The first session was a talk on User Experience design & product development by Michael FitzGerald. The second session on February 24th was split between myself, talking about front-end web development, and Paul Killoran, speaking about back-end web development. The final session was on game development, with two talks: one by Sam Redfern on the Shiva game engine, and the second by Alan Duggan on iOS game development.

My session on front-end development covered the broad areas of HTML5, some newer features of CSS3, JavaScript, and a quick overview of some mobile frameworks. The idea behind the talk was to give an overview of some of the newer areas that the students mightn’t have come across in their courses. I also wanted to give some resources that would be useful to them in the project development.

Next up, you can check out the full slide-deck below, read the blog-post about the CodeNinja competition, or check out the CodeNinja site.

CodeNinja is an app development competition for Galway students. It’s designed to train and encourage students to be creative in the cultivation of their own tech ideas. It is open to both individuals and groups that want to build web and mobile applications.

Alongside the competition, we’ll be giving the students who enter a number of talks & workshops aimed at helping them with their project by introducing them to ideas and technologies that may prove useful along the way. And there’ll be pizza.

So, if you know of any 3^rd level students in Galway who have an idea for a Web or Mobile app, and might like the chance to win an iPad, send them towards CodeNinja.ie to find out more and register.

Demobar Galway

As Bizcamp attracts a broader audience than those interested in just technology, we wanted a way to highlight some of the tech start-ups in Galway & the West. So, we also decided to run a Demobar Galway event in the Oslo, Salthill on the evening before Bizcamp. We had 15 companies from Galway and the West of Ireland come along and show off their Web apps, iPhone/iPad apps, and software to a room full of people we enticed with the promise of a free beer and a chat with people who are working to bring out some great products.

It was my first time demo’ing the BeautyBoss web app at an event where the audience was mostly from a tech background, and it was a great experience. The feedback, opinions and ideas from people who came along were hugely beneficial…and on top of that, it was great to have a chat and a few beers with people interested in the tech start-up scene in the West of Ireland.

Putting it all together

We ran Bizcamp & Demobar on a voluntary basis, and on shoestring budget, and it couldn’t have been done without a great team. In addition to last year’s crew of Mark from PocketAnatomy, Michael from OnePageCRM, Paul from Ex Ordo, and Elaine Divilly, this year we brought in some new recruits to help with planning and organising the events. These were Ronan from Fixational, Siun from TunePresto, and Alan from Tribal City Interactive. It was great to have such a strong team involved in working to make the two days a success.

Did you come along?

If you came along to either Bizcamp or Demobar, it would be great to hear how you got on…

The group behind the initiative are: PocketAnatomy (iPhone/iPad medical apps), Social Bits (Social Media Consultancy), OnePageCrm (Sales & CRM Tool), Starlight (Web Apps), Tribal City Interactive (iPhone/iPad games), and Ambient Age (web apps).

We’ve met quite a few times and talked about the skills we’d like to see in new recruits to all our companies, and having all tried different avenues to find them, we decided to take a more open approach. We figured running a campaign for a few weeks, with a view to meeting up with anyone that’s interested in (and good with) sales & marketing for web or mobile apps. There are different types of jobs on offer, from work experience & internships, to full- and part-time work.

Based on our discussions, we identified a skill-set, or areas of knowledge & interest an ideal candidate would have. Below is a broad listing of what we thought these would be; all are related to web or mobile app sales and marketing:

• Metrics / Analytics / Conversion Funnels / KPIs
• A/B testing
• Social Media
• SEM / Online advertising & banners
• Marketing Automation / Retargeting
• Service design (touch points)
• Affiliates/resellers
• APIs for business development
• KOL (Key Opinion Leaders)
• Proactive customer support

It’s unlikely any one person will hit all the marks, but it gives an idea of who we’re after. If it sounds interesting, check out the site and register. We’ll be meeting with anyone that’s interested on May 21st in Galway. If it’s not for you, you can help spread the word by visiting the site and using one of the options to share it over one of your social networks.

A quick word on the site

I did the design & development of the one-page site (well, two including the embedded registration form). It’s a straight-forward HTML5-based site, with CSS3 used throughout. It also features a Responsive Design, which uses media-queries to target smart-phones with a version tailored for their size (shown on the right of the image above).

There are a mix of ideas behind Possibiltites. Firstly, there’s a Social Forum event that’s being run in Dublin on April 13th. They’ve got some great speakers lined up, with more to be confirmed on the programme. Secondly, it’s an online space to encourage people to share their ideas about what other possible futures there are for the country. This will have a life well beyond the Social Forum event.

There are 3 non-profit organisations behind the site & event: SpunOut.ie, Children in Crossfire and Afri.

On the technical side of things, the site is built on WordPress, using a custom theme developed in HTML5 with a heavy dose of CSS3 for lots of the visual effects. As no website is an island, it integrates a number of different services, such as Campaign Monitor (to handle email newsletter subscriptions) and Wufoo (for data collection…and it’s fantastic), along with the more standard Facebook & Twitter integrations.

I know that tickets are selling quickly for the Social Forum, but you may still get some. If not, head over and tell them what you think is possible. You can also check out some other examples of non-profit web design work.

When I first started the project I spent time looking at the videos & photos collected by their volunteers on the ground, learning about their organisation and their projects. The work they do is inspiring and well worthy of support.

The idea behind the re-design was to give more of a focus to the projects that they run. While their previous site covered parts of these, it was more in the form of news, rather than giving them the weight they deserved to help people see the great on-going work.

As a very people-driven organisation, we also wanted to integrate the social media side of things in a much better way. To do this, the homepage pulls together fresh content from the different channels used by the the organisation, such as their YouTube Channel, Flickr photos and new Facebook page (a move away from the earlier Facebook Group), as well as presenting all the updates that go on throughout the site’s news & events section.

We also wanted to make it much easier for people to contribute to the organisation’s projects, either by donating directly to the charity (which is powered by MyCharity.ie), or by helping in other ways. Again, the benefits of social media are used on each of the individual project’s pages to help people share what they’ve seen to raise awareness of the work.

On the technology

The site is built on WordPress. To bring the vision they had to reality, we used several of the updates that came in WordPress 3.0; for example, there is extensive usage of WordPress’s Custom Post Types, and parts of the site are built using the recently integrated multi-site feature.

Give a Little

The organisation is supported by voluntary donations, so, after you’ve had a chance to look through the site, making a donation no matter how small would be a great way to help them keep their good work going.

The slides I used for both are below, and I’ve also uploaded the footnotes & examples I’ve used.

Part 1

Part 2

Really, there’s a whole lot more than a 2 hour talk can cover, but they’ve got a project going on that’s based on WordPress, and some people who’ve never done any type of web development, so it was a way to push them in the right direction rather than a full course on the area!

The site is the brain-child of Maura Donohoe, who’s got lot’s of experience in the area – she’s been a teacher for over 20 years, and running a school-book shop for over 6….so she’s going to be able to help anyone that runs into any school-book related problems.

They wanted the site to be a little different to the school-book sites that are out there at the moment. Be sure to keep an eye on the easyschoolbooks blog; they’ve also got a home on Facebook & Twitter, so check them out & say hello.

Irish Hackerspaces Week

Is being run by 091Labs from August 15th – 22nd. They’ve got lots of events on every day (I’m hoping to make the Ruby workshop) – you can find out more on the 091Labs site, and see the full listing of events on their Events & Workshops page.

BlogTalk 2010

This looks like a really interesting conference; they’ve got some very big names coming on the 26 & 27th of August. Here’s a sample of who’s lined up:

• Dan Gillmor (director, Knight Center): Activist consumers and responsible media creators in a networked age
• Stowe Boyd (social tools authority): Social media blur: blogs, networks are turning into real-time streams
• Don Thibeau (director, OpenID): Open identity for open government
• Charles Dowd, Sonia Flynn (Facebook): The Facebook Platform
• Ade Oshineye (Google): Social networks versus conversational networks
• Blaine Cook (BT, ex-Twitter lead developer): Webfinger: using your email for portable identity on the Web
• Fergus Hurley (founder/CEO, Clixtr): From Galway to Silicon Valley: Building a consumer Internet startup
• Ted Vickey (former director of the White House athletic center): Social media and LinkedIn for business
• Werner Breitfuss (Hypios) – The impact of social media on expert finding strategies
• Laurent Walter Goix (Telecom Italia) – Context-aware mobile social web
• Declan Elliott (091 Labs) – Open community labs, creative spaces and DoOcracy
• Darragh Doyle (boards.ie) – boards.ie: who are we, what do we do, and where are we going?

There are 1 day and two-day tickets available – I’ve got my eye on the Thursday sessions. Find out more on the BlogTalk site.

IgniteTheWest

IgniteTheWest is coming to 091Labs on the 10th of September, so it’ll be a nice warm-up for anyone that’s coming to Galway for the weekend (Bizcamp Galway is on the next day).

I wasn’t familiar with the Ignite setup – the background to it is:

Fast-paced, fun, thought-provoking, social, local, global—Ignite is all of these and more. It’s a high-energy evening of 5-minute talks by people who have an idea—and the guts to get onstage and share it with their hometown crowd. Run by local volunteers who are connected through the global Ignite network, Ignite is a force for raising the collective IQ and building connections in each city. And, via streaming and archived videos of local talks, local Ignites share all that knowledge and passion with the world

They have a registration page for people that want to sign up for talks.

Bizcamp Galway

There are still tickets available for Bizcamp on Saturday September 11th. They’ve been going surprisingly fast, so if you’re interested, get your name down. There are also still slots available for people to sign up to speak.

Enjoy!

I’ve been to those run in Dublin and Limerick in the past, and they’ve been a worthwhile trip. It can be a great place to meet mix of like-minded people – from those who have been through the mill of setting up their own businesses, to those who are thinking about taking the first jump.

The idea behind BizCamp is that it’s a user-generated conference – that means that there are no expensive invited speakers, it’s a free conference, and it’s up to those attending to share what they know with the audience (not sales pitches). You can sign up for a talk on the Speaker Registration page (it’s as easy as entering your name, email, and a title & short description of your talk).

If you’re not sure about giving a talk, you can still register to attend over on the Bizcamp Galway site. This  is also one of those times when letting people you know that it’s coming would be great – there’s a lot of empty registration forms to fill, but they won’t be empty for long.

See you there.