I took a 12 hour train from Kuala Lumpur to Singapore. I was really excited coming for DevFest.
Arrived in Tanjong Pagar train station at about 8 in the morning. Groggy, sleepy & I smell like the train.
Decided to get a room in Little India. Went to the same backpackers hotel I stayed with One Buck Short for a show in Singapore. It’s called Nava’s Place, and Uncle Nava is a really cool guy. I took a picture with him but it didn’t turn out.
According to Uncle Nava, they closed the whole stretch in Little India for Deepavali celebration. I was 1 day too late.
Got myself to Singapore Management University which was only 10 minutes walk from Little India. Met Jason Costa from Google. Fadhil of JomCode is trying his best to persuade Jason to give him the shirt Jason was wearing. Can fit ah?
Cam-whoring with Arzumy of JomCode.
The registration line for the event. They used a Google Spreadsheet form for registration. Pretty neat, I must say. They could have used the manual “tick-my-name” way to speed things up.
The crowd in the conference hall.
Pamela Fox from Google Maps API. She’ll be coming to Kuala Lumpur for FOSS.my 2008 to present this weekend.
Arzumy & Malaysia’s first line of defense. I must say, Arzumy is a cam-whore, instantly setting a pose whenever the camera is pointed at him. Hahaha…
Patrick from the OpenSocial team. His daughter made the best explanation of what “social” really means. Pure innocent.
On the left side of Malaysia’s first line of defense. Okay, we just sat in the front row seats.
Man, I forgot his name. But he’s one the guys behind the Shindig project. No Perl version yet. Hmmm…
Update: His name is Bruno :) Thanks Pamela.
Break time. Food, munchies, drinks!
Jeff from Friendster.
The presenters & Googlers.
e27 dudes. They sure know how to hold an event. Thank you guys!
The only swag I got from the event. Sorry, no stickers guys. Do you notice something odd about this t-shirt?
Group photo! The Malaysian contigent.
My participation certificate now hangs on my wall of short-lived-fame. I need to get a new frame.
Overall, it was hell of an experience attending DevFest. 12-hour train, running around Changi airport like a dufuss, but DevFest made it all worthwhile. Although the hackathon never really did happen, but the talks & being able to converse directly with the people that created and pushed these technology really made me want to contribute more. You can checkout their APAC Developer blog for updates.
And one piece of advice, 30 minutes before your flight departure with AirAsia is considered late & the gates will close & they will sell your seat. So, come super early. Like 1 hour. Or more. And I was only 30 minutes “late”. Ungh.