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.

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.