Hi, We are declaring our intention to bid for hosting DebConf16 in Cape Town, South Africa. Cape Town, also known as "The Mother City", is Africa's southern most city with a population of nearly 4 million people. It's technologically developed with a Mediterranean climate and many natural attractions throughout the city and in the greater Western Cape province. It's the second-most populous city in South Africa after Johannesburg. We believe that Cape Town would make a good host city for a DebConf, and is the perfect city for the first DebConf in Africa. It is a truly beautiful part of the world, and if we are lucky with weather, attendees will be in for a treat. We are bidding with 3 options that we consider viable. There is a strong preference towards the first venue, in the upper campus of University of Cape Town. This would be free of cost us, and provide very affordable accommodation, saving the majority of the budget for good food, transport, and travel sponsorship. It is set in a beautiful location, on the slopes of Devil's Peak, surrounded by the mountain (national park) on 3 sides. There is another UCT campus that we could consider - Breakwater Lodge, which is situated in the V&A Waterfront, near many shops, hotels, and restaurants. This is run as a professional conference hotel, by UCT business students, and we'd have to pay for these services. We have managed to negotiate discounts, but not enough to make this a better choice than upper campus, yet. The UCT choices provide excellent Internet connectivity - they're on a 10Gbps academic fibre ring. Finally, we have an option that isn't affiliated with UCT - the Protea hotel in Technopark, outside the university town of Stellenbosch. This would be a far more remote venue, an hour's walk from town, in wine country. Again, this is a dedicated conference hotel, and it wouldn't be cheap, but would require very little organisation from our side. Most of our preparatory effort has gone into our primary choice, UCT Upper Campus. There are quite a few unknowns for the backup venues, but we will try to flesh them out over the upcoming weeks. Herewith, the bid: https://wiki.debconf.org/wiki/DebConf16/Bids/Cape_Town SR -- Stefano Rivera http://tumbleweed.org.za/ +1 415 683 3272
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