2024 Open edX Conference & Coworking - July 1st-12th

Announcements - Public
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The 2024 Open edX conference dates and location have been announced! :D

And we will be doing the coworking week the week after - so make sure to block Jul 1st to 12th 2024 in your calendar, so we can all see each other in Cape Town.

Epic owner?

That means we can start organizing for it! The very first thing we will need for this, is someone to be willing to take on the epic ownership of the 2024 edition? (Cf the 2023 epic to get an idea.) Given the location, I’m looking at you @Ali and @cassie, but no pressure :stuck_out_tongue:

Talks proposals

Then among the first tasks on that epic will be to start brainstorming for talk proposals - so something to start thinking about and keeping on the back of our minds. What are some of the topics that we can talk about, that would be of particular interest to the larger community?

Attendance

Also, since we had a bit of an underwhelming attendance at the coworking week last year, I want to make sure we are in agreement about attending all together. On the OpenCraft budget side, we are not fully out of the woods yet, but the situation on sustainability has improved a bit, so we will find a solution to fund having everyone coming. Can you confirm that you will be coming, too?

To be clear, attendance is part of the commitments in the contract and on the handbook, at least for anyone who has joined after July 2018 – and even for those who joined before, please try to come, we haven’t gathered all together in a very long while! Covid really got in the way in the past few years, and I’d really like to make sure we get a proper chance to catchup in person this year.

  • Count me in!
  • I have exceptional circumstances that would prevent me from coming
  • Other

0 voters

Suggestions

Also, before we start planning for things, any suggestions for this year? Either things to do better, to avoid, or to make sure to do again? It’s a good time to suggest those :slight_smile:

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YES!!! I’d love to be the epic owner for this! :earth_africa: :heart: :south_africa:

@cassie and I have already started throwing around ideas for the fun things we could do. She and I will probably share the load and tackle this epic together, but I will be the “official” EO.

I’m so excited to have you all in our beautiful country!

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I’m excited to be your support staff @Ali! :star2: :heart_eyes: :south_africa:

@antoviaque I’m the “official” EO for the Conference 2024 Brand Design - but Ali is obvs working on it too. So splitting duties is easy for us :slight_smile:

Looking forward to welcoming you all!

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I have an important trip/event to attend right around the time of the conf (I never could have guessed that the conf would happen in July), but I might be able to attend the coworking week : ) I’ll keep you posted.

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I’d love to attend, but as of now I’m still prohibited from leaving my country due to the martial law. I’ll let you know if anything changes.

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Hi @team,

I know it’s still early days, but if you haven’t already, please would respond to the poll at the beginning of this thread so we can start getting an idea of numbers?

Thank you!

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I voted other as I depend on my kids’ vacation dates. I’ll probably be able to make it for part of it but the two weeks will be tough.

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@team we’re still missing a few votes. Can everyone please answer the conference presence poll above?

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@DouglasDraper @farhaan @mtyaka @navin

Sorry to be a pain, but please answer the poll as soon as you get a chance so that we can start finalising the budget. Remember to provide more details if you select anything other than “count me in”.

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@Ali Done. Sorry I completely missed this thread.

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@Ali please note that Farhaan is on leave right now.

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@gabriel Thanks for the heads up.

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Sorry, I completely missed that part.

I voted other because I won’t be able to attend both the conference and the coworking week, i.e., my stay would be shorter than 13 days.

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@tikr That’s a pity, but I’m glad we’ll get to see you for a part of the time :star_struck: (it still blows my mind that we haven’t met in person!).

Do you know yet which dates you will be with us? If not, please let me know when you do.

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I switched my answer to “other” since we recently got my wife’s work/vacation schedule for next year and there is a high chance we will be traveling around the time of the co-working week to visit family. I will be able to attend the conference week/weekend though, so 1-7 July.

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@yusuf Thanks for the heads up. I’m glad I’ll get the chance to meet you in person! :slight_smile:

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@yusuf Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but the two weeks aren’t optional - it’s the only time during the year where we require team members to be somewhere (vs most jobs requiring it every working day), so we need to have everyone coming for the full two weeks.

I know it can be confusing to see this in the current thread, as some of the older team members from before 2018 aren’t strictly required to come and can opt out (or partially), because we put only these requirements in the contract in more recent years, when we started understanding the importance of having a proper IRL meetup. Could your wife take her vacations at a slightly different time?

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Me too! :slight_smile:

Will do :+1: I’m expecting to have an answer in about week.

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@antoviaque I see, I was under the impression that attending the conference was mandatory, the wording in the handbook only mentions the conference, but then I double checked the contract, and you’re right it mentions the retreats.

Since it’s happening in summer, that is usually the time we take time off, but will discuss with her to see how we can push things around.

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@Ali Likewise! :smiley: Looking forward to it.

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