Kiwi Foo Camp
Encyclopedia
Kiwi Foo Camp, also known as Baa Camp, is an annual Foo Camp
, an unstructured gathering of technology industry people and policy makers, that takes place at Mahurangi College in Warkworth
, New Zealand
in early February. The first Kiwi Foo Camp occurred on 2–4 February 2007, and the second ran 1–3 February 2008. The third ran 13–15 February 2009. The fourth ran 12–14 February 2010. The fifth ran 11-13 February 2011.
It is based on the Foo Camp concept devised by technology publishers and conference organisers O'Reilly Media
for previous events held in the US and Europe. The "Foo" is an acronym for "Friends of O'Reilly" and the New Zealand event was sponsored by the company. As an "unconference
", it is characterised by a lack of formal schedules and structures, with the agenda being moved forward as the event takes place.
The events are invitation only, and seek to bring together the technology and creative sectors, policy-makers and other influencers. It was organised by Nat Torkington and Jenine Abarbanel, with assistance from Russell Brown
of Public Address and others. The organisers plan to hold it annually in the New Zealand summer.
The alternative "Baa Camp" moniker was coined by Torkington as a light-hearted reference to New Zealand's identity as a sheep-farming nation, and a play on the alternative Bar
Camp events spawned in response to the main Foo Camps.
attended and held a session on broadband and regulatory policy, which he concluded with an indication that the discussion would have a significant impact on his portfolio priorities in the coming year: "Thank you for helping me write my action plan for 2007... As of tonight peering
is an important issue"
Another minister of the crown, the Hon Judith Tizard
spoke in her capacity as Minister of Archives New Zealand, Minister responsible for the National Library, and Associate Minister of Arts and Culture on the Copyright Amendment Bill, which she sponsors in the New Zealand Parliament.
Notable Open Source luminaries to attend included Chris DiBona
, the manager of Google's open-source software programme, Ben Goodger
, former Firefox lead with the Mozilla Foundation and now also at Google, Robert O'Callahan, lead engineer for the Mozilla Gecko layout engine, director of the GNOME Foundation board Jeff Waugh
, and Asa Dotzler
, co-founder and community coordinator for the Spread Firefox project. Other tech industry guests included British software developer Matt Biddulph, the co-creator of the BBC Programme Catalogue, a landmark searchable database of all programming ever broadcast by the BBC, and Artur Bergman, operations and infrastructure architect for SixApart, owner and operator of the LiveJournal, Moveable Type, TypePad and Vox blogging platforms.
They were joined by a varied group of New Zealanders, including Auckland University computer scientist Peter Gutmann
, InternetNZ fellows John Houlker and Andy Linton (source), technology entrepreneur Rod Drury, user experience designer Ross Howard, Rowan Simpson of Trade Me, Mike Hodgson of the electronica group Pitch Black
, Idolblog
and Throng founders Rachel and Regan Cunliffe, Mark Cubey Wellington radio producer, motivator and all round creative-talent instigator of note, Seth Wagoner, who gave the first public demonstration of Interclue, and many others - about 120 in all.
Pictures from the Kiwi Foo Camp meet have been uploaded to the Flickr
image sharing service and are tagged with "kiwifoo" and "baacamp".
. Prominent radio personality Kim Hill
broadcast live interviews from the event. Other visiting technologists included Tom Coates
in his role as Head of Product for Yahoo!'s Brickhouse initiative and the creator of Fire Eagle
, Vodafone New Zealand
, Telecom New Zealand
, Webstock
, Catalyst IT, Project X, Shift, Silverstripe
, InternetNZ
, Cre8d Design, and the NZ Science Media Centre.
One major theme was impending and unpopular changes to NZ copyright legislation, and discussions resulted in the launch of the New Zealand Internet Blackout
protest less than 24hrs after the event's conclusion. Other notable topics included the likely effects of the global recession on New Zealand featuring Financial Journalists Rod Oram
and Bernard Hickey, the difficult transition of mainstream media onto the internet, open source software, improving school education, and a variety of technical software discussions.
s are similar events not requiring invitation; the following have been run in New Zealand:
Foo Camp
Foo Camp is an annual hacker event hosted by publisher O'Reilly Media. O'Reilly describes it as "the wiki of conferences", where the program is developed by the attendees at the event, using big whiteboard schedule templates that can be rewritten or overwritten by attendees to optimize the schedule...
, an unstructured gathering of technology industry people and policy makers, that takes place at Mahurangi College in Warkworth
Warkworth, New Zealand
Warkworth is a town in the upper North Island of New Zealand, within the Rodney District and lying at the far north of the Auckland Region but just south of the Northland Region...
, New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
in early February. The first Kiwi Foo Camp occurred on 2–4 February 2007, and the second ran 1–3 February 2008. The third ran 13–15 February 2009. The fourth ran 12–14 February 2010. The fifth ran 11-13 February 2011.
It is based on the Foo Camp concept devised by technology publishers and conference organisers O'Reilly Media
O'Reilly Media
O'Reilly Media is an American media company established by Tim O'Reilly that publishes books and Web sites and produces conferences on computer technology topics...
for previous events held in the US and Europe. The "Foo" is an acronym for "Friends of O'Reilly" and the New Zealand event was sponsored by the company. As an "unconference
Unconference
An unconference is a participant-driven meeting. The term "unconference" has been applied, or self-applied, to a wide range of gatherings that try to avoid one or more aspects of a conventional conference, such as high fees, sponsored presentations, and top-down organization...
", it is characterised by a lack of formal schedules and structures, with the agenda being moved forward as the event takes place.
Russell Brown (New Zealand)
Russell Brown is a well-known New Zealand media commentator, and the owner of the Public Address community of blogs, and writes Hard News Hard News the blog is based on the Hard News radio slot spoken by Brown from 1991 to 2002 on bFM, an Auckland student radio station...
of Public Address and others. The organisers plan to hold it annually in the New Zealand summer.
The alternative "Baa Camp" moniker was coined by Torkington as a light-hearted reference to New Zealand's identity as a sheep-farming nation, and a play on the alternative Bar
Foobar
The terms foobar /ˈfʊːbɑː/, fubar, or foo, bar, baz and qux are sometimes used as placeholder names in computer programming or computer-related documentation...
Camp events spawned in response to the main Foo Camps.
2007 Attendees
The inaugural New Zealand event was the first Foo Camp to be attended by government ministers. Communications and Information Technology minister David CunliffeDavid Cunliffe
David Richard Cunliffe is a New Zealand politician. He is a member of the Labour Party, and the sitting member of parliament for New Lynn, West Auckland. He served as the Minister of Health and Minister for Communications and Information Technology for the Fifth Labour Government of New Zealand...
attended and held a session on broadband and regulatory policy, which he concluded with an indication that the discussion would have a significant impact on his portfolio priorities in the coming year: "Thank you for helping me write my action plan for 2007... As of tonight peering
Peering
In computer networking, peering is a voluntary interconnection of administratively separate Internet networks for the purpose of exchanging traffic between the customers of each network. The pure definition of peering is settlement-free or "sender keeps all," meaning that neither party pays the...
is an important issue"
Another minister of the crown, the Hon Judith Tizard
Judith Tizard
Judith Tizard is a former New Zealand politician. She was a member of the Labour Party.-Early life:Judith Ngaire Tizard was born in Auckland in 1956...
spoke in her capacity as Minister of Archives New Zealand, Minister responsible for the National Library, and Associate Minister of Arts and Culture on the Copyright Amendment Bill, which she sponsors in the New Zealand Parliament.
Notable Open Source luminaries to attend included Chris DiBona
Chris DiBona
Chris DiBona is the open source and public sector engineering manager at Google. His team oversees license compliance and supports the open source developer community through programs such as the Google Summer of Code and through the release of open source software projects and patches on Google...
, the manager of Google's open-source software programme, Ben Goodger
Ben Goodger
Ben Goodger is a former employee of Netscape Communications Corporation and the Mozilla Foundation and former lead developer of the Firefox web browser....
, former Firefox lead with the Mozilla Foundation and now also at Google, Robert O'Callahan, lead engineer for the Mozilla Gecko layout engine, director of the GNOME Foundation board Jeff Waugh
Jeff Waugh
Jeff Waugh is an Australian free software and open source software developer. He is a consultant for Waugh Partners and is known for his past prominence in the GNOME and Ubuntu projects and communities.- Career :...
, and Asa Dotzler
Asa Dotzler
Asa Dotzler is an American software developer best known for his work as community coordinator for several Mozilla projects. He was founder of Mozilla's Quality Assurance and Testing Program, which grew under his leadership from just a few contributors when Dotzler joined the project to tens of...
, co-founder and community coordinator for the Spread Firefox project. Other tech industry guests included British software developer Matt Biddulph, the co-creator of the BBC Programme Catalogue, a landmark searchable database of all programming ever broadcast by the BBC, and Artur Bergman, operations and infrastructure architect for SixApart, owner and operator of the LiveJournal, Moveable Type, TypePad and Vox blogging platforms.
They were joined by a varied group of New Zealanders, including Auckland University computer scientist Peter Gutmann
Peter Gutmann (computer scientist)
Peter Gutmann is a computer scientist in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand. He has a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Auckland. His Ph.D. thesis and a book based on the thesis were about a cryptographic security architecture...
, InternetNZ fellows John Houlker and Andy Linton (source), technology entrepreneur Rod Drury, user experience designer Ross Howard, Rowan Simpson of Trade Me, Mike Hodgson of the electronica group Pitch Black
Pitch Black (band)
Pitch Black is a New Zealand electronica band that was formed in 1997.-Discography:* 1999: Futureproof* 2000: Electronomicon* 2001: Electric Earth and Other Elements - Remixes* 2003: Flex* 2004: Ape to Angel...
, Idolblog
Idolblog
Idolblog is an unofficial blog site dedicated to the talent search television show NZ Idol. Since its launch in 2004, the site has attracted a dedicated community and its popularity has led to national media coverage in New Zealand....
and Throng founders Rachel and Regan Cunliffe, Mark Cubey Wellington radio producer, motivator and all round creative-talent instigator of note, Seth Wagoner, who gave the first public demonstration of Interclue, and many others - about 120 in all.
Pictures from the Kiwi Foo Camp meet have been uploaded to the Flickr
Flickr
Flickr is an image hosting and video hosting website, web services suite, and online community that was created by Ludicorp in 2004 and acquired by Yahoo! in 2005. In addition to being a popular website for users to share and embed personal photographs, the service is widely used by bloggers to...
image sharing service and are tagged with "kiwifoo" and "baacamp".
2008 Attendees
Many of the 2007's attendees returned. A focus remained on the website, open source, and IT industries, with notable exceptions including the Hon Judith TizardJudith Tizard
Judith Tizard is a former New Zealand politician. She was a member of the Labour Party.-Early life:Judith Ngaire Tizard was born in Auckland in 1956...
. Prominent radio personality Kim Hill
Kim Hill (broadcaster)
Kim Hill is a New Zealand broadcaster. Currently she delivers the Saturday morning programme on Radio New Zealand National, a public radio station.- Background :...
broadcast live interviews from the event. Other visiting technologists included Tom Coates
Tom Coates
Tom Coates is a technologist and early weblogger based in San Francisco, California who has been writing plasticbag.org since 1999...
in his role as Head of Product for Yahoo!'s Brickhouse initiative and the creator of Fire Eagle
Fire Eagle
Fire Eagle is a Yahoo! owned service that acts as a store for a user's location. It was created at Yahoo Brickhouse by a team which included among others Tom Coates, Simon Willison, and Seth Fitzsimmons....
2009 Attendees
The 2009 Kiwi Foo was held from Fri 13 - Sun 15 February with about 160 attending, the increased number made possible by greater total sponsorship from GoogleGoogle
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
, Vodafone New Zealand
Vodafone New Zealand
Vodafone New Zealand is a British owned telecommunications company, a subsidiary of Vodafone Plc operating in New Zealand. It is New Zealand's largest mobile phone operator, based in Auckland, New Zealand and was formed in 1998, after Vodafone purchased BellSouth's New Zealand operations...
, Telecom New Zealand
Telecom New Zealand
Telecom New Zealand is a New Zealand-wide communications service provider , providing fixed line telephone services, a mobile network, an internet service provider , a major ICT provider to NZ businesses , and a wholesale network infrastructure provider to other NZ CSPs...
, Webstock
Webstock
Webstock is a web technology conference held in Wellington, New Zealand featuring a range of high profile speakers covering a variety of web-related topics such as accessibility, usability, ethnographic design and development practices....
, Catalyst IT, Project X, Shift, Silverstripe
SilverStripe
SilverStripe is a free and open source content management system for creating and maintaining websites. It provides an out of the box web-based administration panel that enables users to make modifications to parts of the website, which includes a WYSIWYG website editor...
, InternetNZ
InternetNZ
InternetNZ is a non-profit organisation dedicated to protecting and promoting the Internet in New Zealand and fostering a coordinated, cooperative approach to its ongoing development.- Current Councillors :The elected InternetNZ council as at 2010-04-08 are Frank March ,...
, Cre8d Design, and the NZ Science Media Centre.
One major theme was impending and unpopular changes to NZ copyright legislation, and discussions resulted in the launch of the New Zealand Internet Blackout
New Zealand Internet Blackout
The New Zealand Internet Blackout was an online protest spearheaded by the against changes to copyright law in New Zealand, most notably Section 92A of the Copyright Amendment Act....
protest less than 24hrs after the event's conclusion. Other notable topics included the likely effects of the global recession on New Zealand featuring Financial Journalists Rod Oram
Rod Oram
Rod Oram is a New Zealand journalist writing on corporate, economic and political issues. He is a columnist for The Sunday Star-Times and Good Magazine, a regular broadcaster on radio and television and a frequent public speaker...
and Bernard Hickey, the difficult transition of mainstream media onto the internet, open source software, improving school education, and a variety of technical software discussions.
BarCamps
BarCampBarCamp
BarCamp is an international network of user-generated conferences . They are open, participatory workshop-events, the content of which is provided by participants. The first BarCamps focused on early-stage web applications, and were related to open source technologies, social protocols, and open...
s are similar events not requiring invitation; the following have been run in New Zealand:
- Christchurch Barcamp - Canterbury Innovation Incubator, 7 September 2007
- e-Government - Wellington, 15 September 2007
- agile - Wellington, 7 September 2007
- Auckland Barcamp, ran on 15 December 2007 in Botany Downs.
External links
- Kiwi Foo 08 blog roll
- Vincent Heeringa's column on the Kiwi Foo Camp in Idealog
- Baa camp
- Idealog article
- Commentary by Rod Drury on Firefox 3 session held by Gecko engineering lead Robert O'Callahan
- Roundup by Robert OCallahan on Mozillazine site
- Commentary on technical sessions by Greg Luck
- Roundup by Russell Brown on Public Address
- Live radio interviews from 2008 event, Radio New Zealand.