Opera Software rides at BarCamp Central Asia 2010

Summer is the time for the Barcamps. It is a fact. But in Central Asia, summer as we understand it, comes a little earlier, and this is also a fact. Therefore, it is not surprising that the first sign of the 2010 season was BarCamp Central Asia 2010, which will traditionally be held in the city of Almaty, Kazakhstan, from April 16 to April 18. Also traditionally, the Kazakhstan Institute of Management, Economics and Forecasting (KIMEP) is a very modern educational institution both in terms of external (architectural) and internal (according to the set of faculties) as the venue for this, perhaps the most interesting "IT" event of the Central Asian region and specialties). And even more so, it was no coincidence that Opera Software again took an active part both in the organization and in the program of this unique annual event of its kind.

For those who are not yet in the know (I hope there are not so many of them already), I will briefly explain what BarCamp is and how it differs from any other event related to the sudden appearance of an impressive number of Internet users at a certain time in a certain place. Without going into history, this event can be called one word - non-conference. Unlike boring and pompous traditional “meetings”, everything happens here according to the principle of self-regulation: each participant makes a feasible contribution to the organization and technical equipment, arranges venues for speeches and discussions, and, of course, forms the theme of both individual sections and the entire event generally. Therefore, despite a general understanding of the specifics of the audience and the focus of BarCamp, no one can 100% predict what presentations and discussions will take place over the course of several days of the non-conference. Everything is born right here and right now, in real time, while a person who only came to “listen-see” on the first day of the event can already present the idea of ​​his own startup on the last day, finding both like-minded people and investors.

In general, as you already understood, Opera Software is simply not able to miss such an interesting and useful event - the temptation of lively communication with an audience of web developers and Internet users is too great: this allows you to keep abreast of everything that happens among young and very active Internet users - After all, they will dictate the web fashion in a year or two. In addition, Kazakhstan shows very good results in terms of audience growth for the number of users of Opera browsers, which is also important for us. Here are a few numbers for example.

By the number of users of the desktop version of Opera, Kazakhstan ranks 10th in the world and 4th among the CIS countries, second only to Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, and over the past year the number of users has grown by almost 60% - this is one of the highest rates in the world. According to Opera Mini, the results are even better: with a similar position in the ranking of countries by the number of users, the audience growth was more than 180% per year. It is worth noting that these indicators in Kazakhstan are significantly, many times higher than, for example, in countries such as the USA, Germany or Japan.

This time, Opera Software is not only a member, but also a partner of BarCamp Central Asia, having received the status of "Golden". In addition to traditional presentations telling about new technologies and plans of the company for their implementation, there will be live communication with the participants of the event, for which, in fact, we are going. Already, the number of people wishing to take part in this non-conference exceeded 450, and this is far from the limit - representatives of other countries of the near and far abroad are planning to be at BarCamp. Details can be read here or on the official website of the event .