sacha chua living an awesome life

I love wearing ethnic clothes. Traditional outfits are hip enough to
pass off as casual but dignified enough to go formal, possible with a
little creative re-pinning. I love wearing batik-dyed or embroidered
malongs, the simple tubular skirts that can be turned into dresses and
sashes and sleeping bags depending on need. I love wearing my
butterfly-sleeved terno and wish I had one that looked less formal.
The gold-threaded cream blouse makes it too dressy, but I wear it
anyway!

Of all the costumes I wear—from hacked computer T-shirts to flowing
skirts to jeans and a tee—I like the traditional ones the most.

Thanks, Mom, for sending me two more malongs and a few black tops!
Thanks to Pavel and Emily for bringing them from the Philippines!
I want more outfits…

On Technorati: fashion, philippines, clothing, malong, filipino, filipina

Dominique helpfully offered suggestions on adapting
BarCamp to the Philippines. He said that
it was doable, but challenging. He asked me the top five people I’d
like to be there. He suggested having interdisciplinary talks by
invited speakers on entrepreneurship, physics, biology, etc. Many of
the Linux geeks who regularly speak at events would no doubt turn up,
too.

I had such a strong reaction against his ideas that I had to stop
myself from being frustrated. I recognized that I felt he didn’t
understand what unconferences were about. I also recognized that I
couldn’t yet articulate the differences between unconferences and
conferences in a way that would make the changes and benefits clear. I
was frustrated, yes, but I was frustrated with myself for being unable
to figure out how to hack unconferences into Filipino culture without
turning the event into yet another thing that divides speakers from
audience instead of creating a community of participants.

I knew Dominique wanted to help me think things through, but the
strength and irrationality of my reaction made me realize that I
needed to first think things over with people who know the
unconference culture and who may have insights into helping a new
community adapt.

I need more insight from people like Chris Messina and David Crow. How
does one hack unconferences into a society’s culture? How can I help
people go from a strongly hierarchical culture to a flatter one? Must
ask Don Marti, too…

I don’t have answers. I don’t even know where to start. One good thing
is that I can recognize when I’m hitting a wall, though. When I heard
Dominique repeat his suggestion for inviting talks from outside
disciplines and I knew I just couldn’t listen well enough to do him
credit, I thanked Dominique for sharing his thoughts and confessed my
inability to discuss things further at this time. I need to talk to
the others first. I need to figure things out.

You know, it’s just _so_ tempting to not think about how to hack
something like unconferences into Philippine society. It would be so
easy to just enjoy the fruits of other people’s labor in a tech
culture that’s starting to take off. But I want to bring these ideas
home…

And you know what? Maybe I don’t need to figure out how to get people
out of their chairs and into the conversation. Maybe I can focus on
just meeting the Web 2.0 entrepreneurs, the connectors who are
reaching out to me and to each other. I’d like to meet them in person
and get them to talk to each other. Maybe I don’t have to think about
doing that this August. Maybe I can do that this December, if I can
afford to go home.

I don’t feel bad about being asked tough questions. I feel bad about
not knowing the answers and not even being able to explain why
something doesn’t feel right. I just need to talk to more people and
try more things in order to figure out what to do.

And I seriously need hot chocolate and a hug, but that’s just because
I’m feeling all lost again… I’ll try to postpone thinking about it
until Friday, as I’m booked until then.

On Technorati: :(, purpose, philippines, barcamp, unconference

Random Japanese sentence: うちの猫って甘えん坊で、どこでも私のあと着いて来るのよね。 My cat is such a baby, she follows me around wherever I go.

Joey de Villa posted a very interesting article on how to be Silicon Valley. Geeks at home: read this and let’s make it happen. We don’t need to be Silicon Valley, but we can still do something really cool.

(Incidentally, Joey’s from Manila, and he now works at Tucows in Toronto.)

On Technorati: philippines, geek, entrepreneurship

Random Japanese sentence: 猫がネズミを嗅ぎつけたようですね。 Seems like the cat had the wind of a rat.

From: “Santamaria, Samuel” SSantamaria AT aicpa.org

Here’s another victory we can be proud of. Tell your friends about it.
A team of Filipino MIT students headed by Illac Diaz won the Grand Prize for
the US$ 100K MIT Entrepreneurship Competition’s development track for their
business, CentroMigrante, Inc. Read on.

Their project, focused on a business model for social entrepreneurship in the
Philippines, beat out several other amazing ideas. Impoverished people in
developing countries leave their rural hometowns and flock to urban areas to
seek employment but are usually unable to afford decent lodging while
searching and waiting for jobs. In the Philippines, as many as 1 million
Filipinos a year spend up to 3 months away from their home provinces and in
Manila’s port areas looking for jobs as seafarers, most of them living in
shanties under depressed and undignified living conditions. CentroMigrante
Inc. combines developmental architecture with a self-help business model to
offer a sustainable solution that provides clean, safe and affordable urban
housing for such indigent, transient job seekers.

The MIT $50K Entrepreneurship Competition is designed to encourage students
and researchers in the MIT community to act on their talent, ideas and energy
to produce tomorrow’s leading firms. Now in its 16th year, the Competition
has awarded hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and business startup
services to outstanding teams of student entrepreneurs who submitted business
plans for new ventures showing significant business potential. The refinement
process of the Competition, its network of mentors, investors and potential
partners, and the cash prizes awarded have helped many of these teams to act
on their dreams and build their own companies and fortunes.

The MIT Entrepreneurship Competition provides teams who enter with valuable
resources in the following areas crucial to successful entrepreneurship:

• Networks of world-class entrepreneurs, investors, and potential partners
• Mentorship by successful and seasoned professionals
• Content rich feedback on their business model from world class entrepreneurs, investors, and professional service providers on our Judging [panel?]
• Teambuilding opportunities to create a winning team of founders
• Broad media exposure and PR buzz

See attached photo or at:

http://mit100k.net

Way cool!

E-Mail from Harvey V. Chua

On Technorati: philippines, entrepreneurship, business

Random Japanese sentence: 休暇中、近所の人がうちの猫の世話をしてくれた。 While we were on holiday, a neighbor took care of our cat.

From the Kagay-anon Linux Users’ Group mailing list:

sa mga hilig ug web/2
one page lang na guide; gamit kaayo..
http://www.vipedio.com/roman/blog/20culture_full.html

sa mga hackers ug novell fans
http://www.tectonic.co.za/view.php?src=rss&id=1003

The first link is a quick guide to typical Web 2.0 interface stuff.
http://msippey.tadalist.com/lists/public/155420 is an even shorter list. ;)
(Heh. Also read http://blog.unitedheroes.net/archives/p/2051/ )

I read KLUG every so often even though I can’t understand Bisaya… =)
It’s fun, and I’ve found a number of interesting people that way. For
example, Botp Peña (who posted these links) conducts free Ruby on
Rails training, and it looks like Botp Peña is also interested in
entrepreneurship…

On Technorati: web2.0, entrepreneurship, philippines

E-Mail from Botp Peña

Random Japanese sentence: ボップ・ボップ・キャット・ボップ。 Bop, bop cat bop.

Check out pinoyweb2.com for Web 2.0 geeks in the Philippines. =) Luis Buenaventura is teh cool.

On Technorati: web2.0, philippines

Random Japanese sentence: 秘密をばくろするのは、心理的に最も効果のある時である。 It is the psychological moment to let the cat out of the bag.

I don’t know why people complain about not being able to find talent.
;) I run across so many interesting people while watching mailing
lists or hanging out with other geeks. For example, if you’re looking
for Ruby geeks in the Philippines, Botp Peña sounds really interesting.
Hey, anyone who advocates Rails and volunteers training has to be cool. ;)

if you’re interested to learn ruby, i can provide training session for free. just provide the place and at least 10 people to join. dili nako kaya tudlo isa-isa. ma-luoy mo. dapat naa whiteboard (kung wala projector), mga desk/silya, printer para sa handouts/exercises, and notebooks or desktops na ma-gamit ninyo ug nako (wala koy notebook, sorry). Also, dapat naa mo programming background (any language will do. di nako gusto lurat inyo mata. dapat naka-smile pirmi). i prefer to hold trainings monthly/semi-monthly lang kay para dili kaayo ko hago. one training session will cover the whole day (puwede sab ma-hangyo half-day)

• Peña, Botp (botp AT delmonte-phil.com)

E-Mail from Peña

On Technorati: ruby, philippines, geek

Random Japanese sentence: 私はあの店で猫を買った。 I bought a cat at that shop.