PechaKucha Night

Just back from my first PechaKucha evening. Japanese for chit chat, PechaKucha is a social forum for exchange of ideas, through 20 images, shown for 20 seconds each. (There is actually a PechaKucha group in Albury/Wodonga - not that I knew about it!!)   http://www.pechakucha.org

It was an inspiring night with 9 interesting and amazing speakers.

I am off to explore openstreet maps, no more google maps for me,

http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=5/51.500/-0.100 

as presented by Matthias, a fellow Team Dai rider who has used his 8 months in Vientiane to map many of the unnamed and not on google maps or a physical map, locations and streets in Vientiane. (Previously working in the Galapagos Islands, he mapped significant areas there too)

I have mentioned Tessa Bunney's http://www.tessabunney.co.uk/photography before, tonight she shared some stunning portraits from Icelandic puffin hunters to images of Laos hill tribe women used for an Oxfam campaign.

There was a Japanese lady explaining her passion for Laos culture and coffee and a young Laos women who had studied in Australia and has just opened a cafe here.

Jana, from Atlanta, a teacher in the elementary school at VIS shared her iphone photography that she shares on instagram #RealLaosProjects.

There was a theatre director, a Laos film maker, an independent publisher, and a poem with images from a restauranteur.

Overall an inspirational evening.