Mobile Dev Camp Helsinki » update

MobileDevCamp 2012

mike — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 12:14:50 +0000

So, in case you did not realise, the organising team has shrunk to just me.

There seems to be some interest in doing it this year, so lets see what can happen with short notice.
Drop me a note (email, comment here or twitter) if you are interested in helping out (either via sponsorship or getting this to be an awesome event)

Date change

mike — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 17:54:39 +0000

Were we ambitious or crazy?

Either way, we looked at the calendar and realised that it was just too short a time to put together the event we had thought of.

The new date is November 25th to 27th.
There will also be a “warm-up” event on Wednesday 23rd in the evening, so keep that time free as well

Hackathon on October 14-16th

mike — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 13:16:56 +0000

So, we got the confirmation and the event is ON!

Bonnier publications is partnering with MDC to run a hackathon.

The core ideas are; to have fun, learn new stuff, meet new people.
Oh, and if you build something that changes the world, that’s a bonus

There will be a “warm-up” event earlier in the week to help teams (designers, developers, product owners etc) form up. The idea being that the team can get some actual productive stuff done on Friday evening rather than spending the whole evening match-making.
This means the team has from Friday early evening/late afternoon until Sunday to work together on their project.

On Saturday afternoon we will have some lightning talks, so that people are encouraged to look up from their screens and then on Sunday afternoon, short demos from the teams. As always, it’s more about what you have achieved, than looking at final products.

You asked, we are attempting to deliver

mike — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 13:27:16 +0000

So, a number of folks have talked to us about setting up a more “hacking” or “doing” type event, and this time of year seems appropriate.
Doing something exactly 6 months after MDC would put it in August (still Holiday season), so we have slid it a bit later in the year.

There are a couple of details waiting to drop into place, and then we will announce the event.
Standby fro more information (hopefully by the end of the week!)

Thank you everyone for yesterday.

mike — Sun, 27 Feb 2011 19:30:07 +0000

Thanks everyone, hope you all enjoyed the day, and maybe see you next year.

Of course we need to thank the speakers, who all managed to deliver their talks within the allocated time (makes it so much easier to keep things sort of on track!), and who all delivered interesting and different talks (or at least I thought so).

Thanks also to the competition judges;
Manfred from Samsung (although in the end on-one actually built something to show Manfred),
Claudio and Maksim from AndroidAalto (who had the tough job of judging between their friends)
Attila Csipa (who judged the Qt category, which had the most polished apps at the end of the 48 hours ),
Teemu Kurppa (who also had an easy day as it seems the iApp hype has died down, or is it that all the iDevs are too busy?)
Lari Tuominen of Qvik, who looked at the Windows Phone 7 entry (which was the most impressive achievement, 6 hours from nothing to working app, with no experience of the platform)

and last but certainly not least, a big thanks to all of the sponsors for enabling this years event
Samsung and their bada platform
Forum Nokia
Windows Phone
Symbio
Culminatum
Applifer

Thanks to those that braved the cold and came to the forests of Espoo

mike — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 11:02:46 +0000

Although the Aalto Venture Garage is only 10 minutes from Kamppi by bus and surrounded by offices of the biggest names in Finnish Industry, for many it seems it might as well be on the other side of the moon

Those that did not brave the cold and the short bus ride, missed

testing that the Nexus S can read the HSL bus pass (oh, and it is call Near Field Communication for a reason, it only reads across short distances)
free drinks and pizza (thanks to our generous sponsors this year, we had a bit of extra budget for this evening)
an introduction to programming on windows phone 7
a chilled evening of hanging out with fellow developers

For those that asked where we came up with the idea/theme of this years competition (Communication and/or Journalism), it was that the uutisraivaaja competition deadline is fast approaching, so even if you don’t win here at MobileDevCamp you can continue to develop the app and try again there.

If you build your app using Qt, then the deadline for the Cute Qt competition over at Travelling Salesman has been extended, so you could also enter that.

At the end of his session, Jani promised to provide some links.
I just got them via email, so here they are;
—-
To get up to speed with Windows Phone 7 development, follow these links:

Free Windows Phone 7 developer tools download

Windows Phone 7 Training Kit for Developers

Getting Started with Windows Phone

App Hub, the place to submit applications and get more information

GPS emulator for Windows Phone

Windows Phone Programming in C# training course
—-

Mobile Dev Camp will be bigger and better!

Kai — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 10:28:51 +0000

Inspired by our keynote speaker, Tomi “Mobile Stats” Ahonen I just had a quick look at some statistics from previous years and it looks like this year we will have bigger event than previous years. Following are some stats from our Facebook pages. And before someone comments I know that facebook RSVP do not usually show the truth. This is not the first event I’m doing With Mobile Dev Camp the correlation is stronger than with many other events. That’s why I feel confident writing this blog post.

2009
97 attending
94 maybe attending

Official estimate of attendees: 100

2010
156 attending
121 maybe attending

Official estimate of attendees: 200

2011 (3 days before the event)
176 attending
116 maybe attending

Target attendees: 250-300

Interesting detail is that this year we have less people “maybe attending” than last year and more attending. Perhaps people are getting more familiar with Mobile Dev Camp and know what to expect. We will have a great event once more with great hacking competition.

See you on Thursday and Saturday

Some timing information for this year

mike — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 09:58:34 +0000

so with around a week left before the event, and everyone now having seen all the keynotes from this years MWC, it is about time we let you know some more details of the times.

On Thursday, we will announce the detailed rules of this years competition at 16:00.
We will then be at Aalto Venture Garage from 17:00 (5 PM) until at least 20:00, but if there is still interest it should be possible to continue later.
The idea for Thursday is to meet up and spend some time hackling on stuff, meeting other devs and swapping hints and tips.

On Saturday, the doors at Arcarda will open at 10:30.
The program for the main stage will start at 11:15. The main stage programme will conclude at 18:30 (don’t worry there are breaks and thanks to our generous sponsors there is also a lunch provided in the middle of the programme).

Latest Speaker – Tomi Ahonen

mike — Sun, 06 Feb 2011 17:46:51 +0000

So we have our next confirmed speaker on the list – Tomi Ahonen.

Tomi is internet famous for his blog posts of almost biblical length which are frequently an analysis of market number announcements and also his semi-frequent twitter storms

Actually, we chatted with Tomi when we met at MindTrek and asked him what he thought he could do for a more technical/developer focused audience, and he was very excited for the opportunity to talk about real examples of how developers/small enterprises had made money in recent years (not just iApps )

Applifier Making Move To Mobile?

Kai — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 09:02:27 +0000

Tuomas Rinta, head of R&D
from Applifier is taking part to this years Mobile Dev Camp as one of the speakers. Tuomas will join the panel discussion about monetizing mobile apps. The big question is “how ready is mobile for big business”. Last year one of the companies represented at Mobile Dev Camp was Rovio, who have shown us that they are certainly ready. Applifier has not yet publicly confirmed their plans around mobile but it’s certainly the next logical step for the network. The active involvement with Mobile Dev Camp and public recruitment plans indicate that something is cooking. iOS and Android developers should definitely take a closer look at the open positions .

Applifier is one of the sponsors of Mobile Dev Camp this year. Applifier is a Finnish startup helping Facebook game developers get more traffic and users. Applifier has more than 55 million monthly active users and they have delivered more than 10 million clicks.
Their business idea is pretty simple. Each member of the network embeds strip of advertisements to their game. Strip has 5 slots for advertisements. Every time someone clicks on the add the owner of the game gets free advertisment clicks from the network. Developers who cant earn enough clicks from network can buy clicks. That’s how Applifier makes money.

If you want to find out more, join us on 26th February