Back in October, some folks got together in Phnom Penh for the city’s second ever Barcamp. We went along and shot some footage of the event which our good friend Martin Potter over at SCY kindly put together in the form of a rocking little clip of our experiences there:

The event attracted about 850 participants in the end, from over 12 countries and really showcased the region’s vibrant web and open culture community. While the event’s central focus is emerging tech and skill sharing, the sessions covered a massive range of topics from online journalism to lucid dreaming. SE Asian bloggers such as KK, 31o5 and Viirak were out in full force along with CNNGo’s Preetam Rai.

Kinyei put together a presentation on ad hoc volunteering and discovered in the process a really cool local initiative called ShareVision. Entirely volunteer based, the Share Vision team run seminars to share real world skills and expertise that students don’t get within the scope of their formal education.

Other projects up our alley included InSTEDD’s GeoChat and Mesh4x – open-source projects which enable dispersed teams to communicate with each other (a critical need for NGOs working with Cambodia’s primarily rural population) – and the Meking ICT 4 Development camp which tries to bring NGOs together to generate innovative solutions to problems using ICT.

The weekend was a huge success (here are some photos) so hats off to the organizers and their team of volunteers, and a big shout out to the generation of open collaborators, journalists, bloggers and developers in and around Cambodia who look poised to shape the future of the region.