JMaghreb is the inaugural Java conference organized by Morocco JUG. It is the biggest Java conference in Maghreb (5 countries in North West Africa).

Oracle was the exclusive platinum sponsor with several others. The registrations had to be closed at 1412 for the free conference and several folks were already on the waiting list. Rabat with 531 registrations and Casablanca with 426 were the top cities. Some statistics ...

• 850+ attendees over 2 days, 500+ every day
  
• 30 sessions were delivered by 18 speakers from 10 different countries
  
• 10 sessions in French and 20 in English
• 6 of the speakers spoke at JavaOne 2012
• 8 will be at Devoxx
• Attendees from 5 different countries and 57 cities in Morocco
  
• 40.9% qualified them as professional and rest as students
• Topics ranged from HTML5, Java EE 7, ADF, JavaFX, MySQL, JCP, Vaadin, Android, Community, JCP
• Java EE 6 hands-on lab was sold out within 7 minutes and JavaFX in 12 minutes

I gave the keynote along with Simon Ritter which was basically a recap of the Strategy and Technical keynotes presented at JavaOne 2012. An informal survey during the keynote showed the following numbers:

• 25% using NetBeans, 90% on Eclipse, 3 on JDeveloper, 1 on IntelliJ
• About 10 subscribers to free online Java magazine. This digital magazine is a comprehensive source of information for everything Java - subscribe for free!!
  
• About 10-15% using Java SE 7. Download JDK 7 and get started today! Even JDK 8 builds have been available for a while now.
  

My second talk explained the core concepts of WebSocket and how JSR 356 is providing a standard API to build WebSocket-driven applications in Java EE 7. TOTD #183 explains how you can easily get started with WebSocket in GlassFish 4. The complete slide deck is available:


Next day started with a community keynote by Sonya Barry. Some of us live the life of JCP, JSR, EG, EC, RI, etc every day, but not every body is. To address that, Sonya prepared an excellent introductory presentation providing an explanation of these terms and how java.net infrastructure supports Java development.

The registration for the lab showed there is a definite demand for these technologies in this part of the world. I delivered the Java EE 6 hands-on lab to a packed room of about 120 attendees. Most of the attendees were able to progress and follow the lab instructions. Some of the attendees did not have a laptop but were taking extensive notes on paper notepads. Several attendees were already using Java EE 6 in their projects and typically they are the ones asking deep dive questions. Also gave out three copies of my recently released Java EE 6 Pocket Guide and new GlassFish t-shirts. Definitely feels happy to coach ~120 more Java developers learn standards-based enterprise Java programming.

I also participated in a JCP BoF along with Werner, Sonya, and Badr. Adotp-a-JSR, java.net infrastructure, how to file a JSR, what is an RI, and other similar topics were discussed in a candid manner.

You can follow @JMaghrebConf or check out their facebook page. java.net published a timely conversation with Badr El Houari - the fearless leader of the Morocco JUG team. Did you know that Morocco JUG stood for JCP EC elections (ADD LINK) ? Even though they did not get elected but did fairly well.

Now some sample tweets from #JMaghreb ...

#JMaghreb is over. Impressive for a first edition! Thanks @badrelhouari and all the @MoroccoJUG team !
Since you @speakjava : System.out.println("Thank you so much dear Tech Evangelist ! The JavaFX was pretty amazing !!! "); #JMaghreb
@YounesVendetta @arungupta @JMaghrebConf Right ! hope he will be back to morocco again and again .. :)
@Alji_ @arungupta @JMaghrebConf That dude is a genius ;) Put it on your wall :p
@arungupta rocking Java EE 6 at @JMaghrebConf #Java #JavaEE #JMaghreb http://t.co/isl0Iq5p
@sonyabarry you are an awesome speaker ;-)
#JMaghreb rich more than 550 attendees in day one. Expecting more tomorrow!
ongratulations @badrelhouari the organisation was great! The talks were pretty interesting, and the turnout was surprising at #JMaghreb!
#JMaghreb is truly awesome... The speakers are unbelievable !
#JavaFX... Just amazing #JMaghreb
Charmed by the talk about #javaFX ( nodes architecture, MVC, Lazy loading, binding... ) gotta start using it intead of SWT. #JMaghreb
JavaFX is killing JFreeChart. It supports Charts a lot of kind of them ... #JMaghreb
The british man is back #JMaghreb I do like him!!
#JMaghreb @arungupta rocking @JMaghrebConf. pic.twitter.com/CNohA3PE
@arungupta Great talk about the future of Java EE (JEE 7 & JEE 8) Thank you. #JMaghreb
JEE7 more mooore power , leeess less code !! #JMaghreb
They are simplifying the existing API for Java Message Service 2.0 #JMaghreb good to know , the more the code is simplified the better !
The Glassdoor guy #arungupta is doing it RIGHT ! #JMaghreb
Great presentation of The Future of the Java Platform: Java EE 7, Java SE 8 & Beyond #jMaghreb
@arungupta is a great Guy apparently #JMaghreb

On a personal front, the hotel (Soiftel Jardin des Roses) was pretty nice and the location was perfect. There was a 1.8 mile loop dirt trail right next to it so I managed to squeeze some runs before my upcoming marathon. Also enjoyed some great Moroccan cuisine - Couscous, Tajine, mint tea, and moroccan salad. Visit to Kasbah of the Udayas, Hassan II (one of the tallest mosque in the world), and eating in a restaurant in a kasbah are some of the exciting local experiences.

Now some pictures from the event (and around the city) ...


And the complete album:



Many thanks to Badr, Faisal, and rest of the team for organizing a great conference. They are already thinking about how to improve the content, logisitics, and flow for the next year. I'm certainly looking forward to JMaghreb 2.0 :-)