Posted by badesemowo on November 26, 2011 at 4:01pm
I am at DrupalCamp Lagos 2011 at the moment . The turn out is awesome over 90 people so far , the sessions are going on well ....
but we figured that now is the time to call for volunteers ...
for DrupalCamp Nigeria 2012 ...
note : I said Nigeria ...
It would be nice to have a nationwide conference next year .
decision on venue, city , content , sponsors etc will be up to the decision of the volunteers
It is a Do-O-cracy ... lets make it happen ...
Comments
A Starting Point to Build on
Yep, the DrupalCamp Lagos 2011 was overwhelming and I must personally say, "I am still at shock" I didn't leave the venue till the close of the "ccHub" official time. Got home by 11pm (was too excited to meet you guys).
So moving forward, Let me get the ball rolling. I was privilege to attend the 2010 Python Nigeria and it was mind blowing. All venue, facilitators, refreshing even accommodation were handled by the center.
Thus, these are my following recommendations to get things "ROLLING"
Venue:: The African University of Science and Technology, Abuja (I could ravel round to get the necessary info on this place)
Date from 18 – 22 June 2012 (suggesting)
Training and workshops will be held from Monday to Thursday with the BarCamp on Friday. Each day will start promptly at 9AM and end at 5PM with breaks for refreshments.
Proposed Training
Introductory course in Drupal: History of the CMS/CMF, its terminologies and its features
Advanced Programming in Drupal: Modules development and Theming
Data/Web Integration with other technologies (java,asp.net etc)
Drupal Research Possibilities (Drupal for Mobile, Drupal for VoIP, Drupal for Politics):
Proposed Workshop
New Drupal developers get the opportunity to practice what they have learned. Participants with ideas or ongoing projects benefit from the presence of experts.
Proposed Barcamp
Presentation of the possibilities of Drupal Association Nigeria
History and future development of Drupal for Nation Building e.g. Drupal Development as a course in Education etc
Drupal possibilities as CMF (Content Management Framework) and project development on it (e.g. www.whitehouse.gov)
Demonstration of tools and software for Drupal Development
Debates, Q&A sessions
The training will be FREE (or cost placed on a bare minimal to encourage participation) but spaces will be limited. Interested participants will be required to apply online (either a new DrupalCamp Nigeria Site is built for this purpose (Good Theming inclusive) i.e. www.drupalnigeria.com or www.drupalcampnigeria.com or drupal.com.ng (The choice is ours to make)
Accommodation
Subsidized accommodation is available at the venue for successful applicants at the following rates.
Single bedroom @ N2000 per night (as of 2010 - i'll try to get the current date)
Twin bedroom i.e. 2 persons sharing @ N1500 per night (as of 2010 - i'll try to get the current date)
I just thought we get things rolling .... (you know free times are hard to find)...all the same.. "Less talk, more action" and as @Kayode, @Aniedi @Kayode and @murpheus would say " Let's get things rolling" ...more ideas will be coming soonest than you think
I remain yours drupalist
@mysterioux (eChris)
"As long as its a technology, it can be developed"
two word... i'm in!
two word... i'm in!
Great way to start
I'm definitely in.
I like the idea of an Educational institution. I like the idea of Abuja. Great post @mysterioux.
We definitely need to get http://drupalnigeria.org and/or http://drupal.org.ng functional and in the control of a board/association/trustees.
I still feel that EVERY event should have its own distinct website. The website will be listed on the main and/or Events page of http://drupalnigeria.org (http://drupalnigeria.org/events).
For instance, next year we will have http://2012.drupalcamplagos.com and http://drupalcamplagos.com would also redirect there. If you still wanted to access the memories of this year's event, you would still be able to go directly to http://2011.drupalcamplagos.com.
Let us keep the community active. I propose that we commit to post on this groups website at least twice or thrice a week.
Also contibutions should be decent, and reasonable.
Thank you for moving Drupal Nigeria forward.
Chill Pill
on a second thought, i think
on a second thought, i think we should still stick to having it in lagos. i feel there are more developers here in lagos and quite a number of us might not be able to make it down to abuja.
alternatively, we could ask Shina Oyetosho how Microsoft Open Door was like in abuja. cos attendance is VERY key
Considerable Option
Well @aphoe,
Your point is well taken but if we must extend our reach (although this is a bold step) we must implement a structure such as would be viable to have larger events. But if after some statistics 80% Drupalist are based in Lagos, then we could consider doing it some where in UniLag or other expected places in Lagos. A 3 days DrupalCamp Nigeria would be sufficient to cover alot from Newbies to Drupal, Module Development, Theming, Building Drupal Profiles, Contributing to the community,Data Integration from other systems like Joomla, Wordpress etc (hmmm! this could be fun)
So I suggest we go with two core plans. Plan A - Set a higher DrupalCamp Nigeria in Abuja, Plan B- Set a standard DrupalCamp Nigeria in Lagos (base on Statistics - maybe a poll system could be made available).
The year is almost ending so I feel right now that the house is trying to clear their tables from any over-left duties.
Lets create a two sub-teams to do such. Sub-A and Sub-B (its a suggestion)
Yours Drupalist,
@mysterioux
"As long as its a technology, it can be developed"
Glad we pulled this off. If
Glad we pulled this off.
If you use Drupal or you have been involved somehow with Drupal, please volunteer towards Drupal Camp Nigeria 2012. I know social work and community development is a strange culture around us, but I think we can build it. More locally driven projects will be committed to drupal.org infrastructure in coming months. So I believe we will really have things to showcase at Drupal Camp Nigeria 2012.
Maybe we don't need a separate community website. d.o infrastructure should be sufficient for communication. We can just concentrate on getting companies who have interest in Drupal to sponsor local projects which then gets contributed back to d.o. With more local projects ported to Drupal and d.o, that will be awesome. The event website can still be retained for the records.
t: @charyorde
Ibadan
My suggestion is this. Can we use a place like Ibadan, Oyo State? I believe this will enable many Drupal users and newbies have an opportunity to interact and have the type of community "feelings" we had in ccHub- Lagos. Ibadan is a centrally located town in the South West in which case people from Akure, Oshogbo, Ife etc can
So Far...(Too Fast)
So far,
I stumbled on a Drupal Group who where planning a DrupalCamp for Newbies in India, picking up their concept I decided to setup a volunteer list to know who and who would be available for planning and to do some follow ups as usual. (Just a thought)
Google Spreadsheet Attendance: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Auwfpci-YTf1dExmODZsdDVlTnR...
IRC Chat = freenode #drupalnigeria
(Just using my small spare time to put things in motion)
Yours Drupalist
@mysterioux
"As long as its a technology, it can be developed"
Re: A Starting Point to Build on
Thanks for your interest in VoIP Drupal!
Let us know if we can be of any help, even before the conference. We'd love to try our VoIP + SMS platform both in Nigeria, as well as in other African and Asian countries...
Best,
Leo and the rest of the VoIP Drupal team
(http://drupal.org/project/voipdrupal)
keep the suggestions coming ... ideas on date
@all please keep the suggestions coming .
Does anyone have any incline on the best date to run this ... please bear in mind DrupalCon in Denver and Munich ...
Also , we want Dries or Drupal Core Maintainers or some one from Acquia to be around if possible ...
@leo, abit off topic, are you saying your team would be sponsoring (part) / coming in for the event ?
ps: I am going to be away from the forum for a bit ... planning Joomla Day Nigeria 2011 (joomlang.com) ...
Around easter/April 2012
My idea on Date would be the week before or after easter :)
Simply because I'd be in Naija around that time and would like to present ; )
oh and let's keep it in Lagos please. Thankies
IN!!!!!
Lasgidi Please!!!!
it would be great if its held in Lagos.
nice1
I will like to attend!!
Drupal Camp Lagos 2012
Hi all ,
I just posted something about Drupal Camp Lagos 2012
http://groups.drupal.org/node/251498
Please lets know if you can help out with planning / logistics , etc
Joomla
Joomla? Surely thou jestest, kind sir.
correction effected ...
:-) corrected ... I'm also involved in organising JUGNigeria... my apologies.
What i would like to see
In nigeria, the trend is usually making money from less informed people , giving them no real value but talk.
What i would like to see besides all this talk and intro level stuff is "teams forming" groups of people that get together and actually do stuff. solve real world problems not just talk. see acquia and learn. we can do more for drupal by actually offering or proferring solutions to "Nigerian problems" using drupal. not just talk and camp here , lagos or abuja.
What are the plans for that. If anyone is interested, send me a message and we can talk on that. Telecommute also works in this part of the world. so all these intro stuff can be organized and put on the web, lets meet when there is actually something to do or meet about.
have fun socializing. @jumoke, i am stunned to see a nigerian girl here. do you actually know drupal ? that would be a first.
lets build critical mass
@dr wanni , I believe in the concept of building a critical mass . If we have a lot of beginners , a few will make their way to become intermediate , and maybe a couple can even become experts .
so I say , let some work on building the drupal community from ground up (that's what we are trying to do) , while some work on getting the community to deliver all round value , while some encourage other experts to become more involved , and so on ... everything must work hand in hand ....
as to the question of plans for solving nigerian problem with drupal .... an advert on TV comes to mind :
"it begins with you " .
the next DrupalCamp event will now be sometime in 2013 .
i get the idea
@badesemowo the question is, what do we stand to gain from this critical mass? is it funding? is it recognition on drupal.org or amongst our peers? ... what i am trying to say is, have the goals of this event been outlined, is there a team deciding what should stay and what should go?
lets say we brainstorm and pick a project, develop it and put it out there, maybe even market it to its target audience (if there is anything like that). with the success of this project, thare will be sufficient buzz to arouse curiousity in even the laziest and unwilling "aspiring developer"
people need to know
1. how drupal gives you an edge in developing and maintaining web solutions.
2. How profitable it is to actually spend some time climbing that steep slope called "drupal learning curve".
wordpress is excellent for building some sites or having a web presence. its also far easier. everyone is doing it. but the drupal team and community have successfully courted many large organizations (and solved their problems satisfactorily). Wordpress developers are just envious. i digress but it is to make a point.
The point is, drupal was designed by serious people and is used by serious people to solve serious problems. we need to make an example of this point, and somehow inculcate this into the new breed of drupal users you or we are trying to bring up. funding will naturally follow and many other things you may aspire to achieve but vaguely express.
I believe a site was set up the last time, what is it being used for? planning, brainstorming and voting on issues can be done there so as to know the direction the drupal camp of 2013 should take and the criteria we can use too judge it as successful. turn out is not enough. food drinks and accommodation is fine but still is not the point or reason for a drupal camp, therefore should not be used to rate the success of the venture.
Lastly planning on the future or direction or further goals of drupal nigeria should not be done at the camp. we shouldnt travel and pay accommodation only to discuss certain things tat we could have discussed online.
So boss. i recommend
Lets get a team. on this group should know the team, so that we can lay blame for complacency or general failure on the right people.(in other words they should be responsible for achieving set goals)
let the team meet online regularly and discuss issues and a general direction.
Let there be a site or online chat that everyone in this group knows about so we can meet at certain times online. bbm and whatsapp is good but it would be better to have a central log of all these conversations for later browsing, and so that we can refer newcommers to discussions that have been trashed out previously, if the issues should come up again.
Lets take some projects and build them using drupal and then paste detailed proceedures to achieve same, maybe in screencasts, and this documents should be freely available to members of this group.
let interested parties practice collaboration on some of these projescts and see how we fare.
If we achieve these, we should have gained enough momentum and the direction for the drupalcamp will be clear, as well as issues that should be addressed.
yeah thats my humble suggestion / contribution, and nice to see you responded swiftly. More grease where you need it