Wikicamp...

What is an Unconference?

An Unconference is a kind of freewheeling conference where the content of the sessions is driven and created by the participants, generally day-by-day during the course of the event, rather than by a single organizer,or small group of organizers in advance. Wiki camp was all about harnessing and understanding the power of Wikis. It was aimed to bring together the best minds from the Wiki/Internet space to talk about issues, opportunities and what the future and evolution of this valuable tool looks like.Wiki camp — India’s first-ever `unconference' on the online phenomenon that Wikipedia is — struck the right chord with participants, leaving them gasping for more at the end of the daylong event. Crowd sourcing, Wisdom of crowds, User generated content and collaborative knowledge sharing have become the keywords of today's Internet. Wiki camp aims at demystifying these terms.

Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia and President of Wikimedia Foundation was the first participant and he was zestfully enthusiastic eventually followed by the others were enthusiastic as well… This states that it was a typical unconference as it has to be. He shared with us the vision of Wikipedia and his experiences. WoW it was damn cool…
Where and when it happened?
Wiki camp took place at Tidal Park on 25^th Feb., Chennai. It was also published in ‘The Hindu’ on the front page.

So what we were doing all the day?

Topics discussed were...

Computing 2.0,How Corporate Companies Are Using Wiki for Their Business, Vandalism in Wikis: How to protect your wikis, Personal Stories: How wikis have been useful in everyday life, The Growth of Wikipedia, Regional Languages in Wikipedia, The Birth & Growth of Wikipedia, Open serving, Wiki & Wiki Search engine, How "user generated commerce" will evolve, Will donation alone survives "wiki" model of content distribution Semantic Web & Wiki, Why we are yet to have Web-native formats for interoperability of content, Wiki.com / Wikia.com issues, Structured blogging, Distributed Content architecture, The future of Collaboration, Information Security in Wikis, Blog vs./and Wikis, Wikis impact on Modern Internet world, How to improve Wiki along with Blog, And for more click here…We were unfettered from rules and If we felt the topic boring we started throwing balls at them… which eventually made them leave… it was funny…

At some stage of the day I felt hungry…my belly was contracting inwards…fortunately buffet was arranged, but unfortunately the queue was real long…

We had NDTV, CNN-IBN, India today, The Hindu, Deccan Chronicle and all leading dailies in the room and some guys were making a documentary film on Wikipedia too…

Jimmy stressed his policy after interacting with a group of participants and volunteers — "free knowledge for free minds" — and the need to work for the benefit of the community. Jimmy’s words… And last but not least... I loved the way Jimmy moved with the people, in spite of being a global figure he didn't show any kind of 'bandas'. Hats off to Jimmy...

So what I brought home from wiki camp finally??... It was knowledge.