“BarCamp Yerevan” was first held on April 17-19, 2009. Armenian IT and new media specialists fell in love with the new type of “unconference” and each successive BarCamp, in 2010, 2011, attracted more and more people. In 2009 we only had 400 participants. Last year, in 2011, the number of developers, hackers, geeks, bloggers, journalists and online activists exceeded 800. Check out this video to get a glimpse of what it felt to be in “BarCamp Yerevan 2011″. Our favorite bit is the afterparty of course ;)

“BarCamp Yerevan 2012″ will be held pretty soon. We strongly urge you to register in order to take part in the event.

What is the BarCamp?
BarCamp is a brand new event, originating in the Silicon Valley of USA in 2005 that has become widespread throughout the world.

Filling in presentation wall
BarCamp is usually a “non-conference” in the sphere of information technology or “IT,” new media and Internet. A “non-conference” is the unofficial, informal part of the conference supporting open discussions and a free exchange of ideas and opinions.

First BarCamp in History
The philosophy of BarCamp is the following: all presentations are given by participants themselves, with no formally invited guest speakers and without the formality of traditional conference. Most revealing, the schedule of events is “produced” by the participants of the conference and is formed only after the conference opens, as participants add the presentations they want to hold on a white board.

Our region
The first ever BarCamp in the former Soviet Union was organized in Kyiv in October 2007. It brought together about 300 people from Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Poland, and other countries from the region and featured around 45 presentations.

After BarCamp Kiev, there was “BarCamp Baltics” in Riga (February 2008) and “Barcamp Caucasus” in Tbilisi (June 2008). The wave of BarCamps continues.

Target Group
The main target audience of the BarCamp is Web project managers, entrepreneurs, new media activists, designers, educators and all business professionals who are building the next generation Web.

Armenia -- Barcamp Yerevan Initiative Group Meets in Colab, Yerevan, 15Mar2012

…and the winner is… joking…

Ok – so the official dates are June 8-10.

The official hashtag is #BarcampEvn12.

PS: You can see a part of the Barcamp Yerevan organizing team, which fits in my camera without having to move anyone back and forth. This is just to show you how hard we’re working on making the perfect Barcamp for you! :)

So, we’re meeting on Saturday, at 9:00 at AUA and starting to fill in our presentations titles on the whiteboard schedule. If you’re not going to do a presentation (shame on you), you may come at 10:00, when the official opening will take place.
The presentations will start at 11:00 till 18:00. Parallel to the presentations, we’ll have several workshops, Linux Install Fest and a small job fair in a separate room.

Later in the evening, most likely some people will form a group to go and watch the Armenia-Russia football match altogether. Regardless of the match outcome we’ll promise not to drink too much because… on Sunday we’re coming at 10:00 sharp again. Some very interesting presentations by our guests are expected. We’ll organize some closing ceremony at 17:00 and start cleaning up the space. We’ll start preparing for our great afterparty that’s scheduled at 19:00, the location will be announced soon. And, be sure, you won’t wanna miss it ;)

By the way, if you are preparing a presentation and would like to show it to us, receive some feedback and advises, you’re welcome to join us at the Friends Bar on Friday 20:00, where we’ll be gathering together with organizers, volunteers, guests and start preparing for our busy weekend.

Here’s the preliminary schedule.

All those geeks who like to checkin in various geo-location services can come and perform their beloved ritual at the big Foursquare banner in the BarCamp venue. Let’s gather there right after the official BarCamp opening. If there will be at least 50 people to checkin within 3 hours, we all will get the Swarm badge for the first time in Armenia!

BarCamp EVN <3 Foursquare!

Participation in the seminar is free, but it will be most useful for those who are at least familiar with HTML and JavaScript. We also recommend that you come with laptops to have an opportunity to practice coding. Source code of all examples, demonstrated at the Barcamp Yerevan, 2011, will be available for everyone after the event.

Apart from the workshop, chaals will also speak on “The magic of modern web standards” – about the usage of open platforms and tools like HTML, CSS and Java to create complex content, for which some “heavy” graphics and Flash are still widely used. The presentation will be accompanied by a large number of illustrative examples.

Here is the Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=147250008678707

We would like to remind you that the information that you provide us on registration (except for the email), will be published in the Participants page on the website.

(Start preparing your topics and presentations! :))

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.)

Those are rules inspired by the “Fight Club”, of course.. but don’t take them too much seriously :)

Follow us.