Up for a bit code-breaking with your code-making?
The 5th annual Over the Air will be held on Friday the 1st of Saturday the 2nd of June at Bletchley Park - for two days up to 600 mobile developers & designers be based at Station X, hacking in the shadows of the WWII Enigma & Lorenz code-breakers, and hanging out at the home of Colossus the world's first programmable computer....we're planning on launching the Alan Turing Centenary Year celebrations in style!
Over the Air is a unique tech-agnostic event for and by the developer community, featuring technical workshops where attendees can roll up their sleeves and tinker with new platforms, operating systems, APIs & SDKs; and tutorial sessions that feature real business cases & new insights. Last year we explored the themes of security and encryption, and this year we'd like to make a strong connection with Alan Turing's legacy.
On Friday evening there will be a series of inspirational Ignite Bletchley Park talks, which we invite the community to make proposals for. Attendees are invited to stay overnight so that they can work on ideas, apps and hacks on the fly – to be entered into the various hack-a-thon competition categories and demo’ed on the second day. It’s a great vibe of bean bags, gadgets, knowledge sharing, hacking & lots of good geekery.
It's free to attend, other than a small £5 donation to charity (yet to be deterimined), and a breeze to reach from London Euston Station. Keep on top of the latest news by subscribing to our RSS feed or following us on Twitter.
Hope to see you there,
Margaret, Matthew & Dan
And that’s a wrap.
It's taken us a couple of days to catch our breath - Over the Air 2011 was a truly amazing gathering of creative and talented developers, informative and passionate speakers, and companies that are wonderfully supportive of the whole community. Not to mention the weather. Wow, the weather! (An October record apparently)
It's exactly this buzzing combination of community & creativity & energy that makes all of the hard work that goes on behind the scenes absolutely worth it. When I see that first stream of attendees arriving at the registration tables, I always think "it's yours now, my part's done".
In fact, we hit a new record ourselves: over 600 people came to the event over the weekend, with nearly 500 with us for lunch on Friday. For any of you that were at the Friday evening Ignite Bletchley Park talks, I think you'll agree that an epic amount of pizza was consumed as well! The head-count in the Mansion at 2:00 am (which doesn't include those in the Marquee or in tents on the lawn) was 120. Amazing.
Although OTA11 was free to attend as always, we did ask attendees this year to make a small donation to the Bletchley Park Trust, and we're thrilled to announce that we managed to raise (at the time of writing this post) £2,293.77 on their behalf. (Please note that the National Museum of Computing is a separate charity, who would very much welcome your support as well.)
We're also chuffed that the BlueVia team chose OTA11 as the time and place to not only debut their new BlueVia t-shirts, but also to launch ConnFu (which is still in closed beta).
There is an Over the Air Group Pool over on Flickr, if you've taken photos, please add them there.
Many of you have taken Instagram shots, like this glorious view of sunrise over the tents on the lawn taken by mdales - we hope you upload those as well.
We've asked all of our speakers to upload their slides to Slideshare and tag them ota11 and overtheair; as well as adding them to Lanyrd.
Feel free to add stuff to our Facebook Page as well.
For those of you who missed it, you may want to check out the Twitter feed to get a feel for the goings-on.
Blogs
Adam Cohen-Rose's Workshop Session Notes at OTA11
Ubelly's Interview with Lyza Danger Gardner
Ubelly's write-up of Day One at Over the Air
Simon Judge on Over the Air and Kirin
Caroline Mockett's blog post about attending OTA11
Stephen Nicholas on his QuickR entry
Giorgio Venturi on Cracking the User Experience at OTA11
Ashley Burton's OTA11 Mobile Web Notes and Wrap-up
Dan Murphy's post on the Pearson Blog
Novoda on their Wearable Build Status Bot
Andrew Savory on Over the Air 2010, 2011
Tom Hume on Andrew Betts' talk about the FT iPad web app
Tom Hume on Open-sourcing Kirin at OTA
Franco Papeschi on One Day at Over the Air
Dale Lane on his competition entries at Over the Air 2011
Dale Lane on using BlueVia APIs
Media
photo by spiritquest on Flickr
Forbes - Bletchley Park Coders take on the Mobile World
BBC Internet Blog - Camping in a Digital Public Space: Over the Air 2011
The Fonecast - I'm no developer, but I still fell in love with Over the Air
Huffington Post - Hackers get Hired at Bletchley Park
TechCrunch - Mobile devs need to get to Over the Air this week
Guardian Apps Blog - London to become mobile centre of the world - for a week
Video
David Vella's "hastily put together video" on Vimeo.
Bill Thompson's Ignite Talk on YouTube
Terence Eden's Ignite Talk on YouTube
Podcasts
Audio report - The Fonecast - Interview with Dr. Sue Black, Daniel Appelquist & Paul Johnston
4 Years of Hacking Competitions
One of the key features of Over the Air is the in-event competition, which gives you a chance to show off the clever and fun ideas you've been coding and hacking away at over the course of the event. We've had some really great entries over the years, and hope to hear plenty of stories of how they were developed further after the event (in which case we'll link to them for you).
There are some basic Terms & Conditions for entering the competition, which you can read here (and which you implicitly agree to when you submit an entry).
We're making some small changes to how the competition works this year, in response to your feedback and our experience over the past years. If you have any suggetions do get in touch! We'll be posting the details over the course of the summer.
Where are they now?
We'd love to feature our past hack-a-thon entries and where those ideas went... if you've got a video or a blog post about what you did, if you've launched the idea you worked on in '09 or '08 - please get in touch! We'd love to brag about you....
Also, if you have an footage of any of the past entries, please help us complete the links list below!
The 2010 Hack-a-thon Competition:
- Best in Show (judges selection) - an iPad from Alcatel-Lucent, and $1,000 worth of services from Mob4Hire -The Ben Collins Appreciation Society for First Gear
- Audience Favourite (audience vote) - $1,000 worth of services from DeviceAnywhere - Light Blue for Lobster
- The Nokia Qt Challenge - a Nokia N8 - GeekYouUp for Hot UK Deals for Maemo
- The UnLtd Better Net Challenge - £2,500 - Intohand for Freecycle Mobile
- The Telefonica #Blue Challenge - a Playstation 3 - Jose Palazon for OTA #Blue Chess
- The PayPal X Challenge - an HTC Android Smartphone - The Bill Collins Appreciation Society for First Gear
- The Ericsson Labs Challenge - a Sony Ericsson Android X10 Mini Pro - Intohand for Freecycle Mobile
- The Orange Mobilise Challenge - an iPhone 4 - Alistair MacDonald for Hole Mapper
- Best User Experience - $500 of In-Network Ad Spend from InMobi - Melinda & Christiano for GeoHunt
- Best use of Open APIs and Open Data - a Motorola DEXT - Dale Lane for UK Traffic
- Best Android App - a Motorola Milestone - Paul Johnston for FindMyMates
- Best use of Mobile Web - a Sony Ericsson Android X10 Mini Pro - Me Myself & I for Light Blue
- Best Game - an Xbox from Microsoft - Feel the FP-ness for Dance Dance Evolution
- Best Use of other features (RFID, Camera Bluetooth, Light Sensors) - Monotype Imaging Poster - Adam Cohen-Rose for The Eyes Have It
- Best iPhone App - Monotype Imaging Poster - >2.5k for Vibe
- Best Visual Design - Monotype Imaging Poster - Feel the FP-ness for Dance Dance Evolution
- Best use of Widgets - Monotype Imaging Poster - Geek You Up for The Cleaner
- Best Hardware Hack- Monotype Imaging Poster - Adam Cohen-Rose for The Eyes Have It
- The Most Fun - Monotype Imaging Poster - Thom FP for Doodle Message
- The Most Useful - Monotype Imaging Poster - Sam Machin for BlueBabelTextFish
- The Most Cheeky - Monotype Imaging Poster - Light Blue for Lobster
The 2009 Hack-a-thon Competition:
- OMTP - Best BONDI Widget = BONDI Password generator by Kai Hendry; Prize = a BONDI surf board
- LiMo Foundation - Best user experience on BONDI widget = 0870 Widget by Simon Maddox; Prize = £100 book voucher
- Lonely Planet – Best Lonely Planet Hack - Your choice from the Lonely Planet Library
- BBC - Best Dr Who Hack = Mind the Dalekby Adam Cohen-Rose; Prize = Dr Who Magazine interview and other Dr Who goodies
- Yahoo – Best use of Yahoo APIs = Something Around You by Alfredo Morresi, Stefano Zingarini, & Robert (Jamie) Munro; Prize = a Nespresso Machine
- Most Fun Entry = Friend Hangman by Makoto Inoue; Prize = iPod Touch donated by Yiibu
- Best User Experience = Bottle rock it by lastminute.com labs: Sam Dean, Russ Anderson, Richard Lewis Jones, & Mathias Dahlstrom; Prize = Nokia Ovi Launchpad Membership
- Service Design = FollowMyContactCard by Owen Griffin; Prize = iPod Touch donated by Yiibu
- Best Visual Design = Drinkr by Anže Cesar & Tomaž Štolfa; Prize = a Netbook donated by Vodafone
- Best Use of WebApp / Widget technology = Widgbay by Andy Vizor; Prize = Nokia Ovi Beta & Support
- Best Android App = Buzzword Bingo by Elliot Long; Prize = an HTC Hero donated by Orange
- Best Location Aware App / Service = BatNav by Saqib Shaikh; Prize = Nokia Bluetooth Headset donated by Nokia
- Best Use of Wireless, Bluetooth, or RFID = RFID Coffee Cup by Sam Machin; Prize = 100 hours of the Perfecto Mobile service
- Best Hardware Hack = Mind the Dalek by Adam Cohen-Rose; Prize = 100 hours of the DeviceAnywhere service
- Best of Show (Selected by the Judges Panel) = Project BlueBell by Future Platforms: James Hugman, Thom Hopper, Tom Hume; Prize = Nokia mobile phone donated by Nokia
- Audience Favorite (Selected by all attendees) = RFID Coffee Cup by Sam Machin; Prize = A SonyEricsson Walkman phone donated by O2 Litmus
The 2008 Hack-a-thon Competition:
- Overall Best Prototype - Mr. Tomm (Future Platforms)
- Best Mobile Widget - Auto Widget Configurator (Owen)
- Best Hardware hack - Phone Fight (lastminute.com labs)
- Best Use of Multimedia - 21st Century Fridge Door (Orange Pirate)
- Best Use of Wireless, Bluetooth or RFID - Bluetooth FOAF (Owend)
- Most elegant solution - Twitter Client for Windows (Dale Lane)
- Most over engineered - Clever Social Tool (Alex squared)
- Most practical / ready for market - SNOB
- Best mobile web application - Browser SyncBest design / user experience prototype - Phone Fight (lastminute.com labs)
- Best Location Aware Award - Capture the Flag (Location based games)
- And the winners in our "unofficial categories" were:
- Fun Award - Phone Fight (lastminute.com labs)
- Most likely the succeed with the CIA - (Social Tracker)
Over the Air 2011 – September 30th & October 1st
The 4th annual Over the Air was held on Friday the 30th of September and Saturday the 1st of October at Bletchley Park - for two days we were be based at Station X, hacking in the shadows of the WWII Enigma & Lorenz code-breakers, and hanging out at the home of Colossus the world's first programmable computer....geek heaven!
Over the Air is a unique tech-agnostic event for and by the developer community, featuring technical workshops where attendees can roll up their sleeves and tinker with new platforms, operating systems, APIs & SDKs; and tutorial sessions that feature real business cases, new insights and a healthy dollop of inspiration. Attendees are invited to stay overnight so that they can work on ideas, apps and hacks on the fly – to be entered into the various hack-athon competition categories and demo’ed on the second day. It’s a great vibe of bean bags, gadgets, knowledge sharing, hacking & lots of good geekery.
Stay on top of the latest plans by following us on Twitter: @overtheair
Friday night Ignite Bletchley Park talks:
In 2011 we introduced an exciting new element to the programme on Friday evening:
Ignite is a global event, organized by volunteers, where participants are given five minutes to speak about their ideas and personal or professional passions, accompanied by 20 slides. Each slide is displayed for 15 seconds, and slides are automatically advanced. The Ignite format is similar to Pecha Kucha, which features 20 slides displayed for 20 seconds each. The presentations are meant to "ignite" the audience on a subject, i.e. to generate awareness and to stimulate thought and action on the subjects- Wikipedia
The event-within-an-event was organised by Ignite Cardiff's very own Claire Scantlebury. The rule is - you can't talk about yourself or your job (so no blatant self-promotion is allowed), but instead something you're passionate about.
Venue - Bletchley Park
The Mansion, Bletchley Park, Milton Keynes, MK3 6EB
The venue at Bletchley Park is a stunning Victorian mansion with modern conferencing facilities. There are 7 main rooms within the mansion, a Marquis tent outside, and other buildings to spill out into if needed.
This year we asked all attendees to donate a small £5 (or more if feeling generous!) towards the ongoing repair & upkeep of Bletchley Park. This historic location has been sadly neglected over the years, and we can make a real difference to the salvage of a Hut or the repair of a roof....
Some stayed in hotels nearby on the Friday night , but many brought their tents to camp right on the grounds, or rolled out their sleeping bags in the Marquee tent.
At first glance, even second glance, Bletchley Park could easily be just another beautiful British building deserving of some loving care and attention. But for many years its walls guarded one of the best kept secrets of the 20th Century. During the Second World War it was the top secret home to the cryptanalysts, mathematicians and military personnel later credited with shortening the war by at least two years and saving millions of lives by breaking the secret ciphers used in Nazi communications. Read more on Gizmag
Check out the video that our very own Matthew Cashmore made in 2010 (when the event was at Imperial College London) explaining what Over the Air is all about:
Who comes to Over the Air?
Curious who comes to Over the Air? Here is a break-down of job titles from 2009 & 2010:
These are the places that people come from
And these are companies that have been represented at Over the Air in the past:
3 Sheep Ltd, 3G Dating Agency, 3G Doctor, 7Digital, 90:10 Group, a r k h, Abou bekr belkaid University, About Time Group, ABRS , ABS, Adledo, AdMob, Admoda Mobile, Advertising, aemcom, Aerial, AgoraWorX, AKQA, Alchemy, All About Symbian, Amoo Venture Capital Advisory, Androidbloke.co.uk, Anej Mehadzic s.p., Animal Systems, Apadmi, Ape TV, Apple, Apps For Good, Appskraft, Appswork, Architap, Art Public, Artlogic Media Ltd., Assanka, Atlassian, Attic Sound&Music, Autoquake, Avar Enterprises Ltd. Awesome International, BBC, BBC Future Media and Technology, BBC Mobile, BBC News, BBC World Service, BBC Worldwide, BCS Lichfield, Bebo.com, Beyond, Big Orange Software, Binary PR Ltd., Bing, Bizkital Design, Black Phoebe Design & Development, BlaseApps, Bloc Media, Blue Latitude, Boss Level Ltd, Bossa Studios, Brand Regard, Break Through I.T. Ltd, Brighton University, British Waterways Board, BSkyB, BURSON MARSTELLER, Bytemobile, C:insights, Candy Pulse, Canvas8, Capital Partners, Captives Global Ltd, Carbon Hero Ltd, CBSO, Cellcrypt, Cesvin, CETIS, CGB Digital, CGIA Limited, Chemistry Group, Chimera Solutions, Chopstix Media Limited, Cimex Media, circle-d, Cisco Systems, City Unviersity London, CLCH, Cleveratom, Closertag, Cloud9 Interactive, CloudMade, CMG Research Ltd, coANDcoUK.com, Codehouse, Cogapp, College Corp, Collinson Group, Composed Communication, Conjure, Convergis Ltd, COOKTAIL, Cortexica Vision Systems, Cronic Ltd., CrumbBucket, Cryptikware Communications Inc., Cthulhu, cxpartners, D2C, Dancing Icon Studios, Danish Broadcast Corporation, dentist, Department of Computing, Imperial College, Designers Collective, Deutsche Telekom, DevelAngel, Device Anywhere, Dharmafly, Dialogic, Diary.com, Digital Jigsaw, digital nerve, digitas, Distilled Ltd, Distinctive Edge, DMD, dotMobi / MoMo London, Dunedin Capital Partners Ltd, E magazine, e-bloc interactive , easeltv, eBay Inc, eCourier.co.uk, Edentity Ltd, Edinburgh University, Elastik Mobile Ltd, Elementi, Emot.io | 'Emotalytics', Endava, Entelliz Limited, Ericsson, Ericsson Research, Ernst and young, Eternal Visionz Ltd, Everything Everywhere, Everything Everywhere / Orange, Evolving Systems,,, Feedzilla, Fifty Sixty Software, FILMOBILE, Firewolf, Fjord, Fleasome Ltd., Flexewebs Ltd., Flirtomatic, FM, FoR, Forum Nokia, Frame of Reference, Frontier Silicon Ltd, FrontlineSMS, Fun Text / Mobispine, Functional Elegance, Futura PR, Slovenia, Future Platforms, Futuresight Mobile, G2way Limited, Garlik Ltd, Geomium, GetItWithMe, gigjunkie.net, GigLocator, gigs4charity, Goldsmiths, Gomogo, Gonzohack Struldbrug, Google, Grapple Mobile, GSM Association, Habanero, Hackney, Hai Media Group, Hedgehog Logic, Help We Need, Herbalife, HG Apps Store, Hickery Associates Ltd., HIIT, Hockeystick, Hodgetastic, Hogarth, Home, Hotwire PR, HSBC, Humanoid Events Ltd, IBM, iBuildStuff, IC, Icicle Lab, IET, IF Communications, igfest / simon games, Ignite London, Imagination Ltd, Imperial College, London, Incisive Media, Independent, Index Ventures, indigo red, Infiniscale, Informa Telecoms & Media, Infosys Consulting, Injoit LTD, InMobi, Insitu, INSITU Mobile Software, Instantview, instinctif, Intel, Intelligent Lime Ltd, Intensify Group, Intercorp Software UK, Into Mobiles, Intohand Ltd, Intomobiles, iosc.NET, iPALS Ltd, IPC Media, iris Digital, Iterex Ltd., ITM, Jack Wills, Jungla, Jungle Candy Software, JUPIX, Kaonashi, Kerb, Kimia, Kiss-Design.biz, Kizoom, KPN Mobile International, lastminute.com labs, latham and watkins, LBHF, LBi, Le Catalyst, Lean Agile Machine, Learning Technology Research Institute, Lee-Cann Creative, Liberte Studio, Limitless Learning Ltd, LiMo Foundation, Limov, Liquidbit Ltd, Little Fluffy Toys Ltd, live nation, ljmu, , Lloyds Banking Group, Loc8 Solutions, LocoMatrix, Logic Colony, London Business School, London Calling, London College of Communication, London Hackspace, London Met Uni, London Metropolitan, Longreach Mobile, LOVEFiLM, LSBF, LShift, LTRI, Luck Laboratories Ltd, ludofy, Luup, Maha Ventures, Makatyjas LLP, Man Woman and Child, Mantic Point Solutions Ltd, Mappibiz.com, Marand / Qootia, Masabi, MasterCard Worldwide, MATERNA Communications, MCQN Ltd, mcr consulting, Media Soft, Mediagility Ltd, MEF, Mendeley, Metaswitch Networks, Metomo.com, MetricoWireless, Microsoft, middlemachine, Middlesex university, MillionBrains Milo creative, Mind Unit, Mingels design, MinuteBox, Mippin, Miss Geeky, mjelly.com, mmh, mo-tiv, Mob4Hire Inc, Mobile Acuity Ltd., Mobile Entertainment / Music Ally, Mobile Market Development Ltd., Mobile Marketing magazine, Mobile Minded, Mobile Monday London, Mobile Productivity, MobileMonday London/Chelsea Apps Factory, Mobilize, Mobilize Systems, Mobilizy, Mobilizy GmbH, Mobispine, Mobstar Media, Mogotion, Momentum, Momu, Monmouth Coffee co., Monotype Imaging, Morganic, MORGANIC, Moshing, motirot, Motorola MOTODEV, Mozilla, Mpelembe Network, MRMedia Group, Multilab Consulting, musicDNA Ltd, Mute Publishing, MWink Software, My Agency, mycitymate GmbH, Myers Design, Myitstudio, Namics, National Policing Improvement Agency, natts.com, NEC, Neil Dodson, NEMIS, nerdvana.gr, net mobile (UK)Ltd, Netbisucits, netinfluence, NetTek Ltd, New Bamboo, Nexmo, Next Generation - Squared, NHS, NHS Choices / Department of Health, Nitro Digital, NMA, NOKIA, Nokia Siemens Networks, Nonyelu, NovaRising, Novoda, NSN, Nuance and MoMoLondon, Nudge Social Media, O2, O2 Litmus, Ogilvy, OLPC Australia, OMTP, One Laptop Per Child Australia, OneChocolate, OpenMundi, openWAiR, Oppian Systems, OptiRisk Systems, Orange. Orange - France Telecom Group, Orange Labs UK, Orange R&D Labs UK, Overlay Media, Ovum, Oxfam, Oxidant
Padajo
Pancentric Digital
PavingWays Ltd
PayPal
Pearson
Pentura
Perfecto Mobile
Pfizer Ltd
PhoneThing Ltd
picklive
PlayNice.ly
Playphone EMEA
POD1
Pragmaticomm Limited
Product Doctor
Propel London
ProtonMuffin
Proxama Ltd
Psonar
Public Creative Ltd
Pyramid Research
Pyxis Ventures Ltd
quest IT
Quirk
Radical Robot Ltd
RDF Group
re-creative
Realmac Software
Red Lorry Yellow Lorry
Red Sky Vision
redbend
RedCat Solutions
Redkey
Redwire Design
Research In Motion
Rho Consult Ltd
Ribot
RIM
Riskcare
Rmit university Melbourne
Rock Chicks in Mobile
RUBICS Business Solutions
Ruder Finn
rui barroca designer
Rummble Ltd
Russell Studio
SAID Business School 2011
Sainya
ScotchMist Design
Screenreach
Seedcamp
Sensible Duck Ltd
Seren Partners
SEVEN PRINCIPLES
Shapeshiftmedia
ShoutEm
Siruna
SIX Creative
Six to STart
SKARP
Skype
Skyron
Small Science
Snaptu
Social Computing Group
Social Media Strategist Ltd
SocialOptic
Somo
Soniqegg
Sound London Primary School
South East Essex College
Sphere Systems Ltd
Spotlight Kid
Spy
Staircase3
Steel Media Ltd
Stem73/Orange
Story worldwide
Subsify
Sun Microsystems Startup Essentials
Sybase Inc
Symbian Foundation
Symsource
Syzygy UK Ltd
T MOBILE/DEUTSCHE TELEKOM
T-Mobile International
Tactotum Ltd
Targetbase
TBFL Ltd
TBWA Media Arts Lab
TechCrunch Europe
TechHub
Telecom Markets Erjo
Telefonica
Tertius Advisory Services
Tesco
Tesco.com
The Cloud
The Mews Post production
The Open University
The Rich Media Company
The Startup Digest
The Times
The Two Percent Ltd
TheCustomer
thefonecast.com
Third Eye
TigerSpike
Tilkie studio
tinkerlondon / rix centre
tinyHippos Inc.
TM Forum
tommorris.org
Tonic Limited
Total Hotspots Ltd
Total Media
TouchTech Consulting Limited
TouchType Ltd
Toumetis
Toumetis
Travel Daily Media
TravelBloggers ltd
TravelBloggers.Tv
travellerwithatale.com
Tribal
tuenti
Tui interactive media
Tumika
Turned On Ventures
tweetalondoncab.com
Tweetflex
TweetMeme
U-Dox
uanl
UCL
Unboxed Consulting
Universal Music Group
Universit of Wales
University College London
University of Bolton
University of Brighton
University of Cambridge
University of Leeds
University of Murcia
University of Oxford
University of Wolverhampton
Universityof Leeds
Unspecified
uPBeat Product Development
ustwo™
UVd
uxebu Consulting Ltd. & Co. KG
Venture Lectures
Venture Lectures / W3V
Vision Mobile
VITU
Vodafone
Vodafone / Betavine
Vodafone Group
Vodafone R&D
Volume
VP
VTB Capital
W+K
W3C
WAC
Warp Networks
We Are Social
Weaver Digital
Webcredible
WebMobility Ventures
White Bear Yard
White Fuse Media
whymandesign
Wieden & Kennedy
wildkey
WildKnowledge
WIP
Wireless Expertise Ltd
Wireless Industry Partnership (WIP)
Wolfstar
World Archipelago
woZZon.com
www.goldengekko.com
www.letthegeekdoit.com
X-Arcis
XIAProjects
Yahoo Inc.
Yamaha R&D
YASSSU GmbH - Media For You
Yell Labs
Yiibu
You're So Limited
Your Productions
yourdirtydog
Yousability
YumYum Labs
Zebra People
Zeta
Zing Media
zolmo
Zonerider Networks
Zoonou Limited
Over the Air: The Rules of Engagement
Our own Matthew Cashmore explains what Over the Air is all about:
How to get involved
Attend:
Contribute:
Our session suggestion form is now live. If you'd like to lead a session at Over the Air 2010. If you want to run a session covering any aspect of mobile technology, development, design / art or user experience, please visit the form and let us know by answering a few simple questions.
Sponsor:
The generous financial support of our sponsors is the key to keeping this great event free to attend, and there are levels for everybody - from Premium Sponsorship all the way to competition prizes. Drop us a note if you'd like to help us make it all happen!
4 years of Over the Air
2011 - September 30th & October 1st - Bletchley Park
For the fourth year in a row, Over the Air is going to make the impossible possible: a free developer event (well almost - there"s a small donation to Bletchley Park this year) and hack-a-thon that is non-aligned (not pushing a particular technology or approach) but instead seeks to inform, energise and empower mobile "builders" to work with each other to create great stuff.
Over the Air is a place where developers, designers, enthusiasts, entrepreneurs and academics can come together to celebrate, discuss, learn, chill and geek out for 36 hours of intense fun. We promise the following: if you attend, you will learn about stuff you didn't know about before. You will have the opportunity to meet and collaborate with people you haven't met before. You may be inspired surprised at what you find. By the end of the day Saturday, you will definitely be exhausted. We're not saying it will change your life, but we're not saying it won't either.
2010 - September 11th & 12th - Imperial College London
Over the Air 2010 was hosted at Imperial College London on the 10th and 11th of September. Approximately 400 people attended two days of Keynotes, Workshops, a Hack-a-thon and lots of general fun.
Some of the highlights included a Keynote from Sir Tim Berners-Lee, some inspirational design thinking from Aral Balkan, the Nokia digital grafitti screen + t-shirt printing, iPhone controlled AR Drones & a fantastic Hack-a-thon.
The range and quality of the Workshops was excellent this year, thanks to the involvement of so many clever and interesting members of the OTA community. We will keep all of the session descriptions for posterity, and will be adding slides to them as they become available. Slides can also be found on SlideShare tagged #ota10.
Photos of the event can be found in the Over the Air Flickr Pool.
Coverage of Over the Air 2010
The Fonecast - One man's summary for the wider mobile industry
The Fonecast - Podcast on the 10th
Kirstie Haxby - Over the Air 2010
Geek.com - Lobster, a ‘free bus travel’ app is audience favorite at Over The Air hackathon
Geek.com - Over The Air mobile developer event: afternoon roundup
Geek.com - Aral Balkan at Over The Air: “The age of features is dead”
The Digital Youth Project - Advice for Developers – Product Doctor Diagnoses (OTA 2010)
The Register - Over The Air: Losing drones and forging bus tickets
Telefonica Developer Communities - Over The Moon About Over The Air
Android Operating System - Over the Air 2010
License to Roam - Impressions from Over the Air
MobBlog - Mob4Hire Awards $1000 to Winner of Over-The-Air Hackathon in London ... Good job everyone!
Robin Berjon - Introducing DAP
Dale Lane - Making National Traffic Control data more useful
Tom Hume - Over the Air 2010
PR Week - Over the Air report and mobile goings on
Answer My Query - Iphone controlled flying drone with Video
2009 - September 25th & 26th - Imperial College London
The second annual Over the Air was brought to you by Betavine, Lonely Planet and OMTP : Over the Air: 24 Hours of Mobile Development, hosted at Imperial College London. More details to be posted soon.The second Over the Air, was on September 25th and 26th, brought to you by Betavine, Lonely Planet and OMTP : Over the Air: 24 Hours of Mobile Development, hosted at Imperial College London. Check out Ewan Spence's BBC article on how to 'Hack a handset'!
The recipe is simple.
Take as many mobile phone developers, hackers and builders as you can find; put them in The Great Hall at Imperial College; add a liberal helping of heavyweight companies talking about new tools, developer aids and techniques to program mobile phones during the day; then challenge them to come up with "something new".
Leave this to simmer as hackers work through the night and have everyone present their new programs to the rest of the conference the next day.
That sums up the Over the Air hackathon. Now in its second year of bringing together the UK's mobile developer community, it continues to have a huge impact on those who get involved with the overnight competition.
Other great Blog coverage from
- Tristan Roddis on Cogapp
2008 - April 4th & 5th - Imperial College London
The inaugural Over the Air event ran on the 4th and 5th of April, 2008, at Imperial College London. Mobile developers from all stripes descended on the campus for 2 days of fun, learning, hacking, and socializing.The coverage of Over the Air was great, with online stories from The Guardian, The Register and many bloggers. Some of the best coverage however came from Mark Kramer with his videos on the popular video site Qik. There were also plenty of photos on flickr.There has been a range of comments and blog posts about Over the Air including,
Then there was the hacking in the evening. I wasn’t as hardcore as some, and did have a nap for an hour or two at about 5am before finishing my stuff off after breakfast. Most of what I wrote was in C++ but I also got to hack together a little Javascript - not a language I often use.
What did I learn there and was it relevant for my project? Well, first, it was an opportunity for me to get a brief overview of current developing technology for the mobile platform.There are many and a lot of different technology to learn which I am not familiar with. Of particular interest was a presentation by Brian Fling from flingmedia.com on developing web apps and native apps for the iPhone and mobile applications.
- Alex Craxton of Mobile Monday London
We went to the excellent overtheair event over the weekend, with an amazing concentration of mobile developers (and gadgets). Our entry to the 24-hour hack development contest was a bit of fun dreamt up by Richard Jones and Russ Anderson. Disappointed that someone had beaten them to it by working out how to connect a Wiimote to a phone handset via bluetooth, they decided to go one better and do away with the need for the Wiimote at all.
Kudos to the whole team who made this happen, this was more than just a developers’ conference, more than just a workshop or a barcamp… It was a 48 hours of mobile and wireless development experiment bringing together some +400 developers and mobile industry experts with great sessions on various industry related topics… Lots of great people and ideas gathered during these 2 days
- Rudy De Waele at m-trends.org
Thanks to all who spoke, presented, attended, developed, organized, ushered, registered, hauled, evacuated, waited, partied, slept and generally made this such a fantastic event. Watch back here for updates on what happened and and after the event, presentations from speakers, related news and announcements about the next Over the Air!
Impromptu Sessions – the ‘unconference’ part
The wider mobile community always come together to contribute to a fantastic schedule, in the lovely grass-roots fashion that is at the heart of Over the Air.
What you may not realise, is that we also have a room set aside as a 'Camp Room' throughout the entire programme, where the attendees of Over the Air can spontaneously create and host any session, workshop, round-table discussion that they please!
We'll have a wall schedule posted where you can scribble in your Camp Room bookings with a title for the session. Please use the #ota11 hashtag on Twitter to propose ideas and to post descriptions of the sessions you've pulled together.
What’s Over the Air?
Over the Air is an event that defies easy description. It's a celebration of creativity. It's a festival of all things mobile. It's a place where attendees can learn about technologies, trends and techniques. It's a sleep-over. It's a two day party. It's an event where practitioners of creative and technical disciplines can come together to learn from each other. It's about recognizing software development as a creative discipline. It's an opportunity to build new relationships. It's a space where you can build cool stuff and show it off to an appreciative crowd. It's all these things. And by the way, it's free. If any of this appeals to you, we hope you register and come along to Over the Air!
Spread the word!
Next Event: June 1st & 2nd, 2012
Gold Sponsor
Sponsor
Organisers
Recent Posts
- Request For Proposals – Over the Air website update
- WhyMCA hackday in Bologna – Feb 4th
- Up for a bit code-breaking with your code-making?
- Mark the Date – June 1st & 2nd, 2012
- Mozilla Festival discount for OTA Attendees
- Power of One discount for OTA Attendees
- Audience Vote – The results are in!
- And that’s a wrap.
- Thank-you to our amazing Sponsors
- OTA11 Hackday – Audience vote
@overtheair
Blogroll
- Android Developers
- Apple iphone developers
- BlueVia Blog
- FierceDeveloper News
- IGDA Mobile Game Development
- Internet Centre Imperial
- J2ME developers
- J2ME Forums
- J2me Guru
- Mobile game developer
- Mobile game developer magazine
- Mobile Monday London
- modaco .net developers
- Moonlight project
- My Symbian forum
- Nokia Forum
- Open Moko developers
- OpenGardens
- Pocket PC Developer Network
- Xbox Media Centre
- XDA developers
Our mobile site
This is a 2D-barcode containing the address of our mobile site.If your mobile has a barcode reader, simply snap this bar code with the camera and launch the site.