GeekFest Dubai 2015. We're BACK Baby!!!

GeekFest Dubai is back with a vengeance and I have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with it. 6PM on Saturday 13th June at Impact Hub Dubai is what you need in the old diary.

What is GeekFest? It's an event my old mucker Saadia Zahid and I put together after drinking too much coffee a few years back. It's sort of designed to bring online people together offline with as few rules, restrictions or people telling you what to do as possible. Think of a Montessori TED organised by Anonymous and you're sort of getting there. We became so wrapped up with letting the whole thing descend into chaos, we even referred to ourselves as UNorganisers. The event's not supposed to be disorganised, but it's not supposed to be organised in the sense that you're channeled places or have to deal with people shouting brands at you or having expectations of you. You want to come in a geeky t-shirt? Fine. You want to Cosplay? Fine. You don't? Just as fine. You want to be late? Fine. Early? Fine. Get the picture?

GeekFest went regional, with events taking place all over the Middle East. Beirut, Jeddah, Damascus, Cairo, Amman, Sharjah even! And then we stopped doing it. Simple as that.

The team at startup funky workspace hangout place Impact Hub - Diya Khalil and Sara Saleh - missed the good old days when Geeks Wandered The Earth and decided they wanted to get down and geeky again, which is just fine by me, so I gave 'em a copy of the Geekifesto and left 'em to it.

Impact Hub has many of the aspects that made Old Shelter so good for GeekFest. It's got a central space as well as breakout rooms aplenty, food and drink and, of course, copious Wifi. The team there have been beavering away and have come up with the following Smörgåsbord of delicious delights to tempt and tantalise your tastebuds. I've included reminders of what each element is in italics!

GeekTalks

15 minute talks from people who care too much about stuff to be considered normal.

The Internet of Things

Elias Jaber

Social Media Clichés

Aby Sam Thomas

Revolutionising Finance with Bitcoin

Tarik Kaddoumi

Simplifying Freelance Journalism

Mohammed Parham

TechnoCases

Displays of new technology backed by people that understand what the hell it is that's on show...

3D printing from DaVinci and The3DBee

Drones from Parrot

Hadoukenido retro gaming from Mohannad Ashtar

The Hop Away Game App from Hybrid Humans

The Oculus Rift from Spark Bits

ArtStuf

Artistic events and happenings, new ideas and inspirations from pencil squeezers.

Middle East Comic Con is bringing a fistful of artists to pack 'Artists Alley', whatever that is!

BeanBag Workshops

Ongoing 'how to' workshops for self-selecting audiences of people on, well, beanbags...

3D Printing by Doodlebare

Educational gaming by Hybrid Humans

Animated film making featuring new movie Hujan Dan Hijau from Emirati animator Mohammed Fikree.

Eats

Food on the night

Spontifora (which sounds interesting, in a sort of 'grows on the world in Avatar' sort of way) and There Will Be Crepes

Music

The Big Picture Art Platform presents live experimental sound from Kapital7

Now I'll warn you fair and square - the event's already looking over-subscribed with some 470 guests registered to the Facebook event (Impact Hub's capacity is about the 250 mark), so it might get a bit jiggy in there. But what the hell, go on down and have a blast anyway. Although mightily tempted to be there in my authorial velvet smoking jacket telling everyone how much better it was back in my day, I find myself with a packed weekend and shall therefore leave it to people younger and smarter than I to attend...

Impact Hub is to be found here.

Pink Caravan: Riding For Courage.

The Pink Caravan initiative has been going for the past five years in the UAE, a drive to raise awareness of breast cancer early detection and screening and to raise funds to buy an advanced mobile mammography unit to serve the United Arab Emirates. This unit, the 'Carevan', has screened almost 30,000 men and women (men can get breast cancer too) and detected 21 malignancies in women and one in a man since the programme started.

There's a whole cultural angle to breast cancer and its screening here, of course. But the women of the UAE are rallying together and some remarkable work is being done here at a grassroots level to bring women across the country around to the idea that regular screening is a good idea. A couple of years ago, Ajman turned its speed bumps pink to raise awareness. Hang on, in the 'conservative' UAE, we're making pink bump gags to get the point across? Yes, we are.

As anyone who remembers the days of GeekFest will know, I'm a massive fan of communities and online activism for good - and Pink Caravan is both of these things in spades.

Side note/ramble: now a long time dead, GeekFest was a regional social event for online people I was involved with - I was reminded sharply of it over the past couple of days as names I knew from the events we held back then started popping up around the audience of the Arab Social Media Influencers' Summit event in Dubai wot I have bin attending. Much nostalgia followed. Funny how in the Internet age, a couple of years is 'the good old days', isn't it?

Anyway. Pink Caravan. Each year, a group of some 250 horse riders takes to the roads and tracks of the seven emirates, joined by 200 volunteers and ambassadors, well-wishers and supporters. The ride has visited over 80 schools, travelling some 1,000 kilometres around the UAE in its quest to help build awareness, detect and eliminate this deadly disease. They call it 'Riding For Courage'.

From March 16th to the finale on the 25th in Abu Dhabi, the riders will do their thing. They left from Sharjah through Dhaid to Masafi and ended up in Khor Fakkan today, via Fujeirah.

Tomorrow, the 19th March, you'll find them in Ras Al Khaimah, starting at HCT Women's college at 9am and finishing at the Cove Rotana in the evening. The 20th (Friday) will see them riding in Umm Al Quwain and ending up at the Ajman Kempinski at 5.30pm - I'll see you there, it's my 'manor' and I wouldn't miss 250 riders with pink tack for the world!

Saturday the 21st March they'll leave the Ajman Kempinski and ride to the Qasba in Sharjah (passing by my house, natch) and then on Sunday 22nd they'll set off from the Palm Jumeirah Rixos to the Fairmont, The Palm. On Monday 23rd March they'll ride from Downtown Dubai to the Burj Al Arab, Tuesday they'll ride from the Formal Park in Abu Dhabi and end up at Zayed Military Hospital.

Finally, on Wednesday 25th March, some 300 saddle-sore chaps and chapesses will ride from the Sheikh Zayed Mosque to the Galleria Mall. This will be followed by a closing ceremony at the Rosewood Hotel in Abu Dhabi. Anyone wants a VIP pass, they can have mine, kindly sent me by the Pink Caravan Team. For a Sharjah boy, Abu Dhabi on a school night is not really on the agenda, dears.

The Carevan will be following them on their trip around the UAE, visiting an average of three hospitals, health centres or community centres in each location and offering free breast screening at selected stop-offs.

You can find out more, donate or join in by going to the Pink Caravan website here. There's an agenda detailing locations, a calendar of Carevan screening sessions and other events and the chance to donate to support the campaign both as an individual and a corporate partner.

Coming together for good. What's not to love about that?

GeekFest. The Wrap.

The 3D printer printed, the talkers talked, the Oculus Rift immersive 3D gaming experience thingy was too scary for me to try out and Jay Wud played a glorious gig much, one suspects, to the unease of the various residents of Emaar's Downtown district. The sound splashing back from the surrounding expensive high rise was a strange demonstration of wave theory. I bet he's never played to a grassy sward scattered with geeks sprawled on bean bags before.

I got a 3D printed penguin from Jackys' Ashish Panjabi (a clearly unkind reference to the DJ I wore to host the t-break gaming and technology awards) which I find unreasonably cool. Grumpy Goat got his copy of Shemlan: A Deadly Tragedy which appeared to make him happy (you owe me Dhs60, ya goat) and we all got to meet loads of people we haven't seen in ages - but see online every day.

Huge thanks to Nick Rego for organising the Oculus thingy as well as the stupid cartoon game that had a small crowd enraptured for the whole evening, as well as to the chaps from Eureeca, Sekari, the most laudable Sameness Project and Nabbesh - it was nice to see the Sameness Project folks, Eureeca and Nabbesh all work out they might have business together. Thanks, too, to Uber for the Dhs100 limo vouchers, although I'm not sure how many people actually used them.

DSF's Market Out of The Box (Market OTB) container-based alternative marketplace continues through this week and I do recommend a visit - there is much funkiness to be found there. Baker and Spice's pumpkin quiche is quite, quite ridiculously good.

There are no plans to do it again, but Saadia had a nasty gleam in her eye as we parted. She is small and I find myself all too easily bullied by small people.

Uber Provides Your GeekFest Ride

Limo app company Uber is offering you Dhs100 off your first Uber ride to GeekFest Dubai REUNION at Burj Park this evening. How about that?

Final GeekFest Dubai REUNION Lineup Confirmed. Shock Horror.

JAY WUD PLAYS GEEKFEST

The Red Bull team is coming to GeekFest Duabi REUNION and they're bringing Jay Wud to play a free gig from 9pm. For those of you who haven't heard of Jay, his band opened for Guns And Roses in Abu Dhabi last year and you can hear his music using this here handy link.

The Red Bull Wings team will be at GeekFest too. Geeks with wings! Whatever next?

UBER

The Limo That Comes To You app company Uber is giving away the first Dhs100 of your trip to GeekFest Dubai REUNION! Deets linked here!

GEEKTALKS

From 8-9pm we have four talks and they'll be kept to a tight time schedule by a bunch of metalheads waiting to come on stage, so we've at last found an appropriate replacement to the timekeeping discipline introduced by Monsignor R. Bumfrey!

The talks are:

8pm Money For Nothing: EUREECA
So you've got nothing but a great idea. How are you going to raise the cash you need to make it work? Not the banks, they're useless. We all know that. From VCs? They'll take all your equity for pennies. What about crowdfunding? Or better, what about crowdfunding backed by equity participation? Eureeca.com is the first equity crowdfunding platform offering a global solution. People give you money, you give them equity. Eureeca's speaker explains how it works - and how it's already worked for young UAE startups who needed cash to make that idea a reality.

8.15pm How Google broke search. And what that means to you. SEKARI
Getting ranked by search engine Google is about the right keywords and building lots of links, right? Wrong. That used to work, but now it's last year's thing - because Google just broke search - the giant's new hummingbird search algorithm changes the game and means engagement and quality content matter more than links from loads of sites. Lee Mancini is CEO of search consultancy Sekari and he'll be explaining what's going on and how you can fix your broken search results.

8.30pm Social change and sameness SAMENESS PROJECT
The [sameness] project is a Dubai-based social initiative that facilitates moments of sameness. The "sameness" is in understanding that we are all worth the same amount in our humanity, and the "project" comes through the on-the-ground initiatives like Water for Workers, The Conversation Chair, and We've Got Your Back, that bring the sameness to life. Jonny and Fiona from the sameness project will be explaining what it is, how it works and why diversity backwards is the way forwards.

8.45pm Make money at home doing what you like NABBESH
It's the perennial promise of freelancing, isn't it? And while there's undoubtedly opportunity and need out there, we've also got unprofessional clients, rip-off merchants and the like. So how can you promote a freelance community of talented people willing to exchange skills with employers who need resources and talent now - and keep that community protected and the wheels of commerce in smooth motion? It's a big ask and Nabbesh CEO LouLou Khazen is doing the asking - backed by winning du's The Entrepreneur and a $100,000 investment round using none other than eureeca.

TECHNOCASES

3D Printers UNLEASHED
The wild men from Jackys will be showing LIVE and IN THE FLESH the sexiest printers since someone said 'Can we print Hovis?' and someone else said, 'Sure'...

Green Gadgets
Heard of The Change Initiative? They're green. They're so green you'd be greenly envious of their greenness if you were a Martian. And they've got gadgets. Oh yeah. Fancy the idea of a recycled cardboard boombox, say? This is something you wouldn't want to miss, then...

GAMEFEST

We've got an Oculus Rift and we're gonna use it! This is a hyper-cool virtual reality headset the drooling gamer goons lovely chaps from t-break are bringing to GameFest. It's apparently the latest in puke-inducing immersive gaming gadgets. Apparently there are not only brain-spinning demos to play with but also @MrNexyMedia will be demoing his game in-development, so we're talking cutting edge beta type experience things here!!!

There'll also be a PS3 multiplayer area where people can make complete goons of themselves - always a popular element of GeekFest.

COLLECTING OLD NOTEBOOK PCs

You got an old laptop you don't use any more? Clean it up and bring it along and we'll make sure it gets sent to Sri Lanka where poor young medical students from rural areas simply don't have access to their own machines to use in studying for their exams. I got involved in this after finding out about one such student, then we uncovered another four. Now we have a distribution system set up thanks to a philanthropically minded doctor in Kandy and we can use more machines. So bring that old PC down to GeekFest and we'll make sure it gets a useful - and potentially life-saving - second life. Alternatively, you can always bring those old machines to The Archive and ask for Bethany or Sarah.

FOOD, DRINK, ARRANGEMENTS. STUFF.

There are cafés, there is seating, there is a soundstage (hence Jay and the boys) and stuff aplenty. There is a hospitality area we're not quite sure what to do with yet, but rest assured someone will come up with something.

My books will be on sale there. Clearly.

WEBSITE

Thanks to @AqeelFikree, GeekFest now has a website! Check out GeekFestME.com!

GETTING THERE

Here's the PDF map or you can use Google Maps like so. GeekFest will start, as usual, when you get there (if you come!) but about 7pmish is a guideline if you want to know what time to arrive late after. The talks will start around 8ish.

There's no registration, no age limit, no height restriction or any other form of organisation. If you'd like to come along, you're splendidly welcome. 

If you'd like to perform a plate spinning act, share your collection of left-handed Manga comics or old Adobe Acrobat SKUs or just have a question get in touch with @GeekFestDubai, @alexandermcnabb or @saadia and we'll give you some space and power or whatever you need.

GeekFest Gets A Website. And An Oculus Rift.

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

So you know what a website is, but what the hell's an Oculus Rift? Good question!

First the website. It's massively overdue, but then so's stuff like streaming the talks which just takes too much co-ordination, organising and general caring about things for us to get involved with. But now GeekFest finally has a website.

www.GeekFestME.com is the place to be.

It's the creation of UberGeek Aqeel Fikree, a talented website builder, photographer and bison wrangler. Right now it's an archive of things from GeekFests past, but has the potential (should this be deemed desirable) to act as a central repository for things GeekFest, from content derived from the various events through to community contributions, news and the like. It's really about what (if anything) people want to make of it. You can hit Aqeel up at @AkeelFikree or using the contact form on the website if you have ideas, content or contributions to make.

GAMEFEST MADNESS!

Now on to the Oculus Rift. This is a hyper-cool virtual reality headset the drooling gamer goons lovely chaps from t-break are bringing to GameFest. It's apparently the latest in puke-inducing immersive gaming gadgets. Apparently there are not only brain-spinning demos to play with but also @MrNexyMedia will be demoing his game in-development, so we're talking cutting edge beta type experience things here!!!

There'll also be a PS3 multiplayer area where people can make complete goons of themselves - always a popular element of GeekFest.

That's all in addition to the GeekTalks, TechnoCases, flowing Red Bull and a free rock gig from Jay Wud. I mean, what MORE could you want for a Wednesday evening?

PLEASE don't forget we're collecting old notebooks for poor Sri Lankan medical students!

Here's the PDF map. GeekFest will start, as usual, when you get there (if you come!) but about 7pmish is a guideline if you want to know what time to arrive late after. The talks will start around 8ish. There's no registration, no age limit, no height restriction or any other form of organisation. If you'd like to come along, you're splendidly welcome.

Jay Wud To Play GeekFest Dubai REUNION

Okay, so we've been conspiring merrily with the team at Red Bull and they're coming to play at GeekFest REUNION and bringing heavy rock act Jay Wud to play a free gig from 9pm. For those of you who haven't heard of Jay, his band opened for Guns And Roses last year and you can hear his music using this here handy link to Jay's website which includes downloads an' all!

It's high energy stuff and I for one am looking forward to this enormously. I've been envious of that crowd over in Beirut ever since I sat in Gemmayze's Angry Monkey quaffing 961 and listening to a live gig at GeekFest Beirut last year. Now we're quits, Beirut Geeks!

The Red Bull Wings team will be at GeekFest too. Geeks with wings! Whatever NEXT?

GEEKTALKS CONFIRMED SHOCK HORROR

From 8-9pm we have four talks and they'll be kept to a tight time schedule by a bunch of metalheads waiting to come on stage, so we've at last found an appropriate replacement to the timekeeping discipline introduced by Monsignor R. Bumfrey!

The talks are:

8pm Money For Nothing
So you've got nothing but a great idea. How are you going to raise the cash you need to make it work? Not the banks, they're useless. We all know that. From VCs? They'll take all your equity for pennies. What about crowdfunding? Or better, what about crowdfunding backed by equity participation? Eureeca.com is the first equity crowdfunding platform offering a global solution. People give you money, you give them equity. Eureeca's speaker explains how it works - and how it's already worked for young UAE startups who needed cash to make that idea a reality.

8.15pm How Google broke search. And what that means to you.
Getting ranked by search engine Google is about the right keywords and building lots of links, right? Wrong. That used to work, but now it's last year's thing - because Google just broke search - the giant's new hummingbird search algorithm changes the game and means engagement and quality content matter more than links from loads of sites. Lee Mancini is CEO of search consultancy Sekari and he'll be explaining what's going on and how you can fix your broken search results.

8.30pm Social change and sameness
The [sameness] project is a Dubai-based social initiative that facilitates moments of sameness. The "sameness" is in understanding that we are all worth the same amount in our humanity, and the "project" comes through the on-the-ground initiatives like Water for Workers, The Conversation Chair, and We've Got Your Back, that bring the sameness to life. Jonny and Fiona from the sameness project will be explaining what it is, how it works and why diversity backwards is the way forwards.

8.45pm Make money at home doing what you like
It's the perennial promise of freelancing, isn't it? And while there's undoubtedly opportunity and need out there, we've also got unprofessional clients, rip-off merchants and the like. So how can you promote a freelance community of talented people willing to exchange skills with employers who need resources and talent now - and keep that community protected and the wheels of commerce in smooth motion? It's a big ask and Nabbesh.com CEO LouLou Khazen is doing the asking - backed by winning du's The Entrepreneur and a $100,000 investment round using none other than eureeca.

THERE'S MORE! This linked post details everything, today's post is just an update!

Here's the PDF map or you can use Google Maps like so. GeekFest will start, as usual, when you get there (if you come!) but about 7pmish is a guideline if you want to know what time to arrive late after. The talks will start around 8ish.

There's no registration, no age limit, no height restriction or any other form of organisation. If you'd like to come along, you're splendidly welcome. If you'd like to perform a plate spinning act or share your collection of left-handed Manga comics or old Adobe Acrobat SKUs get in touch with @alexandermcnabb or @saadia and we'll give you some space and power or whatever you need.

This may well be fun, people...

GeekFest Dubai REUNION

The time has come, the walrus said...

Saadia Zahid was the reason GeekFest ever started happening. She was running Dubai's uber-funky workplace/hangout The Shelter at the time and we had a coffee to talk about doing something together back in 2009. We weren't sure, just that, well you know, something.

That something turned, in time, into GeekFest. And for a while, in the heyday of social media's initial impact on Dubai society (and, of course, in time in Beirut, Damascus, Amman, Cairo, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah and Jeddah), we played around with the whole non-event - an UNorganised gathering of people with no rules, no restrictions, No Logo and no gatekeepers. Just people, smart people, who wanted to be together and share stuff they were just WAY too interested in to be considered normal - geeks, in short.

But Saadia left Dubai for New York and although GeekFest sort of survived her, it didn't survive the demise of The Shelter as it was - that was the straw that made the camel throw up its hooves and give up the ghost. It simply wasn't as fun anymore and I had always said if it became a burden or too important, I'd chuck in the towel. And so I did.

But then Saadia came back to Dubai. And lo, she got in touch. And she said "I'm involved in this whole container city retail thingy concept park gig as part of DSF. I've got a sound stage, food, seating, areas. Fancy doing a GeekFest?"

And I ummed and aahed. But she bullied me. I swear she did. So...

Wednesday January 29th at 7pm, at Market OTB (Out Of the Box) will mark GeekFest Dubai REUNION. A return to all the fun and sheer lack of structure that made GeekFest, for me at least, so attractive.

Market OTB is running from 23rd January to the 1st February at the Burj Park, the island by the 'dancing fountain' in the shadow of the Burj Khalifa and is a market run out of refurbished shipping containers, dedicated to sustainable independent retail in the sort of direction of food, fashion and lifestyle. It's got a sound stage, bands, cafes and other funky stuff. It should be a pretty cool venue for GeekFest REUNION.

What's the skinny? It goes something like this:

JAY WUD PLAYS GEEKFEST

Okay, so we've been conspiring merrily with the team at Red Bull and they're coming to play at GeekFest REUNION and bringing Jay Wud to play a free gig from 9pm. For those of you who haven't heard of Jay, his band opened for Guns And Roses in Abu Dhabi last year and you can hear his music using this here handy link.

It's high energy stuff and I for one am looking forward to this enormously. I've been envious of that crowd over in Beirut ever since I sat in Gemayze's Angry Monkey quaffing 961 and listening to a live gig at GeekFest Beirut. Now we're quits, Beirut Geeks!

The Red Bull Wings team will be at GeekFest too. Geeks with wings! Whatever next?

GEEKTALKS CONFIRMED SHOCK HORROR

From 8-9pm we have four talks and they'll be kept to a tight time schedule by a bunch of metalheads waiting to come on stage, so we've at last found an appropriate replacement to the timekeeping discipline introduced by Monsignor R. Bumfrey!

The talks are:

8pm Money For Nothing
So you've got nothing but a great idea. How are you going to raise the cash you need to make it work? Not the banks, they're useless. We all know that. From VCs? They'll take all your equity for pennies. What about crowdfunding? Or better, what about crowdfunding backed by equity participation? Eureeca.com is the first equity crowdfunding platform offering a global solution. People give you money, you give them equity. Eureeca's speaker explains how it works - and how it's already worked for young UAE startups who needed cash to make that idea a reality.

8.15pm How Google broke search. And what that means to you.
Getting ranked by search engine Google is about the right keywords and building lots of links, right? Wrong. That used to work, but now it's last year's thing - because Google just broke search - the giant's new hummingbird search algorithm changes the game and means engagement and quality content matter more than links from loads of sites. Lee Mancini is CEO of search consultancy Sekari and he'll be explaining what's going on and how you can fix your broken search results.

8.30pm Social change and sameness
The [sameness] project is a Dubai-based social initiative that facilitates moments of sameness. The "sameness" is in understanding that we are all worth the same amount in our humanity, and the "project" comes through the on-the-ground initiatives like Water for Workers, The Conversation Chair, and We've Got Your Back, that bring the sameness to life. Jonny and Fiona from the sameness project will be explaining what it is, how it works and why diversity backwards is the way forwards.

8.45pm Make money at home doing what you like
It's the perennial promise of freelancing, isn't it? And while there's undoubtedly opportunity and need out there, we've also got unprofessional clients, rip-off merchants and the like. So how can you promote a freelance community of talented people willing to exchange skills with employers who need resources and talent now - and keep that community protected and the wheels of commerce in smooth motion? It's a big ask and Nabbesh CEO LouLou Khazen is doing the asking - backed by winning du's The Entrepreneur and a $100,000 investment round using none other than eureeca.

TECHNOCASES

3D Printers UNLEASHED
The wild men from Jackys will be showing LIVE and IN THE FLESH the sexiest printers since someone said 'Can we print Hovis?' and someone else said, 'Sure'...

Green Gadgets
Heard of The Change Initiative? They're green. They're so green you'd be greenly envious of their greenness if you were a Martian. And they've got gadgets. Oh yeah. Fancy the idea of a recycled cardboard boombox, say? This is something you wouldn't want to miss, then...

Lenovo
Will be showcasing cool mobile stuff, including their buzz-inspiring VibeX mobile handsets and super-lightweight clamshelly things!!!

GAMEFEST MADNESS!

We've got an Oculus Rift and we're gonna use it! This is a hyper-cool virtual reality headset the drooling gamer goons lovely chaps from t-break are bringing to GameFest. It's apparently the latest in puke-inducing immersive gaming gadgets. Apparently there are not only brain-spinning demos to play with but also @MrNexyMedia will be demoing his game in-development, so we're talking cutting edge beta type experience things here!!!

There'll also be a PS3 multiplayer area where people can make complete goons of themselves - always a popular element of GeekFest.

COLLECTING OLD NOTEBOOK PCs

You got an old laptop you don't use any more? Clean it up and bring it along and we'll make sure it gets sent to Sri Lanka where poor young medical students from rural areas simply don't have access to their own machines to use in studying for their exams. I got involved in this after finding out about one such student, then we uncovered another four. Now we have a distribution system set up thanks to a philanthropically minded doctor in Kandy and we can use more machines. So bring that old PC down to GeekFest and we'll make sure it gets a useful - and potentially life-saving - second life. Alternatively, you can always bring those old machines to The Archive and ask for Bethany or Sarah.

FOOD, DRINK, ARRANGEMENTS. STUFF.

There are cafés, there is seating, there is a soundstage (hence Jay and the boys) and stuff aplenty. There is a hospitality area we're not quite sure what to do with yet, but rest assured someone will come up with something.

My books will be on sale there. Clearly.

WEBSITE

Thanks to @AqeelFikree, GeekFest now has a website! Check out GeekFestME.com!

GETTING THERE

Here's the PDF map or you can use Google Maps like so. GeekFest will start, as usual, when you get there (if you come!) but about 7pmish is a guideline if you want to know what time to arrive late after. The talks will start around 8ish.

There's no registration, no age limit, no height restriction or any other form of organisation. If you'd like to come along, you're splendidly welcome. If you'd like to perform a plate spinning act or share your collection of left-handed Manga comics or old Adobe Acrobat SKUs get in touch with @alexandermcnabb or @saadia and we'll give you some space and power or whatever you need.

This may well be fun, people...

GeekFest Dubai Cometh

It's just around the corner! This Thursday, even!

As I have before mentioned, the reins of GeekFest Dubai have been formally handed over (in a properly constituted Rein Handing Ceremony) to the team of fine chaps at online gamer/geek magazine t-break. It is they, not I, wot is now irresponsible for putting together GeekFest Dubai, inasmuch as a GeekFest is put together.

Just in case you haven't encountered a GeekFest before, this is the GeekiFesto, the loosely arranged set of guidelines that defines, as much as anything defines, what a GeekFest is. Most people who have UNorganised a GeekFest have gone on to happily ignore this in part or whole and it has not had the slightest negative impact whatsoever.

This does rather run in line with one's views, expressed yesterday, on conformity!

The t-break chaps have already brought a quantum leap forward in event quality and cohesiveness by putting together a microsite thingy for it. It's linked here for your viewing pleasure. The line-up of talent giving GeekTalks and displaying their digital art looks pretty stupendous - and there are even retro games for old fogeys like me as part of GameFest.

I'm only sad that old pal and co-UNfounder Saadia Zahid can't be there to see our strange and random baby grow up and leave home.

I'll see you there!

No I won't. We're off to the UK early tomorrow and we're in such bad shape I can't even begin to contemplate taking the evening out. With huge regrets, I find I can't actually make it at all and feel terribly guilty, although I'm sure the t-break team will appreciate not having me there going 'Oh no, you don't wanna do it like thaaaat.'

PS - I don't know if you'd noticed, and this is going to be by no means the last time I mention it - you can trust me on that - but there's now a really cool button down below (thanks, Derrick Pereira!) that will allow you to send any post you like from this blog direct to your Kindle or to any Kindle app on other tablets/machines. So you can treasure it, take it to bed and cuddle it and other stuff...

GeekFest Dubai - McNabb Moves On

Back in July 2009, a post appeared on this very blog heralding the first GeekFest Dubai. Well, just GeekFest, actually, because there was never a plan for anything other than, well, one GeekFest event.

My brother in law quickly slapped together a logo for me and on the 29th of that very month, Shelter Curator Saadia Zahid, Simone Sebastian (who had arranged the original coffee meeting between Saadi and I that launched the whole potty scheme) and I sat giggling in The Shelter waiting to see if anyone would turn up and, if they did, whether any of them could actually speak without having to text or Tweet. Over a hundred smart, highly voluble and delighted communicators pitched up and much offline socialising was done by that very online group of people.

It was something of a revelation for us. Dubai didn't have gigs like this - smart people giving free-flowing talks to smart audiences on topics ranging from Mosque 2.0 to the future of newspapers and trekking across Nepal, gamers playing alongside humans and not biting them, digital art displays and workshops. All sorts of things going on! We quickly carved out some guiding principles (Eventually to be enshrined in The GeekiFesto), including the fact the event would be UNorganised - the organising force was not to be a gatekeeper, owner or, indeed, force. GeekFest was to be a cry of yahoooo! from the community that made it happen, nobody was going to tell anybody what to do, where to go, what to say or when to do it.

GeekFest Dubai span off GeekFests in Abu Dhabi, Jeddah, Sharjah, Damascus, Amman, Cairo and Beirut. I have to say, the last GeekFest Beirut featured fashion shows, rock gigs and all sorts and was a total blast!

And of course, GeekFests around the region gained the benefit of Naeema Zarif's stunning visual identities, those juxtaposed compositions that brought such wit and quirkiness to it all...

GeekFest Dubai ran relatively regularly every two months or so until 2012, when it sort of ran out of steam. Saadi had left The Shelter and the Shelter itself turned into New Premises. I had always said when it started to matter, I'd stop doing it and I found myself rather trying too hard to bring the event together. It wasn't about that.

I was tempted to let it die, but something as good and fun as GeekFest just won't expire like old yoghurt. GeekFest Jeddah is still alive and they're talking about GeekFest Cairo now. So perhaps it's time to pass on the baton - in future GeekFest Dubai will be UNorganised by the team at T-Break, the website for gadget lovers, gamers, goons and geeks - together with Leith Matthews, the Man Behind Make.

And so I am delighted to be able to tell you that GeekFest Dubai  - The YouTube Edition - will take place once again at Make Business Hub in the Al Fattan Tower behind JBR on Thursday 28th March from 7pm onwards.

If you want more information, you can hassle @theregos on Twitter or follow @geekfestdubai for updates or look out for news and info at the GeekFest Dubai microsite - http://www.tbreak.com/geekfest which is now live, if not quite populated yet!

This, ladies and gentlemen, should be FUN!!!

Beirut, Beirut and GeekFest Beirut

The Salim Slam tunnel is arguably the most polluted place on earth. Well, apart from the Aral Sea. It's a brilliantly designed long road tunnel that crests a hump and has no ventilation so the concentration of exhaust fumes literally forms into billowing, choking clouds of noxious grey gases. I'm stuck in the back of a hot taxi with cracked leather seats, no AC and the windows open as we hit the traffic jam. As usual, I held my breath as we entered the tunnel, a 47 year-old man playing an eight year old's game of holding my breath until we get to the other side. As we draw to a halt, I realise I'm about to fast track my way to a powerful hit of carboxyhaemoglobin. And I don't care. I'm back in Beirut.

Catching up with friends, wrangling with Virgin (who, like Virgin in Dubai for various reasons of their own devising, won't sell my books) and generally mooching around the city take up my time, but I still have time to finish editing the last few pages of Beirut - An Explosive Thriller and send it off to its editor. I hadn't planned to finish Beirut in Beirut, but it's worked out that way and I am glad. I'd just like to say thanks to the Ministry of ICT for the awful Internet, which went down totally for a day and more. A nation offline, but a man with nothing to distract him from editing!

Sara, Eman and I went for lunch to one of my favourite places, the Cliffhouse restaurant in the tiny village of Shemlan up in the Chouf overlooking Beirut. The traffic in Hamra is broken and we spend an hour in hot, snarling lines of lane-swapping, jostling cars and vans. More mad traffic on the Saida road and then we're free, breaking upwards into the cool, clean mountain air. We're much later than we'd planned, but never mind. A seat by the open window and sunny warmth, beige stone walls and the sound of music, chattering and argileh soothe. A quick toast to absent Michelines and we start to tuck into the plates of food pouring out of the kitchen in a tide of riotous colours, the dark red muhammarah, the creamy houmous piled up around little pieces of grilled lamb, the fattoush. Ah, you know.

Then sitting back with chai nana (and an argileh nana for part time caterpillar Eman) and full stomachs, enjoying the breeze and the sight of Beirut turned golden by the waning afternoon sun. It really doesn't get much better.

GeekFest Beirut in the evening. I love The Angry Monkey, from its daft logo to its wireless internet. The Alleyway is literally that and the peeps at the Online Collaborative have set up a stage there. Something like four hundred people pitch up, a big cheery crowd of lively, chattering geeks spilled out onto the busy thoroughfare of Gemmayzeh, Rue Gouraud. The talks are talked, the fashion show is catwalked - both are enjoyed by the crowd, hands in the air clutching mobiles to snap the occasion. It's all impeccably done, if a tad hot out there. Four hundred beaming geeks is a lovely sight...

I take refuge in the air-conditioned Angry Monkey where later on the bands excel themselves, combining with pints of 961 to induce a warm, happy perma-grin.

GeekFest Beirut 5.0 was the most ambitious, diverse and stunningly put together event that has ever been held under the GeekFest name. Darine, Mohammed and the team produced something wonderful, a community-driven event that was slick, diverse and gloriously exuberant.

And so to home. I do so very much like Beirut...

GeekFest Beirut 5.0

I have a confession to make.

GeekFest Beirut started because I had to find a reason to go to Beirut in order to research Beirut - An Explosive Thriller, my second novel. Although I've been travelling to that most sexy of cities since 1997, I hadn't been back in a few years and needed to get to grips with the city again before filling it with my characters and their antics.

So I called the delightful Alexandra Tohme and said 'GeekFest Beirut - what about it?' - the rest, as they say, is the rest. Since then, Alex, Naeema, Lilliane, George (and the Maniachi) and many, many others have been responsible for putting together GeekFest events that have been arty, gamesy (boozy!) and generally suffused with that Yahooooo! sound that is Beirut having fun.

GeekFest Beirut has never been less than fabulous. And its fifth iteration, UNorganised by The Online Collaborative, looks set to be the most amazing GeekFest of all time. It's all built around the twin themes of Fashion and Music and was the brainchild of Darine Sabbagh and Mohammad Hijazi.

The Online Collaborative is an organisation centred around AUB, containing a number of very lovely folk (including HM Ambassador and my favourite funky lecturer, @LeilaKhauli)  and dedicated to the promotion of digital citizenship. To be fair, they have actually organised GFB5.0 rather than UNorganised it - it's set to be one heck of an event, with music and comedy performances, fashion shows and all sorts of things going on, as well as the traditional talks. It's even got sponsors and logos and things!

Oh, the shock of it!

GEEKTALKS

Maya Metni
Le Geek, C’est Chic! How to dress like a Geek? A practical guide
Maya is a visual communication consultant. She gathers her musings & inspirations in her blog www.mayametni.com  @mayametni

Toni Yammine 
Crowdsourcing Music Videos – Meen the Band
Toni is a Lebanese musician/director. He likes chocolate  and knows how to count very well in both Lebanese and English. He also has an RC plane and tweets on @toniyammine.

Hind Hobeika
Smart/tech clothing and where that’s all heading?
Hind is an engineer, swimmer and a self-tracking geek at its most!

Beshr Kayyali
Making Arabic Indie Music Popular Sawt.com
Beshr is a true Geek through and through. He has worked on many successful web projects for geeks apart from his day job as a developer.

Bassam Jalgha
Live Demo How to Build an Audio Synthesizer in 10 minutes Using Open Source Information
Bassam is a maker by heart. Always high on solder fumes, he works with electronics, build robots. He is into the DIY cult and tries to annoyingly spread it among his entourage. Check him out on www.depotbassam.com.

Elie Habib
Tools that allow developers to build Social features on top of Music
Elie is the co-founder of Anghami.

Loryne Atoui
Fashion for a cause
Loryne is a graphic designer impassioned by a crusade against breast cancer as well as travel and photography.

FASHION SHOW

Using real people and geeks as models!

Fashion for fundraising – Bras for a Cause by One Wig Stand 
Up & Coming Lebanese and Middle Eastern Geeky/Urban fashion Designers staged by Fishy Nation
An Online Collaborative line designed by our own Joseph Maalouf
Geeky Tshirts by Maya Zankoul
Looks from top Lebanese Fashion Bloggers
Geeky Tshirts by NOBRAND
DJing the show is DJ Beats

GIG

Alternative Rock Performance by Near Surface
Special Vocal Performance by Hiba Kadri
Acoustic Cover Performance by John Nurpetlian
A Stand Up Comedy Performance by Malek Teffaha
House Music by DJ G. Real Party Time featuring a DJ set by Underrated
And more...

STUFF

There's an ongoing art show. There are swag bags. There are other things happening. There's a posh dinner menu or a 961-fuelled bar snacks package. There's REGISTRATION!!!

Go here to sign up and reserve a place and a 'formula' at The Angry Monkey or Couqley or just reserve a place at GeekFest. If you've got any questions, hit up @geekfestbeirut or get 'em on Facebook!

I'll see you there!

GeekFest Sharjah 1.0

UPDATE since the original post we've added an origami workshop by JUKI, a Technology Showcase from Nokia, an exhibition of digital photography by Azimuddin Mohammed and the world's first Indian poetry mobile application - these and GameFest details are added in below.

It’s been a slow train coming, but GeekFest is coming to Sharjah! Every GeekFest around the region has had its different ‘feel’, and Sharjah’s no exception. We’ve got art, culture and creativity at the core of the event, which promises to be a very large amount of fun and it's developing daily, too!

So mark your diaries, set your calendars and trip your alarms for 7.30pm on Thursday 22nd March AD!

First a thanks to Mr Rupert Bumfrey, who was instrumental in actually getting the event up and running, as well as doing more organising (this will surprise few who know GeekFest) than I did.

We got talks, we got workshops, GameFest and we got ‘things happening’ and there’ll be updates as we move forward, too, because there's more stuff happening every day.

The really good news is the The Al Qasba Food Festival is happening the same night at Al Qasba and we're looking forward to integrating the two events to Feed The Geeks!!!

GeekFest Sharjah 1.0 is being held at the Al Maraya Art Centre, which is on the first floor of Al Qasba in Sharjah, relatively easy to get to from Dubai even with the Thursday traffic taken into account. There's a map at the bottom of this post.

I can tell you now, GeekFest Sharjah is an Olives Free Zone. No signings, no readings, no talks about books, no books on sale. Nothing with a stone in. And certainly nothing stuffed with pimentoes.

GEEKTALKS

Taking place in Al Maraya's fabby bean-bag cinema, which is similar to the 'old Shelter' cinema space (a tad bigger, if anything), the talks as usual start at 8pm and each lasts 15 minutes sharp!

If Music be the Food of Love, Play on!
Rasha Omer is Marketing and Content Manager at creative community website TripleW, which encourages people to upload their music, photography and film for others to enjoy and sample, with three strands to the site catering to these areas – all titled ‘makshoof’ (in the open). The idea isn’t free content or pirated content – the idea is sharing talent, building reputations and exposing potential. Rasha will be talking about the site, its aims and about the burgeoning creative community TripleW is hosting. There will be music.

Confessions of a Manga Geek
Qais Sedki, married Emirati father of two, willingly gave up a career in information technology in order to pursue a passion to put entertainment to good use.  His vision was to provide original classical Arabic content, professionally produced graphic novels in Japanese manga format in order to instil a love of reading.  He set up Pageflip Publishing, an independent Dubai based publishing house to self publish his debut title, Gold Ring, which won the coveted Sheikh Zayed Book Award For Children's Literature in 2010 making him the first Emirati author to win in any category of the international prize.

Qais will be talking about manga, what defines it, its origins, and will be sharing his experience of trying to make a difference through reading. There will be cartoons.

A new level in art
Responsible for digital strategy at Ogilvy One, Alexandra Tohme is a Geeka with a fascination for community development, collaboration and the power of crowds working together to do better stuff. March is the month of art. Art Dubai, Sikka Art Fair and the statement that Dubai Properties Group has partnered with Dubai Culture to deliver an "Outdoor Art Project" at Business Bay
(see http://www.ameinfo.com/292544.html )

Alex's idea is taking public art to the next level using technology to enhance the experience. In her talk she wants to give her ideas on using augmented reality, gamification and soundscapes to deliver the next generation of art and hopes to inspire the audience to work with her on an ambitious new project. There will be collaboration.

What was Sharjah like in 1937?
One of the most memorable living documents of Sharjah’s pre-oil history is the documentary film Air Outpost, made by London Films for Imperial Airways in 1937 and focusing on the desert airport of Sharjah – complete with ‘fanatical Wahhabi Muslims’. Among many other claims to fame, this important film is the first ‘proper’ documentary as well as laying claim to be the first ever corporate video.  His interest sparked by obtaining an early copy of the film in the 1990s, Alexander McNabb has long studied the Imperial Airways story and will share the incredible tale of the network that linked an Empire. There will be a screening of the film and there will be popcorn.

TECHNOCASES

Old 'friends of GeekFest' Nokia will be on hand to talk about mobiles, maps and all things app-related as they showcase the latest from Planet Nokia and the Nokia team will be around to answer your questions, chat to you about what they're planning and generally join in the fun.

GAMEFEST

Comes to you powered by those nice chaps at tbreak and megamers - we'll once again be hosting some sort of screaming fragathon for the hardcore gaming nuts (bring a laptop) while the chaps have promised to bring some more general public friendly gaming fun of a more Kinect sort of nature. Please, once again, do not feed the gamers. They get a healthy diet and really do have to learn not to bite.

WORKSHOPS AND STUFF

10 Tips for Shooting with Retouching in Mind
Renowned photographer and digital manipulator of things Catalin Marin – as well as the man behind uber-popular photoblog Momentary Awe will be conducting a 45 minute hands-on workshop to look at how you can optimise your digital photography to make the most of the sophisticated retouching tools today’s digital artist has to hand. Places for this workshop are limited, so please do hit Catalin up on Twitter and reserve your seat!

The Great GeekFest Sharjah Origami Workshop
The team from JUKI, the Japan UAE Kizuna Initiative, will be on hand to share their origami skills in a workshop designed to harness your creativity, tantalise your tastebuds and satisfy your senses! Learn about the art of origami and how to make something more interesting than paper planes with your own two hands as well as taking a chance to talk to the JUKI guys about their fund raising for victims of Japan's tsunami and earthquake.

The Book Shelter
Has its home at Al Maraya Centre - so bring your old books to add to the Book Shelter collection and feel free to take a bunch of books away with you! There'll be a reading corner on the night for committed bookworms.

We're just in the middle of confirming more workhops and a number of other things, events and happenings, so watch this space!

Orientalism
In concert with the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, Sharjah Museums is hosting an important exhibition of the works of orientalist Owen Jones, the Victorian architect and designer whose studies of the AlHambra led to the flowering of orientalist art and brought influences and ideas to influence British design throughout the C19th. These ideas percolated throughout the century and can still be seen in the works of later influential Victorian artists such as William Moore and trickling into Art Deco.

Ibrahim El Salahi, the picture maker, was born in 1930 in Omdurman, in the Sudan. He is best known as the pioneer of modern African art, whose seminal work ‘The Inevitable’ has been called ‘Africa’s Guernica’. El-Salahi aimed to blend Arabic, Nubic, Coptic and European elements with one another and was one of the first modern artists to incorporate Arab calligraphy into his works, using it both as a means of communication and as purely aesthetic form.

Fatima Musharbak, Noor Karmustaji and Asma Makram from the Sharjah Museums Department will be on hand along with displays of work from the Owen Jones and Ibrahim El Salahi exhibitions, both of which open next week.

Azimuddin Mohammed
Poet, writer, Freelancer artist/ designer, photographer & creative director – musafirs (Mohammed Azimuddin) will be showing slideshows of his work, a combination of images from and around Sharjah as well as studies from further afield.

Mujeeb Jaihoon
Indian poet Mujeeb Jaihoon will be demonstrating his innovative 'poetry app', iJaihoon at GeekFest - it's available on Apple and Android and is the world's first app for Indian poetry! More here!

The Map Of  The Place Of The GeekFest

View Larger Map

If you need any other information, just shout! Here's the Al Maraya website, too! You can follow @geekfestdubai on Twitter, btw, or find us on Facebook here.

Sugar and Spice

It took four months in the end. We were originally scheduled to hold GeekaFest - One for the Girls in June, but put it back so that construction of the New Shelter could finish. That slipped to late July and it didn't seem worth doing as August and Ramadan coincided.

So last night was something of a memory test - would anyone remember what a GeekFest is? (if anyone has a nice, glib answer to that question, I'd love to know) More to the point, would anyone manage to find the New Shelter? The answers were respectively yes and no.

There was much 'I can't follow the Shelter map' chaos, with successful arrivals talking lost friends in. GeekaTalker and notable Emirati film maker Nayla Al Khaja got awfully lost, sending me a stream of increasingly infuriated Tweets as I was busily selling my old (and unloved - it's the phone I finally flung at the wall when I went Android) Nokia N86 for a princely Dhs450 to the nice chaps from Jacky's.

That was a hoot, I can tell you. The Jacky's guy told me the price and misinterpreted my incredulity. He was still defending the price when I managed to get through and tell him I wasn't complaining, I was truly stunned that the steam-driven anachronism was worth more than a few pennies. By the way, if you missed these guys at GeekaFest and want to get shot of any old laptops, phones, MP3 players or consoles, you can still pop along to Jacky's and Do the Deal.

Locational challenges aside, the New Shelter turned out to be a great venue, although the open nature of the space meant the talks took place in a background of hubbub. The workshops upstairs were packed and seem to have been a stunning success, so we'll be doing that again, won't we?


Blog posts have been posted - Aida's linked here, Divena's linked here and Mohamed's linked here. I'd be interested in any feedback on the evening, particularly ideas for the future.

By the way, the next GeekFest will take place at The Sharjah International Book Fair on the 24th November, so mark your diaries. I think we might just put in a bit of an effort this time around and pull something very different indeed out of that hat.

In the meantime, a huge thanks to everyone who contributed so much to GeekaFest, from our talented iconographic angel Naeema Zarif through the speakers and workshoppers, to Debbie for pulling together the small business showcase (and the businesses that came along and gave us their time) and, of course, everyone at The Shelter, Lochal Archade and TechnoCases PickaPic and Jacky's.

GeekFest TechnoCases

Image via WikipediaSorry about all the GeekFest stuff this week, but it's a really packed event and stuff keeps happening. Normal service will be resumed next week, promise.

We’re joined at GeekFest this week by two TechnoCases, Pickapic and Jacky’s Electronics.

Pickapic is a Dubai-based startup with a smart service that lets you download their software and use it to create an album of your photography and then print it as a one-off, printing press quality, hardback book. You can take a look at their website linked here if you can’t wait for Thursday!

Jacky’s is using the opportunity to introduce people to its EcoExchange initiative. EcoExchange is a program that lets you take your old GeekJunk to Jacky’s, where they’ll offer you a price for it (where it’s worth anything!) and then either sell it on or dispose of it to ISO standards. There’s a good post on the program here on the Jacky’s Electronics blog. So you can bring any of your old gadgets (details of what they'll accept below) along to GeekFest at the New Shelter this Thursday and trade it in for Jacky's vouchers!

I must say, the whole scheme looks excellent and rather piqued my interest, so I thought I’d throw a few questions about EcoExchange at Jacky’s head of retail marketing, Manish Arora.

So will my old phone be worth more with the box, manual, CD and charger?
The products are usually recycled or re-furbished if in a usable condition. the box, manual, CD and charger therefore doesn’t fetch direct value. However, during the evaluation if the Battery, battery back cover and antenna (if applicable) are available then this results in better value

What sort of products can you recycle? Old PCs? Games consoles? Headphones? Printers?
Currently Laptops, tablets, mobiles, cameras, Mp3 players and gaming consoles are accepted for recycling under the program.

What wouldn’t you take to recycle?
TVs, Appliances and accessories.

What sort of price could I get for, say, an old iPhone 3G? Or a Nokia N86 in good nick? 
This would depend on physical evaluation, working condition and age of the product.

Can you recycle stuff like cable? Old PCBs?
Currently we accept only the above stated items.

What price would you give me for a used IBM 3090 600E?*
This would depend on physical evaluation, working condition and age of the product.  

Where do you do your recycling? 
Jacky’s has partnered with Technocare, a company offering RMA programs to end of life product recovery and recycling solutions.  Technocare is an award winning ISO 9000/14000 certified company backed by professionals with more than 15 years industry experience.

Am I right in thinking you’re unique in doing this in the UAE?
We were the first one to start the program, it has been followed by some of the other retailers.

Why did you start this initiative? 
Owing to the responsibility that lies with us as a Retailer, in not only providing best in the class of products and services but also to provide appropriate end of life solutions for the products we sell.


GeekaFest - One for the Girls takes place Thursday, the 22nd September, from around 7.30pm onwards. You can get more information on Facebook (linked here) or Twitter (@GeekFestDubai). There's a Facebook event page, too, linked here.

(* I confess, the IBM 3090 600E question was me being a smartypants meanie - it's a bloody big old mainframe)