JSCamp Asia
Last week I was in Singapore, to attend JSCamp.asia. It was the first full-scale JavaScript conference to be staged in this region and was nothing less of the vibrant, insane spirit you expect from a JavaScript conference.
JSCamp happened to be the first international conference I was selected to give a talk. My talk was titled "Embracing the Static Web". It touched on the challenges we face as web developers in this region and the need of creating tools to overcome these challenges, while creating modern web experiences. In the latter part of the talk, I explained how these needs motivated me to create Punch and shared how it fits the bill as a modern web framework. I received lot of encouraging feedback and remarks after the talk. But I believe I could have done it better and this experience will immensely help when I prepare for future talks.
Here's the slide deck for the talk.
Update: Video of the talk is now online.
JSCamp gave me the opportunity to meet and hangout with many interesting and respected personalities in the JS (and web tech) community. Seriously, they are so smart and passionate in their game. Also, I couldn't ignore the fact how genuine and honest they were, when it comes to sharing their knowledge and experiences. Jed, Divya, Angus, Jan, Michal, Tim, Alex, Tomasz, Eric and John/Zackery of GitHub, you guys are awesome!
Also, I got to meet lot of developers based in Singapore and others who came specifically for JSCamp from countries like Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, South Korea and Philippines. They seems do lot of interesting stuff and I gathered lot of insights by talking to them. Most of them have followed traditional educational paths (which is common in Asia) and now eagerly switching their gears to expand their knowledge into web technologies.
Overall, I feel there would be a huge bloom in the web tech industry and related startups in this region in the coming years. Especially, Singapore seems to got the right kind of essence to ignite such a trend. However, it's still an infant when compared to eco-system in Silicon Valley. But with more experiences and inspiration, I'm sure things will start to change rapidly.
That's why we need more events like JSCamp in this region. I expect to see others also taking this challenge as Thomas and Sayanee did. Great job guys!