Thank you to the 902 people who signed up and 89% of them who joined us at SOOCon24 last week. The event could not have been possible without the CFP Chairs and Committees and Track Hosts, Sam and Kim and the volunteer staff at the venue, the 208 speakers and the 50 table holders and sponsors. Thank you.
I am delighted to share that two sponsors have already come on board for SOOCon25 and we are looking to secure more now. The sponsors make it possible for us to build the most inclusive and diverse event in open technology globally – I can stand by this statement – and one of the most diverse events in UK tech.
But it’s not a diversity event. It’s a conference with some of the best content you will see anywhere in the world and engages the UK and international audience sitting at the intersection of engineering, business and law and policy. If you attended you will also see that the £199 ticket price and the free tickets are only possible thanks to our amazing sponsors – Arm, Avanade, Cisco, GitHub, Google, the ODI, the Digital Catapult and Stability.AI, and our track sponsors Percona, Open Compute Project, Microsoft, Mirantis, FerretDB, ControlPlane, SUSE and Open Invention Network.
There is space for everyone and as Stuart Langridge said to me, “It feels like it used to” because this event is about community. It’s also where one of our sponsors told us they had done the most business of any conference in the last 12 months, creating a unique and special blend. Perhaps the “UK’s OSCON” as James Governor said.
We saw the most important policy conversations at a conference from any Government in the world with direct consultations – before the legislation – taking place with almost 200 people representing community, Baroness Stowell delivering her first address as Chair of the UK’s House of Lords Digital and Communications Committee LLM Inquiry following their report and Chi Onwurah of the Labour Front Bench, showing their understanding of the importance of and their potential support for the open source communities here in the UK. And we dealt with the nitty gritty of the future of open source and digital with some of the most influential speakers in the world from Bruce Perens to Peter Zaitsev, Dr Allan Friedman, Sarah Novotny and Stephen Augustus.
We don’t know yet if the conference formula will repeat a third time but we will certainly be giving it a try. So if you enjoyed it or would like to next year then get in touch and let us know you would like to be part of a CFP committee for next year, or to help organise – drop a note to admin@openuk.uk
I cannot say it enough to everyone who made this what it was… thank you.
Get involved in SOOCon25
SAVE THE DATE: See You Next Year! Mark your calendars for 4th and 5th of February 2025, happening at Southbank, London. SOOCon25 is on the horizon, and we can’t wait to see you again! If you’re interested in joining the CFP Committees, sponsoring, or participating as a table holder, please reach out to us at admin@openuk.uk.
SOOCon24 Gallery
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
SOOCon24 Contents on Youtube
SOOCon24 Wrapup
Read the blog by Jennifer Riggins
OpenUK Meet Up
OpenUK London #11: Open Source Community
Join us on Tuesday 20th February for our 11th OpenUK London community meet up! Following up what will sure be a community-centric, fun and informative State of Open Con earlier this month, we think it only makes sense to focus on what makes open source unique – it’s community!
Thank you once again to Avanade for sponsoring the venue and providing the refreshments.
OpenUK in the Press
KubeCon
KubeCon
19 – 22 March
Paris, France
OpenUK will be at KubeCon for the first tine as we are creators of 4 challenges in the KubeCon Hackathons which we collaborated on with the United Nations, and which pick up on the OpenUK Data centre blueprint created for COP25. Our CEO, Amanda Brock is part of the Hackathon jury. And there are cash prizes of $3k,7k and for the winner $10k. So to our data centre community – do please enter and get hacking.
OpenUK Provided the following challenges for KubeCon
Challenge 2: Heat Redirection – Development Challenge
Challenge 3: Building Repurposing – Development Challenge
Challenge 4: Heat Reuse – Data Challenge
Challenge 5: Circular Supply Chain
And we hope to see many of you enter…
Events OpenUK Will be Attending
|
|
|
Event of Interest
|
|
Devoxx UK 2024: The Developer Community Conference8 – 10 May, 2024 | London |
To get more involved with our work, events and activities contact admin@openuk.uk We host a calendar of all Open Technology Industry events and if you would like us to add your event we will share a form via admin@openuk.uk There’s a lot of important work happening at the moment, particularly around the impact of AI, open source policy and a lot of fun to be had with OpenUK as we engage with our communities through MeetUps, Awards and other events.
Cheers,
Amanda
Amanda Brock, CEO
For information on anything in this newsletter or to get involved contact admin@openuk.uk
