[Debconf-team] DebConf11 April 20th update
What happened yesterday couldn't even fit in a novel, so I'll try to
make this as short as possible.
Yesterday I was literally on my feet for 15 hours, but it was one of
the greatest days for DebConf11. Went to Banja Luka, went to many
places, talked with many people, but my main reason for going to Banja
Luka yesterday was that "our" Minister for Technology and Science
Jasmin Komic who's nominated for this years Nobel Price for Peace was
along with couple of other professors releasing their statistical
encyclopedia.
Among attendees, besides myself being present along with many
respected guest, professors there was whole governmental core of
Republika Srpska, including President, Prime Minister and others. To
make things more interesting, this event was held in Banski Dvor in
one of the assembly rooms where I was planning for us to have our BOFs
:) Whole event was just wonderful, talks during the same were also
awesome, in one of the professors addressing even we were indirectly
mentioned in a sense how scientific significance is growing,
especially with upcoming events :)
President Milorad Dodik received an award, as he stood by this project
and supported it from very beginning, I thought this was incredibly
nice gesture, and that we should do the same thing on DebConf. Kilt
anyone? After event President was heading to another event, as all
others were heading to the official dinner, but I got to talk to him
before he left. We talked about DebConf and how it was all going,
later on dinner I talked to Minister as on numerous occasions he would
approach me/us (I was there with DIVA president) and ask if I talked
to this and that person regarding this and that and so on ... as I
started of with gibberish in short this is the situation.
I mentioned couple of situations, for example t-shirts, shuttles and
so on, and how DebConf budget is and so on. For this reason,
Government has decided that they will take care of all the conference
costs, except the travel costs, basically I was told to use my
imagination if I wish, just for this to be best DebConf ever. All they
want from Debian is to "bring" the attendees, the more the better. As
besides having the best shirts, shuttles and so on, in case we need
more accommodation for our attendees we'll get more hotels. I also
talked about concert I was planning to have for DebConf attendees/wine
& cheese party and as well official dinner. After we got this kind of
green light from government, I think these three will just blow your
mind. Besides this daytrip is getting paid, as some won't go to
rafting, they'll get another option to go to, again all sponsored by
government.
Government in this case, isn't just sponsor which wants to appear
under sponsors list, they really allowed me all the resources to make
this happen, *they* want this to happen. Some might ask why as reason
is pretty self elaborate, the better this conference is, the better
picture of government you get, the better government the more
investments and new business you get. Of course, why do they sponsor
event like this on so much, this is (semi) scientific event with new
people talking about new technologies and why should the same be used,
this puts us (Bosnia) in center of this whole region during this
event.
For NYC, DebConf isn't much of an event as all the grounds for this
country have been set up and so on, we're still developing and want to
develop in the best way possible, so I say let's make it happen.
For DebConf global team, which I'm also part of, I suggest we work on
getting as much sponsorships as we can, I'm also planning to "collect"
local ones next week as I'll be in Banja Luka again next week. We'll
use all this sponsorship money to pay for travel reimbursements, we
get as much attendees to get here as possible, as the bigger this
conference is the better. All the surplus that's left, goes to Debian.
We get to have on of best DebConf's so far, we make ourselves happy,
we make Government happy and we all walk out of this as happy as we
can be :)
In case of grammatical errors and typos, it's all due to the
excitement, so do pardon me. What else can I say beside DebConf11 FTW
:)
Adnan
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