So what’s all the fuss about? Confoo which bills itself as bringing under one roof PHP Québec, Montréal-Python, Montreal.rb, Montreal Jug, W3Qc, OWASP Montréal, Android Montreal and local web developers. Confoo has 109 speakers in total. 5 of them are women. 5. It is not a typo. Earlier in the day they had 105 speakers.

This is not the first year of the conference, nor the first time, the community has pointed out the lack of women: same ratio for 2011, and 2010.

Now: what I would really like to do is open a dialog and see how our community can help confoo, because it obviously needs the help and because we care. But first, we need to have a dialog:

Because you know, pointing out an issue makes me a sexist, closed minded and disrespectful person.

Oh yeah, now we are really talking about the issue at hand. My followers are thoroughly impressed. But perhaps not what was intended!

It never hurts to restate the obvious.

Unless of course …

Well, if by IT feminist crusaders Ms. Anna Filina is referring to CEOs of software firms and founders, then I am guilty, and if by IT we are talking about the software industry, then guilty again! Darn you got me!

But seriously: let’s grab a coffee and talk about how we can change the ratio. And no, it has nothing to do with the toys you play with when you are a child. There are so many awesome people working at changing the ratio (and running software firms) and all we need is first a dialog, then an action plan. Let’s talk. Let’s change. And let’s not call each other names. That’s just not NICE and the internet is so all kinds of nice. kthxbai!

Sorry, got to get back to running a software firm.

I hope you are all enjoying an awesome break and looking forward to 2012, I know I am!

2012 is going to bring in a slew of awesome conferences, lectures and hackathon to attend. As I am putting together our Hackdays hackathon schedule for 2012 I realized I have not told you all about Art Science Camp and since I am helping Jen Dodd (the managing director of Subtle Technologies) organize it, it is about time to remedy that.

Art Science Camp is an unconference organized co-presented by Hart House and Subtle Technologies (disclosure: I joined Subtle Technologies’ board). Every year Subtle Technologies brings us the Subtle Festival. For 15 years the Festival has been bringing people together to promote wonder, incite creativity and spark innovation across disciplines. The Subtle symposium, performances, workshops, screenings, exhibitions and networking sessions provide a forum to explore ideas and pose questions at the intersection of art, science and technology. I am sure you will want to attend next year’s festival! But in the meantime, join us for Art Science Camp.

So what is Art Science Camp: It is an Art, Science and Technology unconference. A two day conference which will peek your curiosity and broaden your interest by intertwining art, science and technology in a series of peer presentations.

Art Science Camp starts on Friday February 3rd, 2012 at 7 PM and gathers artists, scientists, students, engineers, architects, designers and geeks. The Friday evening party is the venue for collaboratively creating a program of events to take place the next day. Everyone is encouraged to bring a crazy idea, a work in progress, or a vital topic for discussion, and to organize a session around it. Anyone interested a presentation or a discussion can claim a presentation spot on the schedule.

Last year, the first Art Science Camp included presentations by:
Eric Boyd – wearable electronics designer, Toronto Hacklab leader

Dan Falk – Knight Science Journalism fellow, popular science author

Michael Nielsen - quantum computation pioneer and author.

Like last year, Art Science Camp is going to aim at bringing together people who would not normally have conversations with each other, and create a space for surprising and serendipitous connections.

The first Art Science Camp last year sold out, and this year it is about to sell out, so if you are interested in getting a ticket, don’t delay. Registration is open and we have close to 100 attendees already.

We are also looking for sponsors to make this year’s unconference unforgettable. If you can land a hand, help with sponsorships, sponsor lunch, dinner or drinks, please get in touch. An awesome sponsorship which helps defray the cost of this volunteer event starts at $250.
If you have any questions about sponsorships or how you could lend a hand, get in touch.

•  Art Science Camp (#artscicamp)
• Date: Friday February 3rd at 7 PM to – Saturday Feb 4th at 6 PM
• Location: University of Toronto, Hart House, 7 Hart House Circle
• Registration: Open
• Cost: $10.00
• Available for sponsorship

[Photograph (c) Nasa Goddard Space Flight Center]

I am very excited to announce HackTO. The idea behind HackTO is to have a series of APIs made available by local startups. And connect these APIs with local developers to build – in a day – amazing applications.

We are still working out all the details – much planning ahead – but here are the basics:

• DATE: Saturday May 15. This is an all day hackhaton. We will be providing breakfast and lunch.
• LOCATION: TBD. We are still working out the location details. It will be downtown.
• AVAILABLE APIs:  Freshbooks, Idée, PostRank, CanPages + more. We will be announcing additions to these APIs in the coming days.
• SIGNUP: Sign up is currently open, there is a $10 fee for registration.
• JUDGING AND PRIZES: We are working on awesome prizes for the best applications developed during the hackhaton. Stay tuned for details.

If you’re with a technology company or startup you think ought to be involved, get in touch lboujnane (at) ideeinc.com or just say hi or ask questions.

You can catch most of his videos here, of particular interest:

Asia’s rise, how and when

What stops population growth

TED and Reddit’s 10 questions. Most of Hans Rosling’s videos are archived on the new GapMinder website.

Does the vaccine matter? The Atlantic

The women agenda: NYT reader submitted photographs from around the world illustrating the importance of educating girls. Some great shots!

From Science Friday: Michael Musnick is a citizen scientist who studies wood turtles in the Great Swamp — a stretch of wetland about 60 miles north of New York City. He found turtles dying in the railroad tracks and proposed a solution to New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority: tiny turtle bridges.

There are close to 1.7 billion Internet users in the world. The network by the numbers.

Norwegian photojournalist Jonas Bendiksen spent six weeks living in the slums of Nairobi, then Caracas, Mumdai and Jakarta. His Foreign Policy photo essay is enlightening!

Best young entrepreneurs of 2009 from BusinessWeek and yes the list includes women!

Interview with Ken Segall, the man who named the iMac and wrote Think Different.

[...] web software is like a shark. You stop moving and you die.

David Byrne: The free flow of information, and the ability to digitize all media as it enters the river, has a lot more repercussions than the end of books, newspapers and CDs — it portends a massive social and political shift.

and their poster is so awesome, they should consider printing it! I would get one!

A big part of the reason for changing copyright law in 1909 was the fear that player pianos would destroy the market for sheet music and even (potentially) live performances. So the law was changed… but the player piano soon died. But the copyright law it gave us stuck around. When radio came about, we got changes to copyright law to deal with that. When the internet came about, we got the DMCA. So what’s next? Perhaps the internet’s new big buzzword: “the real-time web.”