Ignite Orlando 2009

Ignite Orlando took place on March 4th at Slingapours in Downtown Orlando.

For those unfamiliar with the Ignite, it's a fast-paced educational and networking event for geeks. Basically speakers get up on stage and have five minutes to talk about their topic. The interesting part is that they have to present using no more than 20 slides that rotate automatically after 15 seconds. It makes it very entertaining to watch.

Some of the topics that were covered were Obama's Stimulus in Orlando, An Intro to OAuth, Freelancing in the New Economy, OpenID vs. Facebook Connect vs. Google Friend Connect, NerdaPalooza Event, Using Newl Media Tools to Make Your Community a Cooler Place to Live, Programming in Not Pretty, CoWorking in Orlando, Building Referrals from Your Existing and Previous Clients and more.

I really dig the 5-minute format because I can get the nuts and bolts of a topic and it fits nicely with my attention span 😉

Half-way through the sessions, there was a contest where attendees were grouped together to make a bridge out of drinking straws. Teams competed against each other and the strength of the bridge was measured by the number of rolls of pennies that could be placed on it, before it collapsed.

Ignite was started in Seattle back in 2006, by Brady Forrest and Bre Pettis and has since spread across the world. If you have the opportunity to attend one in your area, it will definitely be worth your while.

Here are some pictures of the event…