Hi,

I've been contemplating whether it might be interesting to hold an mbed Conference of some sort for the mbed developers and partners among us that are involved or interested in getting involved in developing, guiding and contributing to the mbed platform itself?

Just to be clear, I don't mean something like a learn-how-to-use-mbed user conference. More focused on discussion, ideas, development on the platform itself, to work out how to improve it, where we can take it, and how to get there. The sort of things i'm thinking might be:

• improvements/ideas/features for the tools and SDK
  • e.g. how to make the SDK easily portable and ported to all ARM platforms
• how to make mbed-enabled hardware devboards
• mbed team share/discuss some of our roadmap plans and ideas
  • e.g. demo some of our R&D, some of the inside information, feedback/requests etc
• look at how we could help take designs all the way to production
  • what are the current barriers/problems?
• brainstorm ideas that could have big impact and explore how we could achieve them
  • e.g. how could we evolve the cookbook in to a huge definitive component library database?

Not clear exactly how long it'd be, exactly how it'd be structured or where it'd run (probably in Cambridge, UK), or perhaps most importantly what it'd be called, but would this be of interest to anyone? Just trying to gauge scope/scale...

Simon

Hi Simon, sounds like fun and could be very useful. Travel to the UK is easy and not crazy expensive from where I live. I'm interested in participating when I can fit it in with my dayjob. The ''mbed fest'' events in Japan seem different in nature, but the name is cool. Maybe your proposal could be set up as special sessions as part of an event for a wider audience, including some keynotes, demos, exhibits etc. A bigger crowd may help make the businesscase for some hardware vendors to participate.

Wim

I would be interested in attending an mbed conference. Practices to improve portability to other ARM MCUs and implementations of efficient multitasking would be of particular interest.

The geographical distribution of mbed users would help determine potential locations. If the largest user base is in Europe, hosting it in the UK would be a logical choice.

Hosting it in parallel with another ARM conference should also be considered as it could help increase attendance and reduce venue costs. The upcoming ARM Techcon 2013 scheduled for September in California may be a good candidate.

There are many alternatives for the event name, e.g. mbed Devcon, mbed Techcon, mbed World, ...

Hi Simon,

I think it's a great idea - and if the participation of the partners is agreed, then i can see how it would be a very effective way to broaden the support (range of ARM-based processors / platforms / wider dev tools).

In particular if things like the CMSIS DAP can be supported in other external tools (such as IAR/Code Red) then the overall platform will appeal to an even wider audience (at least in my opinion).

I'd certainly be interested to attend (though I think I 'd learn far more than I'd be able to contribute).

If it's successful, you might also be able to build on it & run another conference with a choice of topics/seminars to attend...

Cheers, Jez

Hi Simon,

I think it would be a good idea to discuss where the platform could go in the future and how to break down more barriers to migration from mbed to production. I would be interested in attending especially if in Cambridge as it's on my doorstep :-)

Martin

Great idea! How about some sort of video / chat interface for those not local to the UK?

Demystifying what is happening behind the servers would be beneficial IMO. Maybe adding semi-private access to a real-time road map and progress tracker? For being a semi-open community it still feels a bit closed off regarding what's coming next leaving the feeling of "might as well focus on what's available" rather than try to contribute. Just my $0.02

I think the idea of having it alongside Techcon in California is a great idea; i'll see what might be available in terms of venue...

Sounds pretty interesting to me. The proposed agenda looks very intriguing!

This is now confirmed!

We will be putting on the "mbed Connect" Partner Meeting in California on Monday 28th October, the day before TechCon.

I've just updated the summary and application form at: http://mbed.org/connect

Would love to meet some of you top mbed contributors and developers here as we enter the next stage of the mbed journey!

Simon

Simon,

Any chance of the videos/presentations from MBED connect being shared or hosted somewhere on mbed.org?