Conference

[hardeeprai]

Has FreeCAD developers / users ever conducted any conference?

I might be good, if we have one in near future.

What is your opinion?

[chrisb]

ping

[easyw-fc]

https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic.php?t=27169

[bitacovir]

http://yorik.uncreated.net/blog/2016-309
http://yorik.uncreated.net/blog/2015-159
http://yorik.uncreated.net/blog/2015-037

[shiftee]

I think he means a FreeCAD conference, similar to the one KiCAD had recently: https://kicad-kicon.com

It might be a nice even for GSOC students to present their work etc.

[jmaustpc]

Has FreeCAD developers / users ever conducted any conference?

I might be good, if we have one in near future.

What is your opinion?

We have had some discussions about this lately. the questions related are
where to hold it? We are all located all over the world.
how to pay for it?
what exactly will we do during the conference and what exactly do we want the conference to achieve?
who is going to take on the huge task and responsibility of organising the event?

One idea for the first one...where...was my place! This started originally as a joke. I live about as far away from most of you as you could get, but at least my place would be about equal travel time or very roughly, for most of you. I live in rural Australia, only about 300km inland from Sydney so this is not the very remote areas that most Australians call the "outback" but by the standards of a lot of you, well it pretty much is. I had not made any public posts about this, it was only talked about amongst what might be described as the "de-facto leadership team of FreeCAD". I did not want to until I decided if it might really happen. The government out here is actually rather keen for this to happen and offered some facilities and some funding from tourism development grants. The government hopes that I would invite a crowd to the "software conference" and that most would extend their stay in Australia for a week or two or more, to have a holiday while they are here. You only need to be able to get a tourist visa to come to this event in Australia which for most of you will be easy. I could help anyone to get a visa who has made a substantial input to FreeCAD, if they needed any help.

Most of the grants work by offering to match any funding received elsewhere, hence typically would double our budget, however to get that grant money you have to be getting some funding elsewhere. Hence we would presumably need sponsors and the like.

If I agree to commit to the time/responsibility to organise this then it really could happen.

I would host the event somewhere inland from Sydney. In a town where there are the facilities to hold the event and public transport from Sydney. My immediate thought might be Bathurst or Orange NSW since they have several trains per day and an airport. Bathurst is famous for its motor racing track "Mount Panorama". Its actually both an ultra modern race track and yet still legally a public road so when there is not a race being held, tourists can drive themselves around the track.

A good number of the people who know about this so far said they really would come. But how many of you would come if anyone from the general public was invited?

Jim

[bitacovir]

I was part of 4 conference organizations. I organised 2 at Chile and 2 at Melbourne Australia.
The money is not the main issue. You always will find money from grants or other sources.
What you really need is a local team to organize the event. And enough interested people around as public. I mean a local community. I think it is more realistic first to build or contact this local network (in universities, fablabs, makerspaces, etc) and then later to hold a conference event.

[jmaustpc]

I organised 2 at Chile and 2 at Melbourne Australia.

What were the conferences about? Were they arranged via Universities?

Do you mean as part of a team or did you do most of the organising yourself?

Why Melbourne! ? Aren't you in South America, I thought you were in Chile?

The money is not the main issue. You always will find money from grants or other sources.

Maybe, but someone still has to go through all the processes to sort it out.

What you really need is a local team to organize the event.

Yes, but .....

And enough interested people around as public. I mean a local community. I think it is more realistic first to build or contact this local network (in universities, fablabs, makerspaces, etc) and then later to hold a conference event.

It also depends on what the purpose and scope of the meeting/conference is to be.

[chrisb]

The money is not the main issue. You always will find money from grants or other sources.

This depends heavily on the target group. If companies and universities support attendance it is no big issue. But as far as I can see is FreeCAD development and usage more dedicated to spare time than to work time. I would afford traveling to Australia solely for a conference. I would instead like to take my wife and make a trip through the country. So Jim's plans fit well.

What you really need is a local team to organize the event.

Again, this depends on the target group. I have as well organized a rather big scientific conference when I still was young and good looking (one of these attributes has changed). And you are right, that was most important then: We had to plan the conference, print posters, organize hotels, transport, meals, coffee, cookies, ...

I think we can do something different. I have exchanged many posts here, most about FreeCAD but not all. I have the impression that the FreeCAD community is open minded enough to accept different conditions. And that can provide the mood of being part of something new, interesting, and charming.

The one thing - and that may not be easy to find is a place where we meet. If it's not too small a town we can from abroad
- plan the conference
- no need to print posters, but if we want them we can bring them
- look up the places in the internet and book the hotel
- check the transport to and from the meeting place
- on the conference: if we feel hungry we go out and find a place to eat

Depending on the conference location they may provide cups and big thermoses for the coffee. So I would ask Jim to buy a load of coffee and cookies and we will brew the coffee ourselves, knowing that it's done when it's done.

What will happen if we forgot something important? Basically nothing. It's our own fault, and nobody can be blamed.

[bitacovir]

What were the conferences about? Were they arranged via Universities?

Do you mean as part of a team or did you do most of the organising yourself?

Why Melbourne! ? Aren't you in South America, I thought you were in Chile?

The first one was in 1995. The ELEA valparaiso. A conference for architecture students. We received 1500 students from latin america. It involved an organization of several teams from 5 universities. All students. Universities helped a lot, but not with money.
The second one was the Flisol conference in Santiago (a free software conference). It was around 2006... I don´t remember. We received more or less 300 or 400 people (just local people). The event was held in a university but the organization was private.
And the other 2 were in Melbourne during my PhD. I think in 2015/2016 The Conferences of Chilean student associations. 100 people each... in Melbourne Uni... with some international guests. Australia is a rich country. There we got grants easily.
And always I participated as a part of a team.

I am just saying that it is easier when you organize an event with the support of a local community.
PD: since 2017 I am in Chile