Out of the way

Actually, it was more than a week ago already.

BarCamps are interesting events - you never know quite what to expect, but they are generally interesting. This one was no different in that respect.

We arrived on Friday, and Atoms, one of the organisers who we knew from Kyrgyzstan came to the airport to collect us, along with a gang of Azeris who arrived at the same time. We (especially Eva) thought Riga was a bit cold, but they all thought it was very warm for that time of year, apparently. To be fair, it was barely below freezing...

Despite having had no sleep the night before and a 4am start, we decided to go on a walk to see some things. Monuments to famous people, some of them Latvian, various buildings and places in Riga. It's not a big town, but it is a nice one, especially the old town. But three hours of walking is too much for me, and we staged a mini revolution (Opera, the rebel browser ) involving a stop at the nearest bar for somethng apparently very Latvian - a hot drink of fruit juice and balsam (latvian bitters). Which it turns out was a very good idea.

We also tried out the SIM cards that had been provided by Amigo = instructions on the pack were in Russian and Latvian, which was a bit tricky, but workable with help.

The BarCamp itself was good. Parties, interesting people to talk to, a number of interesting presentations (but no lunch break - something I hope they fix for next time) and I gave a couple of "presentations from the sponsor" - one on standards, and one on desktops, mobiles, the One Web and so on.

The last formal event was BarCamp Idol. This was a replacement for the innovation incubator I had seen in Bishkek, where a bunch of people set up their ideas like a conference poster session. Instead it worked like a lightning talk session or a WebJam, with people given 5 minutes to pitch to a team of 3 judges, with two teams of judges swaping every 4 talks. This was actually a great idea, and at least all the judges felt that the final results turned out pretty reasonable (no judge ever agrees all the time with the others - oterhwise you could just have one). The projects presented ranged from the bizarre to the brilliant, from wonderful to working.

The whole event was actually well-organised, thanks to a lot of hard work from a bunch of people. If I name Joha and Maxim as well, then I am still maligning lots who deserve a mention.

I'll update this later with a picture or two and maybe edit it, but I want to post it before I get on another plane...