Open Tech 2005

Organised by NTK – the same people who perpetrated last year’s fabulous NotConOpen Tech 2005 promises to be another eye-opener for me.

Open Tech 2005 is an informal, low cost, one-day conference about technologies that anyone can have a go at, from “Open Source”-style ways of working to repurposing everyday electronics hardware.

I like to think of myself as slightly geeky, or possibly a nascent geek, but some of the stuff that the real geeks are doing makes me so excited I just want to leave off the blogging and the writing and start trying to wire up prawn sandwiches to old BBC Micros. Undoubtedly this would result in nothing more than food poisoning and a no longer functional BBC Micro, but it’s the thought that counts.

The event is sponsored by backstage.bbc.co.uk, a developer network from the BBC which allows people to repurpose the Beeb’s content. As Ben Hammersley says:

The implications of this next sentence are, if taken with enough of a forward gaze, enough to make you shit. “Use our stuff to build your stuff.”

Quite.

If you’re in London on 23 July 05, do make a point of coming to Open Tech 2005. I promise it will be worth it.