It’s not every day that we receive visits from entrepreneurs or nonprofits leads who can site as viral of growth as the EdCamp movement. For those of you wondering if that the name for some educational type of summer camp, let me help you out. Edcamps, or “unconferences,” bring together teachers, tech experts, entrepreneurs, and anyone else interested in the education landscape, to talk about, well, whatever they want. They involve very little planning, and the schedule is entirely decided by participants only once they’ve showed up to an EdCamp. Sound a little unconventional? Well, this novelty has become, dare we say, a viral movement since the very first gathering back in May 2010. In fact, there have been more than 250 Edcamps around the world in the last year alone.

The Executive Director of the EdCamp Foundation, Hadley Ferguson, stopped by the EdSurge Office on October 19 because we were curious to learn more about just what caused this viral growth. But we didn’t stop there. Are there too many EdCamps? Are entrepreneurs starting to use them as a marketing opportunity, which affects the sacred space that is EdCamp? Are these worries becoming a reality? Hadley answered all those questions and more in this EdSurge Extra.