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OpenUK Feb 2024 Newsletter

Zin Lwin
16th February 2024

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Dear Readers,

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

View SOOCon24 Photo Gallery

SOOCon24 Contents on Youtube

Welcome and the Future of Open Source | Amanda Brock | SOOCon24 Plenaries

Watch SOOCon24 Free

Watch SOOCon24 Finance Track

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.

Sign up for London Meet Up

OpenUK in the Press

OpenUK Calls for UK Government to Take Advantage of ‘Key Opportunity’ by Backing AI Innovation

Read now

GitHub: Open Source Projects Risk Dying Without More Funding

Read now

A future Labour government looks to pin its tech sector hopes on open source

Read now

Labour Party Shadow Minister Chi Onwurah Advocates for Open Source in UK’s Tech Policy

Read now

Open Source pioneer Perens says it’s time to contemplate a Post-Open world

Read now

Bruce Perens: Open source licenses “aren’t working” but we can fix them

Read now

Why the ‘Do No Harm’ principle can be key to open source sustainability and equality

Read now

How the UK water industry is collaborating to contextualize water data

Read now

Labour front bencher advocates for open source software and regulatory innovation

Read now

BBC reports micro:bit – the next gen featuring Coel Aspey, Matilda Pringle and Lowena Hull

Read now

A powerful case for more open data

Read now

Preserving the magic of free: new types of licences will not solve open source business model, says Percona founder

Read now

Why open data is needed in the battle to address homelessness

Read now

Open data surgery at the UK’s NHS Business Services Authority – providing user access to vital information

Read now

How to Navigate Open-Source Security Without Stifling Innovation

Read now

‘Open source must be part of AI future’, Lords committee

Read now

How to decide what goes into project and product with Mike Schwartz of Gluu

Read now

More cash for coders: GitHub’s Stormy Peters on open source funding

Read now

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…

Learn more

Events OpenUK Will be Attending

THE DEVOPS CONFERENCE – GLOBAL

March 14, 2024

22 Bishopsgate, London
England, EC2N 4BQ

Amanda Brock, CEO, OpenUK

Talk: “Will Opening AI Destroy Open Source Software?

Get tickets

TRANSFORM 2024: Digital Service Public

May 8, 2024

Bern Town Hall, Rathausgasse 2, Switzerland

Amanda Brock, CEO, OpenUK

Talk: “Opening the public sector to the future”

Get tickets

 

Event of Interest

 

Devoxx UK 2024: The Developer Community Conference

8 – 10 May, 2024 | London

Get tickets

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

Sign up for the OpenUK newsletter

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