This time I’m late, totally late. No excuse!!!!! But I’ll do what I have to do right now.
To be honest, I was worried before the day BarCamp Saigon happened. I haven’t joined any BarCamp before, I didn’t know what to be expected.
I went to bed at around 5am last Saturday and Rick called to wake me up at 6.30am. Of course I was tired. I arrived at RMIT to see that volunteers already there. Hùng did a great job. Some of our friends: Preetam Rai, Viirak, Tharum, Geoff, Rath, Ramana, Thảo, Christine Trần, Bryan Pelz, etc. came so early. Some reporters arrived early as well. Until 8.30am, there were still a few people showing up. We decided to have opening ceremony on time. And how amazing, we had 150 people at that time.
Everything after that went perfectly smoothly. We have 46 sessions and around 350 people showing up. They are all very interesting. Many of them are CEOs or senior managers from of big companies those you bet you already know. I can say, quality of BarCamp Saigon’s attendees were much better than Google DevFest HCMC’s. Everyone could communicate in English and enthusiasticly engaged in sessions even they were delivered in English.
BarCamp Saigon was  a huge success! The tag #barcampsaigon was among the top trending topics on Twitter, and our sessions are still on spotlight on SlideShare’s homepage. Some newspapers covering this event, and MegoTV had a livestreaming about one session of BarCamp Saigon. And unfortunately, this session was mine. BarCamp Saigon was red-lined on 2 biggest IT forum DDTH and JavaVietnam. We have recieved good feedbacks and thanks from our beloved attendees.
I myself made a lot of mistakes that day. I had a presentation, but I didn’t prepare carefully, and my laptop went crazy at BarCamp. It was the first I presented in public, nerves, questions made me speak out some stupid stuff that I would never speak out again. I’m sincerely sorry all of you! And I promise I’ll do better next time.
Here is my slide:

You can check out for more slides at BarCamp Saigon here.

Here is the list of sessions presented at BarCamp Saigon. The lines in red mean I have no information about it. Please tell me if you know who gave those presentation.



Morning sessions:

1. eXtreme Programming - A Practitioner’s Approach by Lê Vi Khanh and Huỳnh Vi Quang - Stanyang Group

2. Python for the rest of your life- Nguyễn Thành Nam - CEO of Bluemoon. FYI, Bluemoon security group just won 1st place at HITB contest, one of the biggest security contests in Asia.

3. ????Machine Perception Pattern Recognition (Chip making)

4. ????Experience in Learning English - T.Tran

5. Global Positioning System - Nguyễn Đình Bảo - MXI, Raytheon

6. ?????RUP by Minh/IBM

7. How to Twitter (and Why) by Thomas Wanhoff. He’s one of the most famous postcasters in Germany.

8. Using Ubuntu Linux at American International School by Kevin Miller

9. Mobile GIS - Lê Ngọc Quốc Khánh, admin của http://javavietnam.org A pretty useful presentation for programmers.

10. VoIP using Linux (En/Vi) by two guys from GHP Far East - Anthony Fernandes (CTO) và Nguyen Duy Phong (IT Administrator)

11. Web 2.0 in China, Korea, Japan & World. Interesting MobileWeb Services by Preetam RAI - one of the most admirable bloggers and travellers of mine. He’s everywhere!

12. ????Learn and remember effectively (En&Vi)

13. Intel Technology and what you can do at Intel by Huan Dương from Intel Vietnam

14. Virtualization (system) by Stephane Masse IT Director Apple Tree and Le Trung Cang, IT Manager Archetype

15. ???????Open CV eigen face recognition by D. Minh

16. Echo-o and Google App Engine by Nguyen Tien Loi - Multinc

17. Microsoft Sync Framework & the future of WebApp by Lê Trung Hiếu - Global CyberSoft

18. ?????Linux is good for geeks

19. Vietnam Online: A macro view on a troubled but growing market by Bryan Pelz, CEO Vinagame

20. ??In space application. Machine vision by Vu

Afternoon sessions:

21. ???Adobe AIR development by Quang Tran

22. Linux and Enterprise by Võ Hồng Quân from GHP Far-East

23. ????Scalable cross-language services development with Apache Thrift (It’s cool!)

24. Surface Computing by Eric Hosick - RMIT lecturer & Mr. Cuong

25. How to make money online? Is online advertising the only way? by Rick Rodgers (Cross-Trade Border Director at PeaceSoft) & Trần Ngọc Thái Sơn (SonnyMotives) - (Representative of Vega Corp in HCMC (En&Vi). Interesting topic and it attracted a lot of barcampers. Of course, who doesn’t love money

26. ????Truck management (use GPS, GSM) by Dang Viet Hung

27. Roundtable: Startups in Vietnam. Share Experiences, lessons learned and tips for starting companies. For entrepreneurs: “Future Entrepreneurs” - By James Vuong (Vice President - Investment & Technology) and Hiep Do (Vice President - Investment & Technology) from IDGVV together with one of our organizers Daniel Shupp from Tech Propulsion. It was really great and helpful. Whoever wanna get funding from a VC should join it!

28. Ingredients of a successful web business by Chris Harvey, Genaral Director Navigos Group

He seems to be a very nice guy but he left too early.

29. E-learner Platform 2.0 by Nguyễn Anh Hùng, a young talent from FTU and one of Barcamp Saigon’s organizers. His E-learner Platform once implemented can help a lot of people.

30. ???Python by Nghia

31. “Social Networks” in Vietnam: Voices from the street by Phạm Anh Khoa and Đạt. Khoa is the founder of VietAbroader and an expert at Vietnam web market. But I have no information about his friend: Đạt until now.

32. ????Key Information on Webpage

33. IT Strategy: “Advancing your future” by Leon Sikes from VinaConsulting

34. Ask me anything about Drupal or Open Source or starting a non VC company by Jordan Lougheed - He seems to be very confident and a great freelancer.

35. Internet Television by Lê Quang Duy, one of BarCamp Saigon’s organizers: enthusiastic and willing to help. He’s going to be a very nice film maker.

36. Roundtable: Bringing Linux servers into a wintows network: products that will sell it to your managers!! by Urko Masse (SSIS Tech Coordinator)

37. ???Experiences Running a company in Vietnam (for foreigners) by Eric

38. Meet Sexy Cambodian Bloggers (Both Male/Female) - Preetam and 2 sexy Cambodian bloggers: Rath and Ramanagal.

39. Vietnam Web Services Portal. Go Global! by me (Huyen Chip). I know I made bunch of mistakes but that’s the way I can learn. Thanks everyone for joining and supporting me.

40. How to collaborate with Google Docs by Thomas Wanhoff.

41. ???Info SEC by Nam

42. ????iPhone Dev and Echo-o by Quang Tran

43. Entrepreneurs Anonymous by Christopher Zobrist (VSVN)

44. Sáng tạo? Bạn đang nghĩ gì? by 2 extremely active high school students from Lê Hồng Phong (one of the best high schools in HCMC) Bình - An. They were the youngest orators at BarCamp Saigon 1, and I’m sure they’ll do much better when they reach our age.

45. How I use Second Life and Virtual Worlds in my class - Preetam Rai

46. ???Echo-o and Android Application

All pictures and documents about BarCamp Saigon should be tagged “barcampsaigon”.

There were alsosome misunderstandings between organizers ourselves. But after all, we are still friends.
I met a lot of cool people, attended many interesting sessions, learnt a great experience of the first time presenting in public, experienced the differences between Americans and Vietnameses, and the greatest of all, enjoyed a true friendship and realized that there are still someone really cares about me.

————–

Now, BarCamp Saigon 1 was over, time for BarCamp JB. I’m coming to Singapore to join e27 Singapore for 2 weeks and attend BarCamp JB in Malaysia. This time I’ll make a presentation about Web 2.0 Vietam. Thomas is trying to have me make a session like: “How to get a Vietnamese girl”. Hahaa. I don’t care about girls, Thomas. Tell me how to get a Vietnamese guy

Tags: barcamp, barcampsaigon, saigon, Vietnam

Hey you guys, I’m here at DevFest HCMC.

First, the Internet connection is very slow. Looks like someone is downloading videos or films using DevFestHCMC’s line.

All documents for DevFest HCMC are available for access here; Twitter tag for this DevFest is *#devfesthcmc“; and if you’re a developer, join DevFest live chat here.

The topics are about: Shindig, OpenSocial, Hi5, Friendster, Google App Engine,…  Check it out here for more information.

But the topics just came after a long long time waiting. Jason won the first point when he points out that it’s b/c of Vietnamese time. “Cao su” or something, right? Anyway, I, Kevin and Thomas did have a great time preparing BarCamp marketing airforce.

I see many interesting people here. Jason Costa, technical developers managers from Google, Pamela and Vinoaj from Google too. And ofcourse Jason Vu, our beloved co-ordinator of this DevFest. Ah did I forget Pattrick Chanezon, his job must be the best job in the world, Google evangelist or OpenSocial Avocate, right? (Please correct if I’m wrong).

This one should be interesting.

Guys from eXo Platform: Jeremi Joslin and Tungdual Benjamin Mestrallet. Everyone is speaking French accent here. They are talking about eXo WebOS and eXoSocial.

Guys from Friendster. They promised us a lot of money.

Guys from Garag3 in Singapore BJorn Lee and Justin. They did a nice presentation about Garag3 at the end of DevFest. If only we had some kinds of funds like that in Vietnam

Guys from Asaleo: Duc Ban, Nam Tien, Van Nhan, Si Nguyen and Nghia.

BarCamp people: Kevin, Thomas, Rick, Timen (he already left), Tony (sorry b/c you’re sitting a bit far away haha), Anh Hung, Duy Le and ofcourse me (@chipro at Twitter)

Quang Nguyen from Vina Consulting.

We have a nice buffet here but I forgot to take some pics. KhanhLNQ should be sorry b/c he left too early.

They talked about Google Map API after that. As Kevin said: “They save the best presentation for the last”.

And ofcourse we have DevFest T-shirts.

Put your name here if you’re at DevFest.

Thanks Duy Le for all the pics.

My comment: Well, even though both Jasons (Costa and Vu) seem to be quite happy about this DevFest, I personally think that it’s not as successful as they expected. Restricted registration, then many developers who registered didn’t show up. There were 300 ppl supposed to be there but less than 200 ppl were. That’s Vietnamese style. An important point to be noticed for our upcoming BarCamp.

Moreover, I guess most attendees yesterday couldn’t understand thoroughly the whole story, including me. Vietnamese developers’ English skills are not that good.

Anyway, it’s just my random thought. And everything else was very good. Congrats you guys, you really did a good job.

Tags: devfest, devfesthcmc, Google

Update 1: Good news for you guys in Hanoi: Open Knowledge Event is coming… in Vietnamese.

One of the things I like most about Saigon is its exciting life. There are so many interesting activities here, esp. for geeks. So if you are a technology enthusiasist, don’t miss it!

Nov 4: Google DevFest Tour, a.k.a Google Hackathons.

I’m coming, ofcourse. Tell me if you’re coming too. Looking forward to seeing you guys there.

What: Google will be holding a DevFest in Ho Chi Minh City. Join us for a day of coding and fun, where we’ll cover topics ranging from OpenSocial & App Engine to YouTube & the Google Maps API.

Who: You! We’ll provide space, power, and refreshments. You just need to bring your own laptop, ideas and enthusiasm to complete the mix.

When: Tuesday November 4th, 2008 1:00PM-10PM

Where: A5 conference room, University of Technology. 268 Ly Thuong Kiet Street, Ward 14, District 10, HCMC

(Well, in case your driver can’t speak English: Phòng hội thảo A5, Đại học Bách Khoa, 268 Lý Thường Kiệt, Phường 14, Quận 10, Hồ Chí Minh)

(Source: http://code.google.com/events/hackathons/devfest/devfest-saigon.html )

Nov 15: BarCamp Saigon

No need to explain why it’s my favourite event, at least until now haha, ‘cos I’m helping organizing it with really really amazing guys. Check out at http://barcampsaigon.org to see how we are doing. Everyone is invited but make sure you’re really involved.  Please check it out :x

For you guys in Hanoi: Don’t be jealous of us or cry for your bad luck hahaa. Why don’t you try to hold your own event

Update 1:

Nov 8: Open Knowledge Day - WikiDay in Hanoi

Hosted by Wikipedia Vietnam and co-organized by VLOS (Vietnamese Library of Science), BaamBoo Dictionary , this event is to promote the idea of “Open Knowledge” for everyone in Vietnam. Well, it sounds interesting esp. when Copyright Violation is one of the hottest topic in Vietnam at the moment.

Click here to check it out.

Go social, go open source!

Tags: barcamp, devfest, Google, wikiday

Update 1: For you guys who wanna be a Vietnamese Facebook, check out the press room of Facebook (click here), esp. this timeline - quite interesting to know that orginal Facebook didn’t even have the Wall feature.

Update 2: The email from Mark Ford: A TGB guy.

Many exicting new sites came through my eyes these days, just don’t have time to blog about them (Check out upcoming events in Vietnam for geeks). But HarryD did a nice coverage about Thegioiban and other gamers in FB clone bandwagon. Well, this bandwagon is getting hot, and it’s burning me!!!!!

As far as I know, Thegioiban (TGB) is one of 2 new guys joining Facebook clone bandwagon. The other guy is YouSecond (YS). Anhyou (former Anhone) is supposed to be another FB clone but I’m still waiting for an invitation from Mr. Khoi Pham. ‘Til now it has nothing to show at its front page.

FaceViet, TGB and YS have suprisingly many things in common. Both sites were built on SocialEngine - a pretty famous software for Facebook clone. Both sites are run by overseas Vietnamese or overseas students, mostly from the US. And both sites are not well funded by any deep pocket venture capital at least until now (please correct me if I’m wrong). But they have different approaches and perspectives.

The biggest and oldest player FaceViet was launched in Oct 2007 and hasn’t made any big thing so far. FV team was pretty motivated at first but now everyone seems to be quite busy with his/her own job. FV’s high profile and well-educated users was the point to atract me at first but it’s also the fatal weakpoint for itself. Initial users those were supposed to orient user behaviors and help new users get used with the site were all founders’ friends. They used English with each other, talked about their own stuff and weren’t willing to make friends with people from lower background. Well, still remember FV is a Facebook clone for Vietnamese common use? Thanh Le, FV founder once told me that FV targeted mobile platform. An interesting approach for monetization ‘cos mobile is seen super potential considering 40 millions mobile users in Vietnam. Do you still keep that in mind or you already have another plan, Mr. Thanh?

YS is a YouNet Solution’s baby, launched about 5 months ago. It didn’t catch my attention at first but after some chats with Hoa and Ryan, I found the idea of building YS community based on REAL communities (like Thanh Nien House of Culture) really smart!!!!! Hey you guys, I like your forum 2.0 concept. It may take more time but you can be sure of users’ quality and loyalty. Just make sure you have a sustainable financial plan and keep your fire in heart. Let’s see how far you can go.

TGB impressed me by its exellent code + design (you can say well-customized SocialEngine) and the speed even though it’s hosted in the US. I greatly appreciate your efforts, your team esp. Mark with a great sense of humor and Spanish, but to be honest, I can’t see any difference in your site. Could you please tell me about that?

Update 2: Ya, Mark Ford sent me an interesting email after my question. There’s no secret here so I think it’s no problem to put it here.

“……

You have asked a really good question, but a really hard one to answer at the moment, none the less, I will endeavour to respond accordingly.

“but to be honest, I can’t see any difference in your site. Could you please tell me about that?”

As you could probably see, the site is still under development by Thang Nguyen. To date, Thang has been working on some of the features that SocialEngine currently offer, but after discussions, we do realise that there is something missing and we brainstorm each other everyday trying to come up with the missing “link” if you pardon the pun. Following the demise of Yahoo360, and the current “in thing” in Vietnam still being blogging, we are looking at ways to perhaps fill that void, but let me tell you, its one heck of a large void to fill, but something that we are aiming towards. Any ideas that we are currently toying with, without their implementation, I’m not ready to go into at this stage, but stay tuned for updates.

One of the areas that we are looking at now is also ensuring that our back end is robust enough to manage Users and to ensure that if they POKE us, we’re there to be poked and can respond in a prompt efficient manner whether its in Vietnamese or English. This is where our geographical locations comes in handy, there is usually one of us, if not both of us around.

You also pointed out something that is quite important for us and that is the speed at which the site delivers even though the servers are hosted in the US. That is a trade secret at the moment, but as you can see its working quite well.

…….”

You may have question about the other guys. Nothing special.

Tamtay was brought back to stage after IDGVV investment. As far I know, Tamtay was first built to be a Facebook clone but I just don’t know what exactly it is now with thousands pics of hot girls. Music? Film? Pics? SNS? Blog? Tamtay Chat? But what IDG brought to Tamtay seemed to be not only money but a whole new blow. Tamtay is doing some big changes on its strategy and staff, to concentrate more than community. Frankly, I don’t have much partiality for this site since it blocked my account just b/c my duplicate messages (my internet connection was terrible at that time) without any notice or explanation. Such a service!

Truongxua with its grand opening ceremony, boasted $10 millions USD of investment and GSO PLV system doesn’t seem to work well. People come to Truongxua mostly b/c of curiosity, and far from serious.

Guongmat is another Facebook clone built on SocialEngine. Nothing special.

Zoomban was dead. And is there anybody using Vietnamese version of Facebook?

Did I forget anything?

Tags: Clone, facebook, FaceViet, Guongmat, Tamtay, Thegioiban, Truongxua, YouNet, YouSecond

Today I came through an interesting post on Hùng’s blog - he disagrees with Tom Davenport’s opinions about the priority for web 2.0 in this economic recession on BusinessWeek (Plz don’t ask me anything about economy or I’ll look like a dead meat =.=). Hùng, to be honest, I like your braveness and I’m quite happy to tell that you’re kind of optimistic person.

Agree with you that web 2.0 is not only about interacting and sharing with each other. Web 2.0 is greattt, and I do believe Tom has the same idea in mind.

“I am not suggesting that we will be returning to the Dark Ages, or that there isn’t some value in Web 2.0. We’ll still have friends, and it will still make sense to write on their walls on occasion. Networks are important, and they contribute to economic life as well as social life. Even over-employed workers will still produce some user-generated content. But it seems to me that many of the activities, business models, and assumptions behind social media are a bit fluffy, and that fluffiness is going to be difficult to maintain in the post-bubble environment we now find ourselves in. “

I think Tom was not saying that Web 2.0 had no value at all, he just wanna ppl to pay some more attention on other industries regarding what is the best for the economy. We need someone to produce real things not only ideas. Remember, Internet is just a tool, not your bread (well, except ppl those work on that industry - like me ). Knowing people is a lot of fun, but we are talking about how those relationships help us in our career, right? And I’m sure you see the answer, your most important thing is “YOUR CAREER”, not tools.

And maybe the Vietnamese context and American context are different. When I asked a friend of mine who is now in the US about Facebook and other web stuff, he said he had already wasted too much time for them, and now he had to do something for living. He is more than right! Web 2.0 has been a buzz in the US for ages, and there’s already a dot com bubble so ppl have rights to worry about another bubble. But VN is different, everything is new, so everyone’s making a fuss over that. FYI, none of sns in VN is profitable so far. Some big guys have signs showing that they are running out of money, and “smaller” guys are all waiting for VCs. And plz correct me if I’m wrong, there is some information telling me that IDGVV (IDG Vietnam) recieves no less than 50 projects a week!!!!!!! How competitive! Vietnam is not Silicon Valley anyway.

And forget the question mentioned in the title. I just don’t know how to name this post hahaa.

Tags: Networking, web 2.0