Short update on the LibreOffice Conference in Paris

I thought it would be useful to update everyone on the Paris LibreOffice Conference, as we received several inquiries especially from speakers of the conference. We have ended the selection process of the conference proposals and are right now dispatching each of the selected papers to a fixed room, day and time and have sent the confirmation or rejection email(s) to everyone of the submitter (if you have submitted a proposal and are reading this and you haven’t received anything do contact me).

Thanks to a great team work and a small contest we now have a very nice conference template that you may download here that will be used by the conference speakers as their presentation template during the event. The next big step is to publish the detailed schedule of the conference. Right now all you may see is an outdated and rather imprecise looking schedule. This will change in the coming days.

The conference will take place in two locations. One is called La Cantine and is a famous meeting place for hackers and researchers communities in France. The place itself is located in one of these nineteenth century “passages couverts” of the french capital that were built from early napoleonic times till the middle of the century. Do not expect something monumental, neither outside in the Passage or inside La Cantine. The whole point of the place is to meet and collaborate, and that’s why such a location matters. La Cantine is located very much in the centre of Paris, behind the old stock exchange and two metro stations away from the Opera Garnier. The other location is the IRILL an acronym standing for International Research Institute for Free Software. This place is located near the Place d’Italie in the southeastern quadrant of the city. This is part of a much larger university in Paris, and the building is shared with a large post office (you might have the feeling you’re entering a post office the first time you’re getting there).The inside has a modern design and will sport two large conference rooms with all the equipment (even streaming video) that you come to expect. One of the two rooms is on the top floor of the building and has a roof garden accessible from the room itself. The other one has sofas for informal meetings in a corner with espresso machine not far away.

But the conference won’t be “only” about conference and talks. We have several events for the evenings and nights. On the 12th at 6 pm there will be the cocktail party by Cap Digital and on the 13th a rather big event at the Paris Region headquarters where pretty much everyone from the IT community in Paris is invited and is simply called the LibreOffice Party at la Region. This is not just an opportunity to drink and eat “for free”, it’s an opportunity to learn about quite a few announcements we’ve been keeping under wraps.  We hope to see all of you (and more!) there. The evening parties don’t stop there: there will be the Friday Night’s special by AF83 with beer and music.

Stay tuned and don’t forget to register if that’s not already done. See you soon in Paris!