ApacheCon Europe comes to Berlin, October 22-24th

ApacheCon Europe comes to Berlin, October 22-24th

When and where is it on?

ApacheCon Europe is taking place this year in Berlin. Berlin is a wonderful city for technology, with lots of small start ups, and big players. It has an amazing energy. We’ll be taking over the Kulturbrauerei from October 22nd through October 24th. We’re also planning a design workshop for the 25th together with c-base and Open Source Design. Design is an important topic this year.

How many years has it been going?

ApacheCon has been around for longer than the Apache Software Foundation, The first ApacheCon was held in San Francisco in 1998, also in October. ApacheCon has played an integral role in the development of the Apache Software Foundation. The Apache Software Foundation turned 20 this year, and we will be using this opportunity to celebrate our successes of the last 20 years.

What was the inspiration to start it?

ApacheCon was started at the very cusp of the explosion of the open source movement. It was inspired by the need of open source developers to share knowledge and network with their peers. The best and brightest are even better and brighter when you get them together sharing their thoughts and dreams for improving existing projects and starting new ones. ApacheCon has, over the years, been key in both shaping the open source movement and in being shaped by it.

What exciting things can people look forward to?

As open source comes into its 20’s it is permeating society more and more. That has effects both on the open source movement and on society. You’ll see this especially reflected this year in our first ApacheCon track on design, where we will be talking about usability and user research as well as the ethical aspects of software design. You’ll also see this in our IoT track as well. IoT is one of the many ways in which open source brings technology into our daily lives.

What opportunities are on offer for those attending?

I’m really excited about all of the talks that we have accepted. It is going to be hard to choose. But ApacheCon is always about the people attending. The hallway track at ApacheCon is first class, and it is going to be even more fun interacting with the Apache luminaries in this beautiful historic location in Berlin. We are planning to kick the conference off with a BarCamp: In a BarCamp, people pick their own topics and present and discuss spontaneously. And we’ll have a hackathon running for the latter two days of the conference.

Some community members plan to organize a documentation hackathon, so if you have questions about a project, you might want to bring those questions with you. And if you want to meet with some colleagues who you rarely see, the hackathon is a good space to do that in.

This year, we are also doing a special workshop in partnership with Open Source Design and c-base, in c-base’s famous space station in Berlin. This is a 4 hour workshop targeted at developers who want to meet the needs of their users better.

Who will be speaking?

We have a keynote planned by Thomas Gageik about the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Informatics (DIGIT). He’s going to give us a peek into how open source is being used by and supported by European institutions. As we’ve seen with GDPR, the European government has huge power for shaping the future of technology on our planet for the public good, and I’m excited to hear what Thomas has to say.

Because this is the 20th anniversary of the Apache Software Foundation, we will also be having a founder’s panel at which the original Apache group will be sharing their experience of our history. Story-telling is how the greatest movements are transmitted forward into the future.

We will also be hearing from Nanjala Nyabola about the ways in which technological advances are intermingling with and affecting society in Kenya and in Africa at large. The intersection of technology and society is a very rich topic, that gets even richer in Africa. We’re glad to be able to offer perspectives from all over the world on the touch points between the two.

What tips would you give to people attending to get the most out of it?

The most important thing you can do: Look at the schedule ahead of time, and pick out the talks you want to attend. You can find the program here: http://aceu19.apachecon.com/schedule Look at the speakers and pick out the experts you’ve always wanted to ask a question of.

If you’re trying to figure out how to get approval from your boss, this is also a good strategy. This way you can show them what you hope to gain from the conference, and what you’ll be able to bring back for your colleagues.

But also do plan to spend some time in Berlin. This is a wonderful city with a great deal to offer.

How can people book tickets / when does it usually sell out?

To book tickets go to the ApacheCon EU website: https://aceu19.apachecon.com/registration The price of tickets on will double on October 7th, so at least plan to order your tickets before then. Last year in Montreal, tickets sold out about a month before ApacheCon started. I had people e-mailing me begging for tickets. It would be safest to order your tickets now. This is a deliberately intimate conference, and you want to get your spot.

More information about Irish Tech News and the Business Showcase

FYI the ROI for you is => We now get over 1.5 million monthly views, and up to 900k monthly unique visitors, from over 160 countries. We have over 860,000 relevant followers on Twitter on our various accounts & were recently described as Ireland’s leading online tech news site and Ireland’s answer to TechCrunch, so we can offer you a good audience!

Since introducing desktop notifications a short time ago, which notify readers directly in their browser of new articles being published, over 16000 people have now signed up to receive them ensuring they are instantly kept up to date on all our latest content. Desktop notifications offer a unique method of serving content directly to verified readers and bypass the issue of content getting lost in people’s crowded news feeds.

Drop us a line if you want to be featured, guest post, suggest a possible interview, or just let us know what you would like to see more of in our future articles. We’re always open to new and interesting suggestions for informative and different articles. Contact us, by email, twitter or whatever social media works for you.

Home

If you would like to have your company featured in the Irish Tech News Business Showcase, get in contact with us at [email protected] or on Twitter: @SimonCocking