Next month marks the first ever WhereCamp Tampa Bay, the Bay Area’s first WhereCamp event for our geospatial community. This two day event isn’t your standard conference or seminar, no boring preset schedule of presentations and PowerPoint slides – it’s a volunteer-based event for hackers, geographers, geonerds, geeks, developers, mappers, open source enthusiasts, and anyone interested in discussing the ins and outs of the mapping industry.

The first evening there will be an Ignite talk series, Ignite Spatial, on February 10th at 6pm at the Fish & Wildlife Research Institute in St. Petersburg, FL. Ignite Spatial is a series of fast-paced 5 minute talks, with a specific focus on geospatial and mapping ideas and opinions. Remember, location can be applied to everything, so bring your own crazy ideas or projects to show to your geonerd peers! Check out the talks submitted so far to see the variety of creative ideas being brought to the show.

Day two will be the main event unconference at the Saint Petersburg College EpiCenter. This is 100% participatory driven content – there’s no schedule or list of topics planned out until attendees provide content the day of. It’s an opportunity to have in-depth extended discussions about whatever topics interest you, just show up with an idea and propose it to the crowd. Topics could be anything like the use of augmented reality, art, social cartography, politics, funding, past present and future projects… or anything else connected with maps, data, or location. This provides a fantastic social networking opportunity to interact amongst fellow geonerds and collaborate ideas.

It is not too late to submit your Ignite Spatial topic and sign up for the Unconference. Check out the website for more info.

Tickets are free, so get yours now! Hope to see you there!

• Ignite Spatial tickets
• Unconference tickets