Semana da Informática

The "Semana da Informática" ("Computer Week") ended today. This was a week-long event held at my school, consisting in a series of conferences on computer-related topics, a couple of game tournaments (including GLTron, which simply rocks) and a few exhibits. The attendance was quite good, with a constantly filled auditorium during the conferences (around 80 to 90 people each), along with 96 participants in the GLTron tournament.

Apart from working on its organization, I was also responsible for three presentations. The first one was on Monday, about one of my favourite topics: game development. It was meant as an introduction to the roles in a typical game development team, what tasks each person perform and what are their biggest challenges. I've also managed to slid in a few tidbits on game design, based on my experience in that area. It was really fun and the attendees also seemed to enjoy it.

The remaining two presentations were on the topic of Internet Security. The first one was aimed at kids (ages 6 to 8). It was my first presentation for such a young audience, but it went rather well. They were extremely interested and placed tons of questions during and after the presentation. The final presentation was aimed at a slightly older audience (ages 12 to 16). It also went nicely.

Apart from me, there were also three other speakers: Telmo Amaro (who spoke about mobile software development), Licínio Roque (with a presentation about the game development process and game studies) and Ricardo Ruivo (whose presentation was on a campus network's installation, maintenance and administration).

Given the excellent crowd turnout and the positive feedback I received, I hope this becomes the first edition of an yearly event, since it was both an interesting event for the school community and an excellent hands-on event organization experience for my students.