BETT is the world's largest education technology exhibition. For four days in January, the education technology industry and establishment takes over Kensington Olympia to play host to close on 30,000 visitors from all sectors of education in the UK and further afield. It's quite a sobering sight to see how much money must be involved in education technology with lavish stands, glossy brochures and some not inexpensive handouts.

In Beyond Technology, David Buckingham writes:

"The BETT Show represents a prime example of what we might call the 'educational-technology complex' in action. While not quite as conspiratorial as the military-industrial one, this complex represents a powerful alliance between public and private interests ... There are considerable grounds for questioning the claim that the products on sale at BETT are as genuinely 'innovative' as the marketeers claim ... certainly, much of the educational content made available via these new media is far from novel: much of it is little more that a repackaging of the traditional curriculum."

BETT also has an extensive seminar programme, providing an easy way of keeping up to date on government initiatives, research and leading edge practice.

The last couple of years have seen a move towards teachers taking a more active role at BETT, with stands and events that step away from the usual format, such as 2006's Moodle stand ran by teachers, and TeachMeets in 2008 and 2009, with another scheduled for the Friday this year. It's in this spirit that the Open Source Café offers an alternative approach, with a rolling barcamp style programme of teachers and techies sharing their experience and expertise of open source.