Linux.Conf.Au 2010 Welcomes Over 700 Technologists

Linux.Conf.Au 2010 Welcomes Over 700 Technologists, Bringing Together The Best And Brightest Minds In The Free And Open Source Software Community.

linux.conf.au continues to be one of the premier Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) conferences in the calendar year with strong community and corporate support in 2010. Glynn Foster, LCA2010 team member, welcomed a diverse audience of 700 people to Wellington, New Zealand. Delegates have arrived from New Zealand (40%), Australia (40%) and the rest of the world (20%). LCA2010 also has the highest percentage of women attending the conference this year at 15%, with a total of 26 women speakers over the course of the week. Also represented at the conference are people from pacific nations such as Tuvalu and the Philippines receiving financial assistance as part of the InternetNZ Oceania Programme. Life Flight Charity, http://www.lifeflight.org.nz/, was also announced as the official charity for the event, offering a prize of a helicopter trip over Wellington and a thrilling 8mm wire winch up to 4 people who donated the most to the charity during the week.

Diversity

What the conference demonstrates is the richness, depth and diversity of FOSS. Talks cover business issues, government as well as technical and and instructional Subjects. For example delegates can chose to hear about on graphics packages, accounting software, programming languages, and, of course, Linux including some its latest incarnations such as Moblin.

Live Streaming

All sessions are live streamed on the conference web site, http://lca2010.org.nz linked through from the schedule page. This a first for LCA and increases our potential audience exponentially. It is free for all Internet users and there is an opportunity to re-syndicate these feeds. A full list of available streams is also available at http://www.r2.co.nz/20100118/.

Keynotes

LCA2010 has an inspiring and thought provoking line up of keynote speakers this year:

Gabriella Coleman - Gabriella is an assistant professor in the Department of Media, Culture, and Communication at NYU. Trained as anthropologist, she examines the ethics and online collaboration with a focus on Free and Open Source Software.

Benjamin Mako Hill - Benjamin (Mako) is a technology and intellectual property researcher, activist, and consultant. He is currently a Senior Researcher at the MIT Sloan School of Management, a Fellow at the MIT Center for Future Civic Media, and an adviser and contractor for the One Laptop per Child project.

Glyn Moody - Glyn is a writer, journalist, and blogger. In August 1997, his feature “The Greatest OS that (N)ever Was” appeared in Wired magazine; his history of free software and open source, “Rebel Code”, was published by Penguin in 2001.

Nathan Torkington - Nathan ran the first web server in New Zealand, chaired the O'Reilly Open Source Convention and other O'Reilly conferences for over a decade. He co-wrote the best-selling Perl Cookbook, serves on the board of the Perl Foundation, and more locally, Kiwi Foo Camp, an unconference style event that mirrors the O'Reilly Foo Camp held in the USA.

Speakers

LCA2010 also has a terrific supporting line up of speakers including:

Using Arduino to teach Embedded Systems to high school students - Peter Chubb

The Kernel Report - Jonathan Corbet

Flying Rockets with Free Hardware and Free Software - Bdale Garbee and Keith Packard

Electric Freedom - Phillip Court Teaching FOSS at universities - Andrew Tridgell and Bob Edwards

FOSS and Maori Language Computer Initiatives - Te Taka Keegan

When Free Software is against the law, only outlaws will have Free Software - Colin Jackson

Lessons learned from a growing project - Michael Koziarski

Secure and Simple Sandboxing in SELinux - James Morris

Events

The social aspect of linux.conf.au is hugely important as it is often the best chance delegates get to sit across the table with community members they aspire to or have been working with over the past few years. With the Professional Delegates Networking session and Penguin Dinner as standard events at linux.conf.au, LCA2010 introduces new 'unconference-style' activities such as Tweet-Ups, Yoga sessions, Photography Competition around Wellington, a viewing of the Code Rush documentary and Girl Geek dinner meet-up.

ENDS

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