Wikamania 2008: some notes

1- more then 60% of the audience carry their laptop all arround all day
2- Egyptians use HP while foreigners use Apple (smart)
3- some foreigners had this tiny laptop in a size of a makeup box
i guess they used it in the out and then later they synchronize with a bigger devices
i can't believe someone will use 8 inch screen all his life
4- the bandwidth in the BA network is 11MB (i remember mic once said something similar to me and i thought he was jocking, 11mb!! there are no standard bandwidth over 2, you must saw a wrong number, but i was wrong)
5- the egyptians (sharafona) and mobiles !!! they let the mobiles open during the session which make it very annoying, guests were going to kill the traitor if they could know him
6- as Egyptian standard behavior, we take picture with celebrity, the legendery Jimmy wales and any member of the board when asked to take picture with, they were like (me!!, why!! i'm no one, I'm just a volunteer)
7- in a break i asked Michael Snow in the lobby (sorry sir if my question looks foolish, but i see that the foundation rely totally on the community - donating, contributing - what if the community stopped doing this for whatever reason, what is going to happen to the foundation? and more important to the idea of free knowledge?)
and his answer was (that's why we make this event to know what the communicate want, and for the financial stuff, we are trying to get another support from outside the community)
8- the previous wikimania were less vital and less numbered, i guess the BA support put the wikimania event in a higher standard
9- no Egyptian news paper was interested in the whole event, in the first day a tv channel came for 5 minutes in the opening ceremony, but in the whole 3 days there was a non Egyptian tv channels interviewing the guests, in Sunday Almasry Alyoum published a silly article about jimmy wales telling it happened Saturday where his lecture was on Thursday
10- Egyptian youth were very active in the discussions
11- lot of employees attend the conference because it's a job duty (governmental IT centers, ministries representative, ...)
12- there were 2 Egyptians people which i think they were Manal & Alaa the famous MANALAA bloggers
hope similar events happen again in Alex