Codebits – Lisbon, Portugal, December 2009

Codebits – the fun event for all techies.

Inspired by Hackday, London, Celso Marthino and Pedro Custodio, both then from Sapo.pt, decided two years ago to create Codebits in Lisbon. This year Pedro was not with us but Jose Castro did a super job. Almost 700 techies lined up on Thursday 3rd December for the opening of the third Codebits which shows no sign of fatigue.

Codebits is held in a huge old darkened building – it takes 5 mins to walk from one end to the other and the place is buzzing with activities. The place is a techie’s dream – cables, internet connection, cameras, tables, chairs, flipcharts, bean bags, game consoles – everything is there to make it a 3 day and night memorable event.

Yes, the idea is to spend the nights there – food and drinks are provided non stop. This huge open-plan barn-style building is divided into areas for small conferences, 100 of tables on which techies can work on their team project, an area for Mitch Altham and his soldering maker table and tools, television screens everywhere, (live feed and TV for friends at home).

The programme is brilliant. It includes talks (Portuguese and English), Quiz Show, Rock Band Contest, and the 24 hours programming/hacking competition.

Around 50 teams worked on projects which had to be presented to the audience and judging panel at the end of the third day. Each team had 90 seconds to present their project – my heart went out to them, they had not slept for 3 days, did not get any fresh air (except for the draft) – as you will see from the pictures that life of a techie is not all glamour.

I did not compete, I went to sleep every night – not a lot, but I did go to bed!