WebCamp #8 for the Homeless

WebCamp KL

The very thing that makes WebCamp KL awesome: rain or shine, WebCamp KL will go on – even on public holidays! Yes, while most Malaysians were celebrating our 54th Independence Day and Hari Raya, we’re really pleased that there’s a strong turnout and community bonding for this month’s event. (and having pizza and beer helps, too!)

Despite being a shorter WebCamp than usual, we are glad to have a solid lineup of speakers:

1. Richerd Chan – How I went from being an iPhone developer to sleeping on the streets of Kuala Lumpur
2. Mats Engstrom – Electronics design: from idea to market

Summary

While we didn’t intend to make it the theme, Richerd Chan kicked off with an eye-opening story of how does it feels like being homeless on the streets of Kuala Lumpur for several days: from being exposed to the elements (rain, in particular) to debunking the myth that Kuala Lumpur would be as quiet as a ghost town during the long holidays. And his story is bound to be really juicy when I had to bleep out certain words to spare unsuspecting listeners. Curious? Listen in!

Richerd previously lives as the principal developer for HootSuite’s iOS application, adventurous at heart and working on a stealth startup that would transform your Gmail to a support helpdesk command centre.

And do you have a passion for electronics? And would you love to design an electronic kit to fellow hobbyist? And what if you could turn your passion into a side business? Joining us in our second talk is Mat Engstrom, who shares his experience and the process of starting your own electronics side business. There’s some really solid nuggets you shouldn’t miss out!

Q&A and Help Wanted Panel

Finally, we have 20 minutes of solid community townhouse session where members can ask for help from the community. Two Q&A questions were raised:

1. In a web application that has elements of HTML5, how do you maintain backwards compatibility with older versions of Internet Explorer? And is the effort of maintaining such support viable?
2. What a website that sells dresses can do to solve an Adwords campaign which has seen clickthroughs but zero conversion?

Some resources mentioned in this episode includes:

• Modernizr
• Google Chrome Frame
• Twitter’s Bootstrap framework

Highlights of the help wanted session:

1. Christina wanted to know a cost estimate of developing and maintaining a social media site for a niche market, as well as seeking for investment for her new startup
2. Khalid from StyleKandi is looking for a frontend developer for their startup, contact AnticsMedia for details
3. Nicholas Yip from Innity is looking for 13 experienced, hardcore web developers who is confident is handle large loads of data
4. Joshua is looking for a technical co-founder for a mobile social media site for a niche market
5. Daniel from Experian is looking for Javascript specialists
6. A hackerspace in Multimedia Universiti, Cyberjaya is looking for volunteers to mentor the younger generation
7. An experienced product developer is offering consultation services to accelerate your startup
8. The same web developer who asked for help in the Q&A for his online store to sell dresses is looking for side hustles and offers his experience in PostgreSQL, accounting and ERP systems