The Wild, Wild Web

(PRWEB) March 27, 2004

The Old West may have had lots of action, but the action was just as hot at the March break WebFest event held at Georgian College.

Georgian College's annual WebFest celebrated both competition and business, with speakers from around the globe and around the corner and a trade-show oriented to help local businesses get themselves onto the Web successfully.

San Francisco's Kelly Goto was one of the key speakers at WebFest. Presented via Macromedia's Breeze technology, she led an interactive dialogue about Web redesign and workflow.

One of the highlights of this year's WebFest was the first ever 24-hour Web Design and Development competition. Nine teams from both Georgian College and local secondary schools competed for the chance to design and develop a fully-functioning Web site in just 24-hours.

A three-person team from St. Peter's Secondary School, made up of 15 and 16-year olds, walked away with the glory -- proving that the Web is indeed a place where our youth have the advantage.

Karl Pawlowicz, Scott McIntyre and Bill Michelson were the winners and have promised to be back next year to defend their title.

And even if they didn't win, everyone thoroughly enjoyed the contest. "This has been the highlight of my academic career" enthused Matt Richmond, a Fine-Arts Grad from York University and Web Design and Development student. Matt was one of many students who made sure the event ran seamlessly.

"Web Designers and Developers have to be comfortable with the ground shifting under their feet. They have to want to be in a place that celebrates the integration of creativity and reason within considerable constraints of time and technology," reports Anita Arvast, the program coordinator for the Web Design and Development post-grad program which hosted the event. "And they have to be comfortable working at all kinds of crazy hours! All of the people in the competition proved to be exceptionally talented and devoted."

The competition began at noon on the Monday and competitors were "holed up" in the campus bar, the Last Class for the next 24-hours. Here they listened to music, named the mascot pig (J-Pig), ate pizza and forged friendships. At the end of it all, many extraordinary sites were built.

Technologies featured at the event included Macromedia, Adobe, Microsoft, Apple and IBM. Sponsorship was provided by Pavliks, CGK, Click to Start, Gheeks.com, FlicknPizza, the Last Class, BitsNBytes, WebCollective, In Front of the Net, Cool Blue Solutions, 2id Media, Mailboxes, etc. and Copy-Copy and Barrie Suburu and i-designz.ca.

WebFest is the annual highlight of Georgian College's speaker series on the Web (the speaker series is called WebEvolve). To view the competitors' sites and the video blog, visit webevolve.ca.

The Web Design and Development program still has seats for Fall 2004. For information about the Web Design and Development program, call (705) 728-1968, extension 1650.

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For further material or photos, please contact Anita Arvast, HYPERLINK "mailto:aarvast@georgianc.on.ca" aarvast@georgianc.on.ca , (705) 728-1968 ext. 1650