Thursday, April 19, 2007

South Africa Programmers Cafe

We are currently running the South Africa Programmers Cafe Bootcamp in Potchefstroom, South Africa. The cafe is running from April 16th - April 20th, 2007. There are about 22 people from various South African institutions in attendance. Aaron Zeckoski (me), Antranig Basman, and Tony Atkins are presenting on various topics ranging from Sakai development and RSF to Server configuration and deployment. We have pictures from the cafe available in Flickr if anyone wants to take a look.
The weather has been fairly nice the whole time we have been here. Our hosts from NWU have taken excellent care of everyone and arrangements have been fantastic. Many thanks go to Boeta and Adell at NWU in Potchefstroom for all their hard work in getting things running smoothly and taking care of the roudy and jetlagged presenters. A special thanks and mention here goes to David Horwitz for helping get the funds and generating interest so we could have this event.
Being here in South Africa has been a great experience for me so far and I feel like I have learned a lot about this country in tha past few days here. They have limited internet options available and we currently have to pay for all the data going in and out. The exchange rate has been a nice plus since we get 14 Rand for 1 British Pound (things are quite affordable). I love the South African accent and don't understand a single word of Afrikans but I am having a great time talking to the bootcamp participants and seeing the local area. We will have a chance to see the local area a bit after the cafe ends on friday and I am looking forward to it.