It’s nearly the end of the year, and developer/maker events abound.  We’re pulling together a mashup of activities into a weekend long feast of workshops, events and geeky socials on Saturday 3 and Sunday 4 December and invite you to join us for as much of it as you can.

The festival theme is the craft of development, from exquisite webcraft and elegant software programming to building physical technology and conceiving the internet of things through the use of open data. There’s something for everyone, of all ages and abilities.  

Sign up for individual events through the links below.  

You can also help cover the costs of the festival by grabbing one of the sponsor tickets (at the foot of the page), either at a set price, or to a value that you feel comfortable. All proceeds will go towards improving the experience for GIST Fest, and any surplus will be ploughed back into the Foundation to produce more workshops and events that enrich the community and its members

The current lineup includes:

1. Geek Cadets Programming Club (Sat 9:30am – 11:15am): suitable for 8+ year olds – get a introduction to software programming.
2. RepRap Build Workshop (Sat 11am – 6pm): build, display and discover the future of 3d printing and rapid prototyping.
3. Global Code Retreat Day (Sat 11.45am – 7pm): hone your software development skills through pair programming.
4. BarCamp Sheffield 4 (Sat & Sun, 12pm – 7pm): the seminal unconference format – you set the agenda.
5. International Open Data Day & Mobile Hackathon (Sat-Sun, 10am – 6pm): use public open data to create and drive mobile app prototypes, including the Sheffield City app.
6. Geek Cadets Programming Challenge (Sun 9:30am – 12pm): suitable for 12+ year olds – mentor with a software practitioner to level up your programming skills.
7. Platform Battle (Sun 12pm – 6pm): teams pitch themselves against each other to create the best solution to a development problem in their language of choice. *
8. Play Lab (Sun 2pm-9pm): Bring along and showcase your own games, or help design and playtest others.  *
9. …

There’ll be a big social on Saturday evening too – details to be confirmed: offers welcome.

Want to run a workshop? We’ve still got some space for half-day workshops. Let us know what you have in mind here, and we’ll see how we can help  make it happen.

Want to run a session? 30-minute slots are there for the taking at BarCamp. Grab a slot on the day.

Registration is per event, from the links above.

Location: all events are taking place at the Workstation and GIST Lab in Sheffield.

Hashtag: #gistfest.

* registration coming soon

We hope you can make it.

At the August GIST Magazine, Deborah Egan from Blue Shed spoke about a substantial fund coming on line for developing a creative and cultural company’s audience reach via digital development, saying:

I’m keen to percolate the information North of Watford hence this session which will prepare the local CDI community for the bigger picture and look at some interesting examples of engagement.  I think it could be really useful info session for theatre companies , filmmakers designers, software developers, broadcasters producers etc. -you can find more detail on the web link below.

Please come along or pass on to your relevant contacts.

HEANEY. Exe
At The Blue Shed Monday evening August 8th. 6:30 – 9pm

We are gathering together friends, collaborators and stakeholders to pursue the opportunities offered by the NESTA R&D Fund.

This fund has been created for cultural producers , software designers , campaign strategists , to extend their market reach and develop new audiences.

At this jumpstart session we will be sharing information and developing partnerships to build on for when the full UK Digital Innovation Fund with baseline funding of £20 million is launched in September 2010.

We will also be looking at exciting examples of work , tips and signposts from a range of geeks and producers in our region.

The initial fund, offering a total of £500,000 has been made available for arts and cultural organisations which are seeking to expand and innovate- but this will be followed through by a second fund of £20million in Autumn.  It is not just a simple investment in arts and culture.  NESTA are targeting arts organisations which are looking to incorporate digital media and modern technology into innovative and enterprising participation models.  This fits in with NESTA’s general philosophy of sponsoring innovation – particularly in the field of finance, business and economic development and the effective synthesis of art, media and business .

Core Themes:

• User Generated Content and social media
• Distribution , on-line, broadcasting
• Mobile, location and games
• Data and archives
• Resources
• Education & learning

More info – NESTA R and D Fund – http://www.nesta.org.uk/areas_of_work/creative_economy/digital_rnd

RSVP for the event to Fionn O’Donovan at fodonovan@hotmail.co.uk

The February issue of the GIST Magazine looked at cloud computing, Facebook privacy, personal knowledge management and GIST’s open labs initiative.

Cloud Computing

Sheffield Hallam University are starting a new MSC course looking at technology, commercial, social and economic aspects of cloud computing. The course leader, Laurie Hirsch, gave this overview.

The university are also hosting an event – Inside Cloud Computing – on Wed 2 Mar. It’s during the day, so once you’ve checked that out, be sure to come along in the evening to the next episode of the Magazine.

Facebook Off

Local digital rights watchman Richard King wrote recently about his plans to give up the all-pervasive godfather (or is that mob boss) of social networks, Facebook.

With some startling revelations on the evolution and impact of Facebook’s privacy control policy and practice, this thought-provoking presentation left more than a few wondering whether to also abandon the network that seems to be abandoning its users.

World Book Night: 5 March 2011

Following the success of November’s GIST Write! Lab project, the Foundation’s own Hannah York has been selected as one of a few from many across the UK to be a Giver and share the joy of reading as part of World Book Night, which is taking place on 5 March.

As part of this you can get a gratis copy of David Nicholls One Day, an absorbing fictional study of how we change and how we stay the same as we grow up (or older). Register for the next Magazine (2 Mar) and let us know if you want a copy so we know how many to bring along. If you’re not coming to the Magazine, drop Hannah a message on the Hub or via Twitter to reserve your copy and arrange a drop-off.

Personal Knowledge Management

This month we did a little cheeky experiment to help members of the community work out what type of knowledge worker they are, and how their style and approach might fit into a balanced team of knowledge workers. You can find the questions and scoring method in the Magazine presentation above.

It’s probably not meant to be used in this way, but it’s interesting to see the aggregate result of February’s Magazine audience. There’s a fairly even mix of Collectors and Connectors in the group, with a healthy supplement of Creators too. What does that all mean? I’m reading it as a healthy sign that the GIST community likes to learn stuff, be sociable about it, and apply that knowledge in interesting ways for creating and problem solving.

This experiment was based on a mini-survey published a few years ago by Straits Knowledge. The full background and an explanation of the different personal knowledge management styles is in this PDF. Have a go yourselves and let us know what your style is.

Open Labs

These are open days at the GIST Lab for folks to work on their weekend or pet projects, collaborating or sharing ideas and implementation with other people in the community. You set the agenda or project, build a team around it and make it happen. We’ll provide the space for folks to gather, learn and share and help you connect with others who may want to get involved.

There’s a new Open Labs group on the Hub to share ideas for projects. If you have a project you want to progress, use that forum to shout about it, find collaborators, get help on problems that are getting in your way, and show off your progress. If you find yourself in the Lab, you can also browse or post physical things on the actual Projects noticeboard that is set up in the space.

The Open Labs will be demand-driven. We’ll open up the Lab whenever we can if there’s enough interest and to suit that demand. So add your preferred dates to take part in this scheduling poll.

Next month

That was February’s GIST Magazine. We’d love to hear your thoughts on any of the topics covered this month in the comments below.

Don’t forget also that there’s loads more happening throughout the month – check the calendar and events listings for all the usergroup roundups. You can also book a place at next month’s Magazine – we’re always looking for interesting contributions, as well as help on the production side.

Until soon.

Just sent to me by @jagusti and relevant in the context of “The Sheffield App” – Warwickshire’s take on what a regional app should be - http://touch.warwickshire.gov.uk – Content wise it’s much more in line with what I’d expected / hoped from the Sheffield app. Still seems to lack some kind of pazazz tho? Any thoughts?

Hey Mobile Developer Friends…..

Having just published the slides for tonight and linked them in the previous post I realised that the WordPress site for the mobile group is very much out of the box. I was wondering if anyone in the community might be willing to take on the job of giving the blog some love.. in terms of

• Sprucing up the look and feel
• Making sure that there is a blog post following the meeting
• Just generally getting the message out there to interested developers in sheffo?

Please come talk to me (Or @jagusti) if this is you and you fancy supporting the community!

Ian.

Hi All….

For anyone who’s interested, here are the slide sets I’m planning to use this evening… Comments, suggestions, additions, deletions all most welcome.

• http://www.slideshare.net/ianibbo/gist-mobile-group-welcome-jan2011
• http://www.slideshare.net/ianibbo/gist-mobile-developer-group-cma-player-app-review
• http://www.slideshare.net/ianibbo/gist-open-conversation-sheffield-app

Yes, I’m being deliberately provocative with the sheffield mobile app thing. For those of you wishing to come prepared I’d really like to get the following out of this evening:

• Any feedback – visual, architectural, anything.. On the CMA player app…
• Possibly a list of requirements for an alternate “Sheffield” mobile app
• Possibly a semi-professional critique of the sheffield mobile app
• Ideas / wants / suggestions / offers of presentations for next session

Hope to see you later on!

Best, Ian.

This months Mobile developer group is on Monday 24th and is kicking off at 6:30pm. We’ll be Kicking off with a progress report on the cross device mobile radio player app being developed by @guru, @jagusti, @billbest and @ianibbo. Following on from that, we’ll be hosting a review session looking at the recently announced sheffield mobile app, thinking about what works well, and what we think could/should be done differently.

Signup here: http://smug1101.eventbrite.com/ and tweet using #SHMUG

Hope to see you there!

Ian.

Open Data Sheffield is a community of active citizens, geeks, academics, journalists and public data providers collaborating to increase public sector transparency in the region and make it easier for citizens to understand the decisions and services that affect them.

Anyone is welcome who has an interest in unlocking the mysteries of public data, presenting meaningful ways to reveal the underlying stories behind policy making and public sector performance or wants to help local bodies engage with the community to create and publish coherent and useful open data.

Doors open at 6.30pm for registration, drinks and pre-meeting chat.

The main feature this month will be the Open Data Mashup Game. We invite you to get involved with playtesting and developing the Open Data Mashup game, which should be a fun way to explore and show off the possibilities of open data for developers, designers and data owners.

There’ll be an Open Floor for you to show’n'tell your open data projects (let us know if you have something to share) and we’ll round up some of the main developments in the open data scene since the last meet.

We’ll wrap up by 8pm and head Onwards to a nearby pub for a sociable drink to explore ideas with other collaborators.

We’re interested to hear about the topics that you may want to learn more about and discuss in future gatherings, as well as receiving offers from potential speakers or workshop facilitators for future sessions, whether that’s about datasets, tools, techniques and technologies, or sharing use cases and case studies to help make sense of it all. Get in touch if you want to contribute.

You can also keep up-to-date and follow the developments by joining in the online group. There is a Twitter channel – @opensheffield – that you may want to follow. We’ll also be posting updates and publishing information about publicly released data on the website.

The GIST Lab is a community collaboration space operated by The GIST Foundation in partnership with the Showroom Workstation.  Find directions here.

This is the opening meeting of the Python Sheffield group. The group is for discussing all aspects of the Python programming language and is open to anyone with an interest in Python, including experienced Pythonistas, occasional Python users and those wishing to learn more about Python. Python is an interpreted dynamic language available on all major platforms and is used for a huge variety of different tasks.

For this opening meeting, the agenda is a round-table introduction of the attendees, their backgrounds and their interest in Python. This will then be followed by a discussion on the future structure of the group, the attendees’ expectations of the group and a general Python discussion.

Twitter: @pysheff

Web: http://groups.google.com/group/python-sheffield

Email: python-sheffield@googlegroups.com

Hi All,

Couple of events coming up that might be of interest.

(1) South Yorkshire Girl Geek Dinners organised by Mel Kanarek, happening in Barnsley sometime February will post when I have more info!

(2) Not a Girl Geek event but organised by a Geek Girl Warrior Princess, Twitter Jokes On Trial Benefit Gig in March, contact Erica Packington for more info.

Thanks,

Hannah