#DepresionCampusera was the hashtag that set off a trending topic on Twitter just right after the conclusion of the Campus Party 2015, a 4 days event held in Guadalajara last summer. And yes, I had a weird feeling of being witness of what I saw, heard and learned. With #ScreenIt and #JobsScreenIT we were present at @CampusParty2015, and I will try to summarize “THE EXPERIENCE.”

In the past, I’ve been to tech forums in other countries at different times, and I was expecting a similar experience, however what I witnessed and heard reenergized my thinking and vision, and it was clear to me that nowadays in our country, youth’s environment is definitely technological. The first thing I saw … was lots of people everywhere! … Wow! Campus Party truly has a big audience and lots of followers! Literally, day and night were full of activities related to technology and entrepreneurship, as well as fun… there are numerous night parties and cocktails to attend.

Young ladies and boys feel with technology like fish in water, they participate openly (no shy, no fear) in the different sessions asking questions with the only purpose of nothing more than the fact of learning. A lot of money was given in cash prices. I tried to participate in a couple of workshops but either you make sure you show up long before the schedule (and misses other activities,

something I was not willing to do) or you pre-register online before the event.

Let me start with the excitement for the video gaming or driving drones. Even though I am neither a fan nor an expert, I declare myself astonished about thessee machines, the cameras, maneuvers and the uses given to them. I later understood (read 3DRobotics on below paragraphs) that the potential of drones is based on their ability to capture information (imagine the diversity of data representation: images, sounds, raw data, colors, etc) and re send it somewhere, for now, to a local machine and in close future to the internet … ladies and gentlemen we are in front of the beginning of a great revolution which will cause the ability to analyze live online information, in other words: welcome BIG DATA!

The day used to start around 10 a.m. At that time, close to six stages were ready to always have a person from whom there were always something to learn. To be honest, I hardly knew they were strong IT/entrepreneurship specialist, I discovered them as I listened to their lectures. In Campus Party everyone is a common person (no one is in celebrity mood on). You can find yourself sharing the lunch table with any of them. This is exactly what happened to me, I was suddenly with Jon “maddog” Hall better known as the Linux father. Then, you stepped onto one of those stages and voilà!… either due to technology or entrepreneurship, the specialist leaves you speechless.

Another thing that distinguished this event was the “campusero” culture “#XSoyCampusero” with plenty of participation in Twitter. The distribution of the rooms included tables where people can sit and connected to the Internet doing whatever they want. This culture included written phrases on the tables with messages like, “Caution, a world … is watching you”, “If you give me a like, I’ll give you a lollipop”, “Maruchan for sale”. If you wanted to connect to the Internet you could read or hear connect to “No Mames”, or “Fuck You”. These phrases ARE NOT to surprise anyone they just make us accept the reality of the young people movement full of energy and technology revolutionizing the world.

What else could you live during the Campus Party 2015? Avatars! Yes, avatars that could not be unnoticed, some of them I assure you looked very real … some dressed as a princess or female warrior between other characters. Certainly, you can witness of what I am trying to describe.

What definitely needed some improvement was the open Wi-Fi network, “CampusParty” and the reason is mainly because we were so many connected at the same time. This make me remind that every time the network went down, the youth began to whistle as they do at a soccer match.

Talking about whistling, there was an epic moment where Paul Zaloom – who makes science programs for children and is well known for innovating these science teaching – presented Donald Trump, the youth reacted immediately and manifested with a thunderous noise of “eeeeeeehhhhhh PUTOOOOO”. Please DO NOT take me wrong, to me this was a clear example of what is called will. Will is working together as a group without any coordination or direction and make something happen. Is worth to say that Mr Zaloom was the only person giving us the pleasure of hearing him more than 1.5 hours with interesting topics (please see the list of videos below).

One of the most visited areas was the Gamers Zone. Everything was available for this audience; workshops, lectures and plenty of opportunity to play and buy. There were night competitions and juicy prices for the winners.

In the Drone Zone, various participants did their best in demonstrating their abilities to fly them at different altitudes, thru different obstacles and maneuvers. The prices ranged from 2000 pesos up to 170K MXN. Taking advantage of this boom, the founders of 3DRobotics could not be absent. 3DRobotics was presented by a Mexican teenager Jordi Muñoz who during his speech, showed us how he started and his effort to make grow his company, which today is currently located in Silicon Valley. What it took to him was nights and days of frustration, hard self-study over the Internet and the good experience of publishing his work on the net. Chris Anderson helped to complete Jordi’s presentation. Anderson is a Silicon Valley business guy that perfectly partnered 3DRobotics. This company is publishing a single button drone name “Solo” (alone in English), a drone that eliminates all issues for those who are beginners in the flying art.

I don’t want to end this text without mentioning how surprising was to discover how this generation pushes aside any IT related topic that might look cumbersome. All this came because there was a session that explained the fundamentals of the existence of the ethical hackers school named “dev.f” . Under the premise of, “schools take long while updating their study contents ” and “what you learn is not longer used”, then why wait? Nowadays studying technology is simple, is a matter of choosing what you would like to learn. The dev.f school has a network of people that can teach or guide you in person or online. Various presenters included those from the hacker school repeated … learning is simply a will, all information is online or within “Geek” groups who have the philosophy of helping by the only pleasure of doing it.

There is so much to say about Campus Party 2015, anything I could describe here will be short compared to the fact of leaving it. I invite you not only to watch my recommended videos but to start preparing to be present on Campus Party 2016… by the way get your hotel reservation with at least 2 months ahead, if you try to do it at the beginning of the event you will just waste your time.

Anything you need to know contact us:

@ScreenIT_TAS

contactus@tas-screenit.com

Fanpage: ScreenIT.

My YouTube suggestions:

• Social Movement.

Denise Dresser. The new journalism and the new technology. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZXPB36Wnm0

• Entrepreneurship

Innovation and entrepreneurship culture. Vivian Langami. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhBmEmO_yuA

Paul Zaloom “Beakman”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_t0uOaVdzys

Entrepreneurship art Daniel Gomez. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KC3znEtLVfY

How 3DR was started. Jordi Muñoz. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYHGULZ5ycY

• Geek stuff

Show me the Money. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUjVkFivBrw

How is it to be a profesional of Network protocols. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoS7WHacViY

By: Liz Mundo

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