When is the next Carolina Code Camp?

The Enterprise Developers Guild hosted the first code camp in Charlotte, NC on Saturday, April 30, 2005. When asked what spurred the camp’s creation, Bill Jones, Co-Founder of the Guild stated, “We saw a lot of change coming and no easy way for contract developers to get training.” The daylong event was the first of its kind locally. Mark Wilson, the Guild’s First Vice President, described it as having “more than 20 hours of hard-hitting technical content.”

As the program evolved, user groups from around the region took interest. This prompted the name change from Charlotte Code Camp to Carolina Code Camp. With the added diversification, the Enterprise Developers Guild had created one of the most influential training platforms for IT talent in the Carolinas.

Since its pilot, the trademark event experienced monumental growth. The initial event only had around 100 in attendance. Last year, almost 400 attended with many more on a wait list. The amount of content also grew with a total of 60 hours of training offered last year. Additionally, the agenda has seen many upgrades. Attendees have enjoyed the integration of hands-on labs and informal “Chalk Talks” hosted by Microsoft MVPs, authors, and of course, local developers.

Over the course of ten years, the Enterprise Developers Guild hosted a total of 14 events. While no one kept official statistics, it’s safe to say thousands of attendees across the region have benefited from hundreds of hours of training. But despite the overwhelming success of the event, the 2014 Carolina Code Camp was the last one.

What happened to code camp? In short, it grew! Due to an overwhelming attendance, we’ve outgrown the previous venue. This presented an opportunity to shake things up…and we couldn’t resist!

This year, Wilson, Syl Walker, the Guild’s Vice President, and UNC Charlotte’s College of Computing and Informatics, along with others, are introducing Spark Conference. This all new event will become the premier, must-attend event for technology enthusiasts in the South Atlantic region. But rest assured that our goal for Spark Conference is to not just match the rich success of Carolina Code Camp but to make it better than ever for our attendees, speakers, and sponsors.

To learn more, please visit the event website at www.sparkconf.org.