Lots of linux.conf.au 2014 details below. I'm really looking forward to it, I hope to see lots of you there. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Paul Del Fante <pdelfante@gmail.com> LCA2014 Official Announcement Announcing linux.conf.au 2014 Overview In January 2014, Perth, Western Australia will be playing host to the continents premier open source conference – linux.conf.au. linux.conf.au draws attendees and speakers worldwide from all spheres of open source, geeks, hackers, professionals, hobbyists and business partners. Conference Format The linux.conf.au conference runs over 5 days from Monday 6th January to Friday 10th January. Conference tickets are available at Professional, Hobbyist and Student levels with associated pricing and perks. Over the first two days we host a series of miniconfs, small single day conferences covering particular topics. Intended as an incubator for related technologies and interests that could eventually hold their own conferences. The miniconfs are managed and run as independent conferences with their own call for papers and management committees. The remaining three days feature a packed conference schedule, in 2014 we will be running presentations over 5 simultaneous tracks. Each track will feature four 45 minute presentations per day. The full programme is available on our website at http://linux.conf.au/programme/schedule. On most days before the main sessions, the conference will open with a keynote presentation. The keynotes tend to follow a less technical approach and provide commentary and insight on broad global trends and open source challenges. Birds of a Feather Sessions Run outside the scope of the formal presentation agenda, linux.conf.au encourages delegates to arrange “Birds of a Feather” - BOF - sessions. These draw together people with a specific area of interest and are run after hours. Typical BOF sessions range from Astronomy, Video capture, Running, Cycling, Hacking and many others. The BOF sessions are a great opportunity to meet and socialise with like minded people during the conference. Video and Streaming All presentations made at linux.conf.au will be recorded and the completed videos made available for download and online viewing. This year we will be attempting to provide a live stream of the proceedings too. Social Programme The linux.conf.au tries to be as accessible to participants as possible, we generally run a partners programme to provide some interest and entertainment to partners of attendees who are not interested in participating. We also arrange a creche facility to care for children while delegates are attending presentations. We also run several semi-formal networking sessions including a speakers dinner on Tuesday, a professional delegates networking function on the Thursday and a penguin dinner open to all delegates on the Wednesday. In addition to the above, various organisations will be hosting social gatherings during the conference and on free evenings. Keynotes At present, we've announced two keynote presenters, with a third still being determined. The confirmed keynote presenters so far are: Jonathon Oxer Jon will be presenting an overview of the latest developments to the ArduSat project as part of his keynote presentation during linux.conf.au 2014 in Perth, Western Australia. Jon has been hacking on both hardware and software since he was a little tacker. Most recently he's been focusing more on the Open Hardware side, co-founding Freetronics as a direct result of organising the first Arduino Miniconf at LCA2010. His books include "Ubuntu Hacks" and "Practical Arduino". Jon has been variously referred to as Australia's geekiest man and as a cyborg-in-progress. As part of his “SuperHouse” home automation series, Jon has taken keyless entry to an all new level by embedding an RFID tag into his arm using a vet's chipping tool. Recently he has been working on ArduSat, a satellite that aims to give hobbyists, students and space enthusiasts an opportunity to design and run their own experiments in space. By choosing a standardised platform based on the hugely popular Arduino hardware design, ArduSat allows anyone to develop and prototype experiments at home using readily accessible parts and all based on a simple open source software environment. Kate Chapman Kate Chapman is the Executive Director of the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team. The Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT) is an initiative of OpenStreetMap to apply the principles of open source and open data sharing towards humanitarian response and economic development. The Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team believes that freely available, up-to-date geographic data can be vital in responding to a disaster. They help communities and responders to utilize the OpenStreetMap data, and encourage them to contribute and update the data. Over the past two years Kate has been primarily based in Indonesia where she has lead the AusAID funded HOT program. The program Scenario Development for Contingency Planning (SD4CP) is a joint initiative of the Indonesian and Australian governments through BNPB (Indonesian Disaster Management Agency) and AusAID that aims to teach disaster mangers how to develop realistic impact scenario for contingency planning. HOT teaches disaster mangers to spatially analysis the combination of scientific hazard model outputs with community knowledge through the open-source software InaSAFE (Indonesia Scenario Assessment For Emergencies). OpenStreetMap is one of the keys elements of this procedure, as it allows the disaster mangers to draw on community knowledge to identify important buildings such as schools and hospitals that potentially be impacted during a disaster. We're really pleased to have Kate coming to talk with us as her personal efforts and her teams work represents an organization that we can really hold up as a shining example of how the open source model truly does work. Miniconfs Each year we try to select a range of topics for our focused mini conferences. This year's miniconf sessions are listed below. Monday: Systems Administration Developer, Testing, Release and Continuous integration Automation Open Government Open Radio Tuesday: OpenStack Linux Kernel Haecksen Astronomy Multimedia and Music Arduino Conference The main conference runs over the remaining three days, and is a full programme of five streams of deep technical presentations and tutorials covering a wide range of topics. To view the full schedule please visit our website at http://linux.conf.au/programme/schedule. Conference Location linux.conf.au will be held in Perth, Western Australia this year. Perth is Australia's most remote capital city, but is also where most of the action is happening. Perth is experiencing an huge amount of growth, driven by the mining boom, but encompassing all aspects of city life. Perth now has a vibrant cultural scene, and our outdoor lifestyle and coastal location is the envy of the world. The last linux.conf.au held in Perth was ten years ago in 2003, so we are really looking forward to hosting the conference again. The linux.conf.au conference is traditionally held on a university campus, utilising the lecture rooms and accommodation facilities they have to offer – 2014 is no exception, and we will be hosting the conference at the University of Western Australia (UWA). The UWA Crawley Campus is situated a short distance from the Perth CBD and adjacent to the magnificent Swan river and Kings Park public space. Accomodation Accommodation will be at the university colleges of St George's http://www.stgeorgescollege.com.au/ and Trinity http://www.trinity.uwa.edu.au/ for full details of the accomodation please refer to our wiki article https://lca2014.linux.org.au/wiki/Campus_accommodation. The accomodation is ideally situated just across the road from the conference and registration areas. Volunteering The conference is run as a voluntary effort. We rely on people to volunteer their time to organise and run the conference. During the conference we are always keen to welcome volunteers to come on board and help with the running of the conference. Interested people can sign up to volunteer at https://lca2014.linux.org.au/volunteer/new. We offer free registration for people who are willing to volunteer a significant portion of their time to the conference. Proposed Focus To provide a degree of consistency linux.conf.au normally selects a general focus to help guide the presenters in topic selection. For 2014 our focus is on “linux on the frontier and deep technical content”. With the scope of Linux broadening at such a rapid pace this provides a broad scope for speakers topics and allows topics to be drawn from just about any sphere of computing, be it cybernetics, mobile operating systems, astronomy, big data, gaming etc. Contacts Please send all correspondence to the LCA2014 Organising Team team@lists.lca2014.linux.org.au Our website is accessible from lca2014.linux.org.au #lca2014 _______________________________________________ Chat mailing list Chat@lists.lca2014.linux.org.au http://lists.lca2014.linux.org.au/mailman/listinfo/chat_lists.lca2014.linux....