Today I was at the twelth Barcamp London, although this was my first time. This is what they call a 'participatory unconference'. That means there are no pre-arranged speakers and anyone can propose a presentation.
I got the train into London and then the Tube to Seven Sisters. I could have taken another train, but decided to walk up to the White Hart Lane stadium with Tottenham Hotspur (aka Spurs) play. The conference venue was a 6th form academy next door. The stadium is massive and I could see it from a long way off.
This is the grid of talks. There were lots of rooms and seven sessions over the day. I put myself down for one with the topic 'Hive: Good crypto?'. I had my Hive bag and water bottle from Amsterdam Hivefest.
You can talk on any subject you like and people can decide which sessions to attend. The first I went to was by a guy who made parts for a guitar using 3d printing. That had a few challenges for him. Unfortunately he did not bring the guitar along.
I was spoiled for choice on which to go to next. I went for one called 'building a better apocalypse'. This was an exercise in imagination about ways the world could end. It was not as depressing as you might expect.
Next was my turn. I had no idea how many people would turn up. I had not prepared anything as I was not sure I would even speak. Three people came along. I had already spoken to one who I knew was into other cryptocurrencies and another guy had a Bitcoin sticker on his laptop, so I knew i had some chance with them. I told them the story of Hive came about and some of what I understand of how it works. I answered their questions as best I could. I will be creating an account for one of them later.
Then it was time for lunch. Considering this was a free event the catering was excellent. There were free drinks all day and a lunch buffet of sandwiches, wraps and salads. Later there were some lovely chocolates. They encouraged people to take the remaining food with them and supplied boxes. I got some to eat on the way home.
In the afternoon I went to a well attended session on how radio broadcast works from a guy who building the studios for that. Then there was one on Open Steeet Map. I made some contributions to that years ago and wanted to see how it was doing.
There was another break for drinks before the last couple. For me these were on creating a ChatGPT bot and the Matter IOT protocol. Those were quite technical, but interesting for me and others.
The day ended with a game that I just watched. People had to form teams and make something from supplied materials to match a keyword they were given. The one you can see was for 'fashion'. Others made a pinhole camera, a nurse 'robot' and various other fun items.
It was a really fun day for me. I love hanging out with smart people. I get that at Hive events too. You can have such great conversations. I would encourage you to get to any other events like this. There may be opportunities to introduce people to Hive.
Hive five!