REST Fest 2011

We're Live!

Check out our UStream (thanks to @darrel_miller). Thanks to Twilio, we'll also be putting up high quality videos at the end of each day at http://videos.restfest.org/

Welcome

REST Fest is an unconference developed by Mike Amundsen and Benjamin Young. It will be held at the NEXT Center in Greenville, SC on August 18 - 20, 2011.

Our objective is to give people interested in REST and related topics a chance to get together in an informal setting to share ideas, trade stories, and show examples of current work.

It's a Community Event

REST Fest is a community unconference event focused on the REST architectural style and implementations of the RESTful architectural style. Based on the OpenSpaces model, REST Fest puts developers front-and-center with a handful of selected speakers, "open mic" style Lightning Talks where anyone can present about anything, and round-the-clock access to a "Hack Space" where people can get together and work on whatever interestes them.

It's all about Hands-On

REST Fest encourages developers who have direct experience building RESTful applications for the World Wide Web to share their successes and their frustrations in an informal atmosphere. Talks that emphasise practical solutions will be favored over theoretical presentations. Showing your code is encouraged! The event is platform and technology agnostic with a leaning toward Open Source and OSS-friendly environments.

Call for Presenters

Presenters are encouraged to submit a title, short abstract (250 or less) and an indication of the "level" of the talk (beginner, intermediate, advanced). "How To..." talks are encouraged as well as "How Do I?" talks. A small number of talks (about five) will be choosen as a "Selected Talk" with a format of 45 minutes plus questions. All talks are automatically accepted for the "Lightning Talk" section (Five Slides in Five Minutes). If you want your talk to be considered only for one category (Lightning or Selected), indicate that on your proposal.

Hacking Is Encouraged

This year REST Fest will begin with a full, focused Hack Day centering around building and improving REST libraries/clients and servers. We'll also maintain a "Hack Room" where attendees can get together and work on any project they like. The Hack Room will be open throughout the event with power and wireless access provided free of charge. Attendees are also encouraged to propose talks that result in Hack Room participation including frameworks and library authors who are looking for help coding open source libraries.