ramorim's Journal: Bossa Conference 2008: "we try to do meaningful things"

At 9:34 of an unusual cloudy morning in Porto de Galinhas, Brazil, Sandro Alves, Manager for New Businesses Development at Nokia Technology Institute (INdT) opened the 2008 edition of Bossa Conference. Sandro played a quick video detailing the history and attractions of Porto de Galinhas, Recife (where INdT is actually located) and the state of Pernambuco (where Recife is located).

Alves welcomed the 250 people attending the event with enthusiastic words about the last edition of Bossa Conference and how successful it was in achieving its goals. In a press conference right after the opening, the INdT manager explained what the institute does, how it does it, and most importantly, why the people in there do it.

Driven by design & concepts, not technology

Sandro characterizes INdT as "driven by design and concepts", not "driven by technology", although he makes it perfectly clear that this is not a criticism to Open Source developers. "When we started, we were driven by technology", he says, "but we gradually noticed that the 'driven by design and concepts' approach was much better, and it's been working very well ever since."

INdT's Recife unit employs only Open Source in the development of new applications and frameworks for Nokia mobile devices, and that's what Bossa Conference is all about: "the event is designed to promote interaction between developers", Sandro states. If you think this is just another nerdy conference, well, you might want to take a second look at it. "Bossa Conference is designed to maximize the time people can interact with each other." The program includes daily 'after hours' sessions, when participants are taken to any strictly social location in order to exchange ideas and concepts about programming for mobile embedded platforms - and sometimes to have a chance to meet their idols. "In these events, developers achieve much higher productivity than by remote collaboration", Alves tells us.

Reference at Linux Magazine site.