I am running the SF preDevCamp and I am stoked about all who we have coming out to our event. I have confirmation from people at Pivotal Labs, the makers of Tweed, LikeMe, AP and City Search for webOS, people from ue architects who designed the interface for LikeMe with Adobe Fireworks, and last but not least several engineers including the team lead from Palm on the webOS Team!

Also there are many many ways for you to win a pre at our camp, be one of the first 2 groups to develop an application that uses zanox web services, develop a category winning app for the preCentral Dev Challenge or win the user vote app event for the preCentral Dev Challenge!

We will also have a ton of other prizes from many other companies at our event! Books, Shirts and more!

We are going to be streaming the event live on ustream from 11am until 6pm PDT

Luke Kilpatrick
Organizer for San Francisco preDevCamp

Here is the preliminary agenda for the San Francisco event, this may change depending on the location but If I land the one I am hoping for this will be what goes down.

11:00 – Doors open
11:20 – Welcome session
11:20 to 12:00 – Intro to Pre development, SDK installfest
12:30 to 1:30 – Lunch (sponsored)
1:30 to 4:00 – Open hacking, more talks (website optimization, mobile UX, webOS internals, other impromptu)
4:30 to 5:30 – Demo your app, prizes
5:30 – Closing remarks
6:00 – Cleanup

If you have questions, suggestions or issues please put them in the comments.

I seem to be getting a lot of these questions so I am going to repost it here with some modifications

When is it?
Everything will be August 8th worldwide. So it will basically end up being 24 hours
of webOS. – In San Francisco I am planning on 11am until 5pm at what ever location I can get.

How much will it cost?
The event is free.  I am hoping to have sponsors provide food, prizes and other stuff.

Is preDevCamp affiliated with Palm, Sprint, or any other organization?
The short answer is no. This is purely an independent volunteer effort. The global organizers have no formal ties to Palm or Sprint. Other organizations have been helpful in providing prizes, places to meet, etc., but for the most part each local camp is run by and for those attending it. We are grateful to Palm, in particular, for providing support. They worked very hard to make the SDK public in time for preDevCamp. However, neither Palm nor any other sponsor has made any attempt to control what is presented at local preDevCamps.

What will preDevCamp be like?
Each local preDevCamp will be different. However, most camps will consist of developers getting together to learn about webOS programming and related topics. Some larger camps may have formal presentations. Camps may show recorded presentations made especially for preDevCamp and follow-up with a group discussion. It’s expected that each developer will bring their own laptop (or share) for hands on exercises as well. In addition the preDevCamp IRC channel on FreeNode (irc.freenode.net) will be active with people helping one another world-wide.

What is the role of the local organizer?
The local organizer is responsible contacting local attendees, securing a place for everyone to meet, and determining the general organization of the day’s events.

What is the role of the local attendee?
A large part of each local camps success will depend on the involvement of local attendees. A major thing is to publicize the event locally. Inform other computer groups, computer students at local colleges, etc. Contact your organizer to see if there is anything you can help with. They may need ideas for where to meet or help in securing projectors, local WiFi access, etc. Offer to lead one of the discussions. Many topics will have a list of suggested questions, etc. The best way to ensure a topic your interested in is covered is to lead the discussion about it.

Where will my local Camp be?
Working on this, please see the link below if you have any ideas.

When will preDevCamp start and how long will it be?
11am until 5pm on August 8th, 2009 somewhere in the Bay Area.

What types of things will be discussed at preDevCamp?
So far we have commitments from some of the mojo team from Palm that they will be attending as well as some people from Pivotal Labs. I figure almost everything from business ideas, to coding to graphic design will be discussed. There is going to be a coding contest with the prizes being 2 Palm pre’s for the first 2 apps to use zanox web services.

How do I keep up to date with the latest preDevCamp information?
Check the preDevCamp.org website and your local camps page. There is also an RSS feed. Follow preDevCamp on Twitter. Check out the forums on webOScast.com for supporting materials.

How do I contact our organizer?
Luke Kilpatrick is easy to reach call at 650-745-5302, follow him on twitter or send him an email to luke@lukek.ca if you have a question, would like to sponsor or just want to say thanks for running the camp.

Hello everyone,

Luke Kilpatrick, here your organizer for preDevCamp San Francisco. I just came into this position on July 27 so my ramp up has been steep. So far I can tell you this, I am still trying to nail down the perfect location for preDevCamp, in San Francisco. Please join in the discussion on friendfeed here if you have one to offer. http://ff.im/5OGBX

I am also actively looking for sponsors for food, swag and other stuff if you want to sponsor this get event and get your product, company or service in front of a large room of webOS/web/js developers this is a fantastic opportunity. Please give me a call at 650-745-5302, follow me on twitter or send me an email to luke@lukek.ca if you would like to help out.

I am extremely excited to also announce that Jesse Donaldson, who runs the Mojo team at Palm, is planning on bringing some of his team of engineers with him to help answer questions at the event. Also Davis Frank of Pivotal Labs will also be attending and helping out. Davis is one of the minds behind Tweed, Associated Press, LikeMe and CitySearch applications for the pre. We are very lucky to have some of the most experienced Mojo developers on the planet at our event and they are happy to answer questions and talk about their experiences developing for the pre.

Also zanox is sponsoring a development contest with 2 prizes as brand new Palm pre’s* to the first 2 teams to create an application that uses zanox’s web services in someway. To learn about how to use zanox web services check out their wiki and appstore.

I am super excited to see and meet everyone on the 8th of August, More details and info about sponsors and prizes to come soon,

Luke Kilpatrick
Organizer, preDevCamp San Francisco

*Each Palm pre will be in the form of a $200 dollar best buy gift card

I just released a post on whurley.com entitled “Phone Warz: Revenge Of The Palm?” discussing how ever since I helped pull together iPhoneDevCamp with Raven Zachary and Chris Messina back in 06, Ive been hawking the other manufacturers looking for a legit challenge to the iPhones throne; secretly to have another event.

Anyway, I was discussing this whole scenario with @Giovanni and @DanCrumb this weekend, and we had quite an amusing round of what-ifs. We had so much fun bumpin our gums, we decided to up the ante. Today @Giovanni, @DanCrumb and I (@whurley) are launching preDevCamp 2009.

The event will be held in around 60 cities around the world exactly one week after the U.S. release of the Palm Pre. Since the phone is Linux+WebKit, development should be easy for us to share the love. Tell your friends. Invite your neighbors. Weve got satellite events lined up in over 30 cities around the world. If you want to enlist, visit the website and tell us your city. If theres not a leader in that city, then you just got promoted.