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What did I learn from Hack Jam Saigon the First?

By Trinh Nguyen October 31, 2013
Last Sunday (31 October 2013), I hosted a Hack Jam, the first Hack Jam in Ho Chi Minh City. It didn't happen as I had planed. But, there were a lot of things I've learned.

We had snacks, we had water...I though we had everything we needed. But "life is not always as you expected". A lot of mistakes, a lot of wrong things. Among all of these "bugs", these are 2 important things that failed the event:

1. The Internet Connection:

The biggest problem was the poor Internet connection. It's just too slow when 10 persons tried to connect to the wi-fi. I intended to introduce some great tools such as:

+ TogetherJS: transform your website into a collaborative environment
+ Thimble: an online HTML editor
+ Popcorn: an online media builder
+ Modpad: a collaborative notes taking tool based on Etherpad

We could only see through some of the tools. And that's all. Hopefully, the hackers were somehow amazed by the usefulness of those applications.

Lession learned: Internet connection is the most important thing. Make sure you can provide everyone in the hacker-space a stable Internet connection.

2. The Venue:

I was trying to keep the number of hackers under 10 to make sure the venue has enough spaces. But, even It happened just like that, the room were a little bit tight. And because of that, we did not feel comfortable to do anything. So, It turned out, we'd just make a small discussion about what we care about technology, what we wanna do in the next event, and whether we love this kind of activity or not.

Lession learned: hacker-space has to have more than enough spaces for a number of hackers. (For example with about 10 persons, it's better to have a room for 20s.)

So, we, the organizer will keep in mind all of the lesson we learned on that day and be ready for the next event.

I hosted all the photos of this Hack Jam in Bitbucket. Check it out (it has music :'D ): http://hackjam.bitbucket.org (Photo by +Nguyen The Anh )

Hack Jam Hacker Meetup Ho Chi Minh City