Bamboo is proud to be a platinum sponsor of the upcoming SharePoint Saturday D.C., taking place May 15 on the campus of Northern Virginia Community College (NVCC) in Annandale, VA. I recently spoke with Dux Raymond Sy, one of the event organizers (along with Dan Usher, Gino Degregori, and Jennifer Davis), and I wanted to share with Bamboo Nation some of the exciting news I learned in that conversation.

This spring’s SharePoint Saturday D.C. promises to be the biggest SharePoint Saturday ever, an honor befitting its pole position, as the event takes place just three days after the official launch date of SharePoint 2010 (and is the only SharePoint Saturday taking place that day). What’s more, and what’s stated on the official SharePoint Saturday D.C. site to the contrary, Dux tells me that the NVCC Community Cultural Center can accommodate up to 1,200 attendees. Registration for the free event opened on March 12 with a stated capacity of 800, and there have been over 450 registrations already. While Dux is publicly expecting to hit the 800 capacity that’s announced on the official SharePoint Saturday D.C. site, I think he’s secretly hoping to pack the joint and max out at or near that 1,200 figure. I’ll make no secret of my own hope that he succeeds in doing so.

Dux also tells me that the schedule will be released sometime this week, and to expect 45-50 sessions spread out over 10 to 12 distinct tracks with each track accommodating about 5 sessions. Not at all, surprisingly, given the timing of the event, there will be “multiple 2010 tracks” from which attendees may choose. Dux also shared a few of the high profile speaker names with me, and they include: Thomas Vander Wal, who famously coined the term, “folksonomy”; Tony Byrne, president of the Real Story Group (formerly CMS Watch), and noted SharePoint analyst; Sahil Malik, Microsoft MVP and author of the forthcoming book, Microsoft SharePoint 2010: Building Solutions for SharePoint 2010; Ed Hild, Technology Architect at Microsoft specializing in Portal and Collaboration solutions; Tom Resing, Microsoft Certified Master (MCM) in SharePoint; and Michael Lotter, SharePoint Solution Architect, Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist, and founder of SharePoint Saturday.

Dux is known throughout the SharePoint community not only for his subject matter expertise on using SharePoint for project management but also as the organizer of community-wide humanitarian efforts. With the SharePoint Saturday D.C. event that he organized last year, Dux asked attendees and sponsors to contribute to a canned food drive which ended up seeing a terrific response from the community. With this year’s event, Dux has made it even easier for you to give back in exchange for the SharePoint knowledge you’ll be soaking up for free at SharePoint Saturday D.C. There’s no requirement to donate of course, but when you register for the event this year, you’ll notice that there are two options: Attendee – Free, and Attendee w/Optional Donation to Red Cross. The latter option includes a donation of $20.10 to be made in your name to the Red Cross.

So, to recap May 15. Save the date, register now to attend, consider the optional donation to the Red Cross, and be a part of SharePoint Saturday history by attending the largest SharePoint Saturday to date!