College of Business Administration Quarterly Newsletter
                                                                                                            October 2006 - Volume 8.1

COBA Homepage :: The Executive ::  Technology Brings Together Campus and Community at Tampa Bay Code Camp

  

 

Technology Brings Together Campus and Community at Tampa Bay Code Camp
The University of South Florida College of Business Administration brought the cyber community together when the Management Information Systems (MIS) Society and the Information Systems/Decision Sciences (IS/DS) department hosted Tampa Bay Code Camp for the second year in a row.  Described as an “all-day developer geek-fest,” Code Camp takes place in various cities throughout the country and is designed to be a place for developers to come and learn from their peers within the community. “The idea is to take a bunch of local people and hold a one-day session on Microsoft technologies with several tracks,” said Sandy Khaund, Director of the Microsoft.com Community Technologies Team. “It’s not trying to be Tech-Ed.  In fact, Microsoft speakers and professional speakers are practically discouraged. It’s just a group of people from the community who are willing to share their expertise.”
 
According to USF Microsoft Student Ambassador Nikita Polyakov, many of the Microsoft employees, such as Developer Evangelist Joe Healy, were integral to the success of Code Camp, but made sure to keep it a community-led event. “Joe Healy helped us along the way at every step, but let us run the camp and make the decisions,” said Polyakov. “His invaluable insight allowed us to have such a smooth event.”
 

This year’s Code Camp was advertised to major universities across Florida and made a flagship of all Code Camps by holding a full-day student track. Tampa’s Code Camp is held on the USF campus, the biggest facility of all the Florida camps, and rivals other Southeast Code Camps, according to Polyakov.  “This year's camp had more people, more speakers and more buzz than many others in Florida,” said Polyakov.
 

Some of this year's 30 speakers included Jim Zimmerman, Senior Software Architect of CarCentral.com and Bayer White, Vice President of Information Technology at Baywood Technologies.  Wes Dumey, a graduate student in the College and software engineer for the Home Shopping Network, hosted the session “Data for Dummies.”  Dumey is no stranger to Code Camp.  He has attended and presented at others including Tallahassee Code Camp.  “I very much appreciated all the constructive comments and feedback from the Tampa Code Camp,” said Dumey.  Other session topics included “The ABC’s of ADO.net,” “Is the Information Super Highway a Multi-car Pile-up?” and “Building a .Net Robot.”


Community participants sign in
Topics are always based on community interest and never determined by anyone other than the community.  “Speakers are not compensated, and attendees are not charged. Sponsors are kind enough to provide funds for speaker and staff T-Shirts, coffee, lunch and some appetizers for the after-event networking at a local restaurant.”
 


Community members (370 in number) attending Code Camp
 

 Even when the food ran out during lunch, community sponsor VisualGov quickly had pizzas delivered to help feed the 370 attendees.  “The passion of the community members that did most of the work was a joy to watch,” said Khaund.  “They arranged for the food, set up the schedules, built up a very cool event Web site, and prepped the venue.  The preparation was impressive, particularly given the voluntary nature.”
 
The after-event networking was held at Bennigan’s and had over 75 in attendance.  Networking within the community is very vital to developers, as it often serves as their most lucrative source of business.
 “It [community involvement] establishes credibility with employers as you have an open forum to showcase your knowledge” said Khaund.  “One member of the community mentioned to me that he doubled his pay since he joined the local .NET Community and he owed it all to the community activity.”
 

Code Camp is scheduled to be held again next year on Saturday, July 14, 2007.  The MIS Society’s goal is to eventually hold two camps a year, making Tampa the first to do so.  “Florida is a leader in Microsoft .NET events in the Southeast,” said Polyakov.  ”We want Tampa to be one of the premier spots.”