(Some) Highlights from GUADEC

There are so many exciting things happening at GUADEC this year, it would be impossible to highlight everything I’m looking forward to. What really excited me about the schedule this year is how diverse the topics are. I really do think this year’s GUADEC has something for everyone, from people just getting to know free and open source software (FOSS) to people who are hardcore GNOME contributors. Please note that all sessions will be captioned in English.

A woman stands behind a desk, looking up at slides. She has a microphone in her hand and is giving a presentation.
“Guadec 2013: Interns lightning talks” by Ana _Rey is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

Staff Sessions

I positively adore my coworkers. I’ll spare you how great they are, and instead focus on some of the talks they’ll be giving.

GKT Core Developer Emmanuele Bassi will be giving two talks: Being a GNOME Maintainer: Best Practices and Known Traps and Archaeology of Accessibility. Being a GNOME Maintainer will discuss what it means to be a GNOME maintainer, and Archaeology of Accessibility will be a technical deep dive into the accessibility work Emmanuele and others have been doing around accessibility. (Note: “Accessibility” refers to the ability of technology to accommodate the needs of users who have disabilities, visual impairments, etc.)

Melissa Wu, who is organizing the Community Engagement Challenge, will give two sessions as well. In her first, Remember What It’s Like to Be New to GNOME, she’ll talk about her experience coming to the GNOME community only a few months ago, getting to know people, and making things happen.

Melissa will also join me for A Year of Strategic Initiatives at GNOME, during which we’ll talk about a range of things that have happened at GNOME over the past year (and some future plans), with a focus on organizational sustainability and the initiatives that make us excited to work here.

Executive Director Neil McGovern will lead the Annual General Meeting, to provide everyone with an overview of what we’ve been doing and what we will do, and answer your questions.

Welcome to FOSS, Welcome to GNOME

New to FOSS? New to GNOME? Not sure what I’m talking about? Check out these sessions!

Building Better Community

In these talks you’ll learn about how to build better, stronger communities and be a better community member. A lot of this is applicable to your life outside of FOSS as well!

Building Better Software

These talks cover ways to build software better. Some of them are focused on GNOME, but all of them will be applicable to whatever you’re working on.

Join us!

Registration for GUADEC is free, but we encourage you to do so anyway. Knowing how many people are attending, and learning about who you are, helps us make GUADEC better every year. Register today!