Developers, techies, and geeks get together to celebrate the "geek culture" at this annual event. Photo by elfgoh .

On fine Saturdays, most people go to the park or beach, go shopping or catch a movie. Geeks, on the other hand, go to Geekcamp.

About 450 geeks thronged the Microsoft offices on 1 October 2011 for the third annual Geekcamp, boasting a very technical programme to gladden any geek, coder, or techno-nerd. The crowd, mostly clad in jeans and T-shirts, were there to attend talks on topics such as 3D Web GL and Hacking Radio Control Cars into a Cloud Product, and also to rub shoulders with their fellow techno-cognoscenti.

“Geekcamp is an open-ended event where speakers tell us what topics they want to speak on, and we open it up to voting to set the programme,” explained Mr Justin Lee, one of the organisers. “There are two tracks of talks simultaneously, and you can listen for a few minutes. If you don’t find it interesting, you can walk out and go to the next one – the speaker won’t take offence.”

Apart from the talks, the informal side of Geekcamp is just as attractive for attendees. “It’s not only about attending talks but also about meeting people and chatting,” he said. “We are passionate about building a great geek community. People don’t usually meet on such a scale.”

“It’s very (Silicon) Valley,” noted Mr Benedict Liang appreciatively. “I love the whole concept of gathering and sharing ideas. The talks are also fantastic. I’m thinking of asking some of the speakers to come to the National University of Singapore (NUS) – I’m sure the students would love to hear them,” said Mr Liang, himself an NUS student.

Another attendee who felt galvanised to create a similar event was Mr Ryoh Tsukahara, a self-described “beginner programmer” from Japan. Learning about Geekcamp through Twitter, the tourist decided to take a look at Singapore’s tech scene, and was very happy to listen to a talk on The Evolution of Programming Languages. He was just as happy meeting a counterpart clad in a “I’m not slacking. My code’s compiling” T-shirt, and getting pointers about who to contact when he launches his startup one day. “Every Japanese IT startup wants to know about Singapore startups, I think.”

NUS student Mr Cedric Chin attended a couple of talks, but his happiest moment was outside the talks. “I started talking about Java script with someone and he showed me this app that he’s been working on for a year, and it was beautiful,” he said. "I can imagine the amount of work he’s put in, and he’s using pretty cutting-edge Java script framework. Things like that are serendipitous, and you learn something new.”

In another corner, Mr Ming Zhaoyan, a research fellow from NUS, was also having a moment of contentment, chatting about apps with a speaker. “I had a great time here meeting people, learned some exciting technologies and had a nice lunch!”

Mr Kusum M, a software engineer with HCL Technologies, found Geekcamp “a refreshing place”, featuring “cool new technologies”.  While other people might quail at the thought of camping out with 450 geeks, Mr Kusum felt it was “a Saturday afternoon well spent”.

Mr Tsukahara concurred. “It’s really fascinating,” he said. “I want to do this in Japan.”