Mirko Tobias Schäfer / Assistant Professor
University of Utrecht Department for Media and Culture Studies
Mirko Tobias Schäfer / Assistant Professor
University of Utrecht Department for Media and Culture Studies
Date November 2007 / Category News
The first Rotterdam Barcamp ever took place at the Worm. It was a packed evening with very exciting presentations on software development and socio-political issues.
Denis Jaromil Rojo gave a talk on piracy and file sharing and discussed option for anonymous access.
Media design student Danja Vasiliev presented a modified ADSL router that was turned into a camera with automatic picture upload to a server through open WLANs.
Audrey Samson talked about the efforts of the Genderchangers to teach woman in using software. Criticizing open source software development for blindness in gender issues Femke Snelting from Constant hit the mark. The unfolding discussion was filled with gender essentialism and revealed how important it is to revisit developer's culture and its relation to the produced artifacts.
Thiago Noaves from Brazil talked about open source operated online radio broadcasting and how the government's increased funding is changing the Brazilian open source scene.
Socio-political issues were crucial in most of the presentations. It was clear that technology is never just means but reveals society and its regulations and codes. Hopefully the debate will develop further bringing together people from software development as well as from humanities and policy making. The first BarCamp was a good start and hopefully it establishes as regular event.