Google has published the list of 60 student proposals that have been accepted for Google Summer of Code 2012 for KDE. It means that 60 students will be able to work full-time on changing the world this summer! A big thank you to Google for making this possible.

Latin America is a big place with many opportunities for KDE; major deployments of KDE software are proof. Over the years, groups of KDE developers have emerged in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Peru, and probably other places. These groups work together to make a better KDE. As we know, meeting and talking in person is important to strengthen the bonds in a community. So we decided to organize a Latin American meeting of KDE contributors following the lead of the first Akademy-br in 2009. Like Akademy-br, the first LaKademy will be similar to a sprint for developers and one for people interested in promoting KDE in this part of the world.

The first LaKademy is taking place in the city of Porto Alegre, Brazil from April 27th to May 1st, 2012. People were invited from Brazil, Argentina, Peru, and Colombia. 12 known KDE contributors have confirmed their presence, along with 6 newcomers. Current KDE contributors recommended newcomers based on their abilities and their potential to become long-time KDE contributors.

KDE China User meeting

On March 30th, a grand meeting called KDE China User was held in Beijing. This meeting provided KDE users, community members and technophiles with a nice "face-to-face" opportunity to discuss KDE's latest and cutting edge technology trends. Read on to find out what transpired at the meeting and what the future might hold for KDE in China.

Aaron in action at COSCUP 2011

COSCUP is the largest FLOSS conference organized by local communities in Taiwan. The conference has sessions for new users, enthusiastic promoters, coders or anyone who is interested in cutting-edge FLOSS technologies. This year, KDE and openSUSE will be jointly organizing one of the three dedicated tracks and we're happy to announce the CfP is open!

KDE Cascadia will be held in partnership with LinuxFest Northwest (LFNW) in Bellingham, Washington on April 28 and 29, 2012. This is a pilot of regional KDE gatherings in conjunction with established grassroots FOSS conferences. The goals are to reduce the effort and expense associated with a single annual stand-alone meeting, and to increase user and developer involvement in KDE. The LFNW Organizers warmly welcome the KDE Community.

We are glad to announce that KDE has been accepted as a mentoring organization for Google Summer of Code for the 8^th time. We look forward to working with great students throughout the summer again.

Akademy—the annual world summit of the KDE Community—will take place from 30 June to 6 July in Tallinn, Estonia. 10 years of Akademy; 15 years of KDE!

In the middle of cold January, the team behind DigiKam met in Genoa, the sunny old port city in northern Italy. DigiKam is the award-winning KDE photo management application. Participants started gathering in the evening on Thursday 12 January, getting together over dinner to form new friendships and to find out how people's lives were going. The next day, real work started.

The 10^th KDE PIM Meeting in Osnabrück finished on 12 February. Starting with pizza Friday afternoon running until Sunday around 17:00, the meeting attracted more than 20 hackers working on the various parts of KDE PIM. There was talk, code, beer, a group picture and even an anti-ACTA demonstration. Read on for a report on the meeting.

Thinking of starting a free and open source project? Looking for inspiration on an existing project? Lydia Pintscher has pulled together useful wisdom from free and open community leaders in a new book—Open Advice.