Call for Hosts for Akademy 2009

KDE e.V. invites proposals to host Akademy, the yearly KDE contributors conference and community summit, during the Summer of 2009. Akademy is the biggest gathering of the community and includes a two-day conference, the general assembly of the members of KDE e.V., and a week of coding, meeting, and discussing.

For the first time we also invite proposals to hold Akademy and GUADEC, the GNOME community conference, at the same time, in the same location. Proposals should detail plans for hosting up to 800 attendees, with separate facilities available for Akademy and GUADEC planned sessions.

The conferences should be held independently, in the same location, with facilities available for joint sessions of interest to both communities. A co-hosted event would constitute one of the largest events on the planet dedicated to free software on the desktop.

Proposals for Akademy should be sent to kde-ev-board@kde.org, proposals for a co-hosted event should be sent to board@gnome.org as well. The deadline for proposals is June 15th 2008.

Key points which proposals should consider, and which will be taken into account when deciding among candidates, are:

• Local community support for hosting the conference
• The availability and cost of travel from major European cities
• The availability of sufficient low-cost accommodation
• The budget for infrastructure and facilities required to hold the conference
• The availability of restaurants or the organisation of catering on-site
• Local industry and government support
• Ability to organise sponsorship

See the detailed requirements on the KDE e.V. web site for more information about what it needs to host Akademy.

The conference will require availability of facilities for one week, including a weekend, during Summer. Dates should avoid other key free software conferences.

A few words of advice: organising a conference of this size is hard work, but there are many people in the community with experience who will be there to help you. Bear in mind that people coming to these conferences do so primarily to meet up with old friends and have fun, and so the hallway track and social activities are very important.

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