decide the general themes – the rest is up to us all together!

Themes (and ‘Leaders’)
Currently we are open to theme proposals. If you want to propose a theme before the conference email the Crazy Wednesday chairs. During the first two days you can find delegates with similar interests and propose themes too.

Note that if you lead a group you will be invited by Crazy Wednesday chairs to write a joint ‘Camp Report’ that will be published in the proceedings of W4A 2014, which will take place in Seoul (Korea).

How Will We Proceed?

  1. Before the conference you can email Crazy Wednesday chair regarding ideas and throughout the conference we can share our ideas using #w4a13 as a social networking tag;
  2. During the conference we will put our ideas on our camp post-it wall;
  3. On Tuesday afternoon we will decide about the themes and also a meeting point; finally,
  4. On Wednesday morning, we get together.

Remember the W4A Camp is an unconference, so bring your demos, projects, half-baked research ideas, and your sense of inquiry. Don’t have a project? No worries; we’re looking for collaborators.

There will be a wall for post-its and a camp grid over the main W4A conference days and we’ll post this on our social channels – so you can turn up even if you are not at the W4A.

You don’t have to be a researcher to come. We’re not just computer scientists – we’re part of the Web4All. We encourage the work of practitioners, professionals, startup warriors, and academics in the humanities and political/social sciences. If you’re interested in submitting work to a W4A conference next year, this is definitely the meetup for you.

Camper Information
W4A Camp is an ad-hoc unconference 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. Anyone with something to contribute or with the desire to learn is welcome and invited to join. When you come, be prepared to share with W4A Campers. When you leave, be prepared to share it with the world.

No Spectators, Only Participants
Attendees must contribute in some way to support the event. All discussions are scheduled the day they happen. Prepare in advance, but come early to get a slot on the wall. The people present at the event will select the discussions they want to take part in. You are responsible for making sure that notes/slides/audio/video of their discussions are published on the web for the benefit of all and those who can’t be present. Discussions promoting specific commercial products or companies are discouraged.

The Rules of W4A Camp (taken from BarCamp and by Tantek Çelik)

  • 1st Rule: You do talk about BarCamp.
  • 2nd Rule: You do blog about BarCamp.
  • 3rd Rule: If you want to present, you must write your topic and name in a presentation slot.
  • 4th Rule: Only three word intros.
  • 5th Rule: As many presentations at a time as facilities allow for.
  • 6th Rule: No pre-scheduled presentations, no tourists.
  • 7th Rule: Presentations will go on as long as they have to or until they run into another presentation slot.
  • 8th Rule: If this is your first time at BarCamp, you HAVE to present. (OK you don’t really HAVE to, but try to find someone to present with, or at least ask questions and be an interactive participant.)