Germán Póo-Caamaño

Finally, the Travel Committee has replied to every request for sponsorship received (positives and negatives). So, if you have not received an email from us yet, do not hesitate in get in touch with us through the email or irc (#travel).

We have booked 16 apartments at Catalina Park, which looks nice, in a good location and still austere. We were told they will enable a special room for attendants to the conference. The process of booking took more time than expected, but thanks to Jorge Bustos and Chema Casanova (who gave us a hand from Spain) it was possible to accelerate it.

We tried to sponsor as much contributors as possible, however it was not possible to sponsor everybody.

At the end, we received 51 applications, 3 of them arrived a bit later and other 3 very later. We have assigned assistantship to 43 people (travel and/or accommodation).

The Travel Committee is expected to reply every request for sponsorship in the next two weeks after the deadline. Because the original deadline was April 27, people who applied for sponsorship are worried because they do not have received any email coming from us yet (neither positive or negative).

Aserrín (Sawdust)

So, this is just an update of the GUADEC sponsorship process in order to let the people know in which part of the process we are. So, if you are waiting news from us, do not get nervous.

On Thursday 7, we replied to the sponsorship requests of the first group of people. This group was composed by people who have a work (talk) accepted to be presented at GUADEC. It was possible because it was a small group and we were sure we could cover their costs (mostly).

Besides, the Travel Committee is taking care of the accommodations. It let us to reduce and keep under control the costs, hence, we can support more people. And it will depend of the final place how many people we will be able to sponsor. We are delayed because the booking process has been slower than we expected. But we are working on it.

But I let you know we are prioritizing mainly as following: speakers (core, cross-desktop, normal, bof, lightning talk), foundation members, summer of code students, other people. There are other factors, such as, give the chance to people who were not sponsored the last year or people.

One thing is sure: if you get accommodation sponsorship, you will not stay at Hotel Fataga. It is one of the most expensive hotels in the list and it is only our last resort.

Panorama of Iguassu falls
The Travel Committee has received 48 sponsorship requests and we have started to processing them. It will be a bit hard, as you may guess and as you may deduce according the following tables:

General statitics

5	Females
43	Males
19	Speakers (not confirmed yet)
8	Google Summer of Code students
30	Members of GNOME Foundation
1	Applicant declined his request

Requests and funds (in US dollars)

Minimum requested:	$ 59,038.-
Maximum requested:	$ 61,101.-
Funds available for sponsoships:	$ 30,000.-

The amount requested should be a bit higher than it is shown in the second table, because we need to get some clarification from some people. However, I am confident we could save at least $ 9,000 if we look for a different lodging than the main one recommended by the organizers.

Sooner than later we should send emails asking for more information (when it were needed). We will do our best.

If you feel angry or disheartened because you missed the deadline to apply for sponsorship to attend to GUADEC 2009

the deadline has been extended in 72 hours. Applications will be received until April 30 19:00 UTC.

Read carefully the instructions and the proccess at the Travel’s page.

To everybody who have sent an application for travel & accomodation sponsorship:

If you did it before than April 27 02:00 UTC, I have sent an acknowledgment (email) confirming we (the Travel Committee) have received your request. If you have not received any acknowledgment coming from me, you should re-send your application.

Butterfly at Iguassu Falls

Dear hackers,

The Travel Committee is receiving applications for travel sponsorship requests for the next GUADEC which will be held in Gran Canaria. The deadline is April 27, 2009, 19:00 UTC. Do no wait until the very last minute.

Read carefully the instructions and the proccess at the Travel’s page.

Finally I am going to Brazil to the second version of Fórum do GNOME that will take place at Curitiba, Brazil. I am looking forward to meet Lucas Rocha, Sandino Flores, Tim Ney, Marcos Mazoni, Izabel Valverde and the local community. (Thanks to Celepar for funding my ticket to get there).

Also, I will be speaking about GNOME at “I Seminário de Software Livre”, at Univeridade Metodista de São Paulo on Tuesday 29.

Sadly, I will not be able to attend to “III SOLISC – Congresso Catarinense de Software Livre” at Florianópolis, because I must return to my work before Friday 2.

I will do my best effort to get my slides in Brazilian Portuguese, as well as in Spanish and English (as backup. I am just a little worried if I would be able to be understood, not because of the language itself (I know they understand Spanish and I understand some portuguese as well), because I usually speak a fast Spanish, even for Chilean standards (we are known to speak fast). I hope nobody care to stop me any time is needed.

I just uploaded the slides of my talk/BOF at the 6th GUADEC at Sttugart.

My original idea was to write about the discussion that we had during my talak, which was quite interesting for me. But I haven’t have engough time to do it.

Anyway, some of the slides were written as funny and superficial. It was a mix of joke and serious talk; mainly to get an idea of the difference that people (potential contributors) perceive in some 3th world countries.

The original idea was conceived in the middle of a conversation that Roozbeh and I had during the 5th GUADEC at Kristiansand, Norway.