The unconventional BarCamp Kathmandu 2015

Today was my first BarCamp (ever) and I have to say it was quite unconventional. I left in between the event as it didn’t rise up to my expectations. I always thought that BarCamps are an open event with an open platform for people to learn and share their thoughts and hacks, atleast that’s the impression one gets when they read about other BarCamps or its wiki. Since I didn’t attend the whole event and didn’t have the chance to give any feedback to the organizers or the team, I would take this as an opportunity.

First of all, I felt very unhappy that the event was called a ‘BarCamp’ but didn’t follow any of the unconventional conventions of a ‘BarCamp’. It would’ve been better to name it different (to suit and cater to the proper audience) or to have made it a BarCamp style’d event.

Second, Its okay to have some predefined speakers IMO to keep the show going, but there should be parallel tracks where people can propose talks or discussions, thus giving everyone an opportunity to share and learn.

Lastly, I have tried to stay constructive so that the organizers get an idea about the audience and how they felt at the end of the day. Hopefully, this would result in more interesting and happening events in the future. I’m glad that at-least one of the 8 rules of BarCamp have been followed today (2nd Rule: You do blog about BarCamp.)

PS. this BarCamp was unconventional because conventionally they are supposed to be unconventional, and this one, on the contrary was quite conventional.