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I don’t know when it officially happened, but there’s been an unequivocal trend that being a geek is now cool. I still remember the O.C. episode where Seth uttered the prophetic phrase: “Geek is the new chic”. I think that was in the first season, when the show was still good. And then second and third season came around and the quality went on a steady decline.

… but wait, I’m wandering off topic. I want to tell you about a very cool Toronto Tech Community institution called “DemoCamp”:

DemoCamp is a variation of the un-conference style of event, started by the TorCamp group as an excuse to have more regular meetings where community members share what they’ve been working on, demo their products, meet others (and share a drink or 3).

And just why should you care? Please read on!

Two words: Free, Fun! True to the un-conference spirit, general tickets for DemoCamp are free. And the quality of content you get for that price is amazingly good. The presentations at DemoCamp consist of demos and ignite presentations, each of which is 5 minutes.

Demos are demonstrations of working prototypes (usually software/web stuff) that people have been working on. I remember at the previous DemoCamp I attended, a U of T grad student wowed the crowd with his amazingly simple gesture operated 3D modeling software.

Ignite presentations are power point presentations with a twist: there are 20 slides and each slide is shown for 15 seconds. The presenter has no control over the advancement of the slides. This is awesome for many reasons, the main one being that crappy presentations are guaranteed to be over in 5 minutes!

Of course, DemoCamp is not all business; it is also fun and great for networking. You’ll meet a slew of interesting people with cool ideas and neat skills over a few drinks. And really, who’d pass up on that?

When: Tuesday, July 15, 2008 from 5:30 PM - 9:00 PM
Where: Supermarket, 268 Augusta Ave
Tickets: Go get your ticket on EventBrite. Right now, the general (free) tickets are sold out. The next batch of generate tickets is being released on June 24th. Get them quickly if you want to go!

This entry was posted on Monday, June 23rd, 2008 at 6:05 pm and is filed under Event Picks, Events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.