Tag: Events

Our next interview comes from  Serafín “riptide” Villar, who is a member of the local GUADEC organizing team.

Where do you live and/or work?
Now I’m living in Cambre (a town near A Coruña) and work throughout Galicia.

What do you like to do in your free time?
Any kind of stuff with computers, play flag football, walk with my family, friends and dog.

What is your favorite part of A Coruña (and/or the surrounding area)?
In the city Barrera street is a nice zone to eat and drink something; in the surrounding area the Hercules Tower zone, which has awesome views of the ocean. And some kilometers away the city “A Costa da Morte” is a beautiful place to lose oneself 😀

Why did you want to hold GUADEC in A Coruña?
I’m a computer enthusiast and I like social events, so GUADEC is a good way to enjoy a week.

Have you attended GUADEC in the past? If so, when/where?
No.

Has organizing GUADEC been fun?
Yes, it is a lot of work but worth it.

What was the most challenging aspect of organizing GUADEC?
For me the network design, but the coordination of all the aspects of the event is a huge challenge for Chema.

Any other thoughts on GUADEC this year?
Come and have fun.

Thanks for organizing GUADEC!

Our second interview comes from another member of the local organizing team Alejo Pacín:

Q: Where do you live and/or work?
Alejo: I live in the best place in the world! Taboada, a small rural municipality in the province of Lugo (about 140 km from A Coruña). Some pictures.

Q: What do you like to do in your free time?
Alejo: In addition to computer engineering, I’m a professional musician (violin, Galician bagpipe, Galician traditional percussion, …). Especially in summer, I play a lot with a Galician traditional group called “Varacuncas”.

The rest of the year, I have typical hobbies, such as mountain biking, cross country running, swimming, basketball, football, gym sports, playing video games, watching movies, reading books and so on. Also not-so-typical hobbies, such as collecting dreamcast and old rare hardware (alpha, sparc, powerpc, x86, …), and finally I have a new hobby: Arduino. I really love it!

But above all this, my biggest hobby is to organize the GPUL events: free software/hardware conferences, workshops on cryptography, privacy and security, multimedia conferences, seminars for novice students and, of course, the GUADEC 2012!

Q: What is your favorite part of A Coruña (and/or the surrounding area)?
Alejo: Hmm, a really complicated question. There are so many… But if I have to choose, I think I prefer the Old City. It has a lot of charming places: Galician traditional taverns, parks, museums and so on.

Q: Why did you want to hold GUADEC in A Coruña?
Alejo: There are a lot of reasons to hold GUADEC in A Coruña:

• A Coruña is one of the ten hidden gems of Europe.
• Excelent facilities for work and stay.
• A lot of GNOME users (the Faculty of Computer Science has more than 2500 students and use GNOME on all its computers) and developers.
• A huge local team (more than 400 potential volunteers)

And ,paraphrasing myself: “To be a volunteer at GUADEC is a way to help GNOME to improve the experience of its desktop users”.

Q: Have you attended GUADEC in the past? If so, when/where?
Alejo: No, I have not had that luck. I’m a busy student: no time, no money. But I have attended to some GUADEC-ES edition.

Q: Has organizing GUADEC been fun?
Alejo: Yes, but not at all, obviously. What I liked most were the local team meetings; so funny… xD. But they have many hard and complicated tasks… not so fun. But it’s all for a good cause, so no complaints. 😉

Q: What was the most challenging aspect of organizing GUADEC?
Alejo: Well, I’m on the travel and accommodation team, so I don’t know all aspects. But I think that coordinating so many people (about 220 registrants right now) is the most complicated.

Q: What are you looking forward to most?
Alejo: Well, this is not serious but… the Social Program, of course, :D.

Q: Any other thoughts on GUADEC this year?
Alejo: A lot! But… surprise. MUHAHAHAHA!!!

With GUADEC 2012 starting in just two weeks, GNOME News is starting a series of interviews with members of the local organizing team. Our first interview is from one of the members of the local team, Laura M. Castro.

Where do you live and/or work?
I live and work in A Coruña.

What do you like to do in your free time?
Nothing out of the ordinary, really. I like to spend as much time as possible with my loved ones and closest friends, I love traveling and visiting new places, and I enjoy reading and listening to music.

What is your favorite part of A Coruña (and/or the surrounding area)?

I think the park at Monte de San Pedro (Saint Peter’s Hill) is one of the best spots in the city. It has privileged views of the whole city and the sea, it overlooks a very impressive cliff, and its green grass is perfect to lay down and just let the time flow away looking at the sky. The only bad thing is that it is naturally very windy most of the time… but again that is usually true for most of the city. Picasso did call A Coruña ‘the city of the wind’ for a reason!

Why did you want to hold GUADEC in A Coruña?
It is not the first time I have been involved in the organization of events related to the free software world, and I have always find it to be very enjoyable at many levels. I trust that people visiting our city, and in general this part of the country for the first time, will have an unforgettable time here.

Have you attended GUADEC in the past? If so, when/where?
Well, sort of. I was part of the organization team of the VII GUADEC-ES which was held in A Coruña in 2010.

Has organizing GUADEC been fun?
Yes, people in the local organization group have known each other for a long time, so we enjoy working together. However, the best is yet to come between 26th July and 1st August!

What was the most challenging aspect of organizing GUADEC?
As happens with most software systems: dealing with scale!

What are you looking forward to most?
Attendees enjoying their time at GUADEC.

Any other thoughts on GUADEC this year?
I hope a lot of our local computer science students get involved and decide to actively join the community.

Many thanks to Laura. Stay tuned for the next episode!