FUDcon LATAM 2012: Thank you!

FUDcon LATAM 2012 is finally over and yes, took me at least a week to find time to write about the experience (Life, work… and yes, sleep!). It’s not a secret that this FUDcon was a challenge, not only because the country we live in, but also because the events we are used to attend are completely different of what this FUDcon was. This probably will be a long post, I will try to not miss anything (and if I do, I will definitely do a second/third/infinite post)

========== Pre-FUDcon ==========

Our first location was Margarita, and even if was the ideal place, we didn’t had enough support from community to held it there. The best thing we could have done was change it to Valencia, allowing the local community to help. A recommendation for those who are thinking on held a FUDcon: “Always try to make it near to you, it’s a pain to travel 2-3 hours (or more) for each meeting”. On a side note, there was(is) a really strong storm hitting us right now which provoke several damages on roads to Margarita, so probably was a non-coincidental-accident to move it.

========== Sponsors ==========

First of all… THANK YOU! without you we couldn’t have done this! Knowing that currency exchange at our country is a mess, I’m really thankful that everything work out at the end. I will try to make a short list… #NOT. Many thanks to RedHat, who has been always supporting FUDcon and Fedora all around the world, our premier sponsor. Also Thanks to Bluehost, who gave the guys an excellent trip giving FUDcon a really fun ending. Many Thanks to Vaslibre, this community was my in-site clone and my hands when I was still behind the computer. A huge hug to FreshOrangeDesign, our community manager, the girl who made us move our feet with daily reminders, the one who handle FB, Twitter and every single Social Network (m000g we love u). Also thanks to our Venue, UJAP, who provide us with the most appropriated place to held our event, always willing to help and always attending to the sessions. Many Thanks to Síragon, who gave us our great tshirts and was always taking care of us. Thanks to PlatinumHost, who provide us with 2 awesome huge screens that were useful many many times. Many Many thanks to KioskoFriki, who had the patience to make a personalized pin to each one of the attendees. A LOT of thanks to Guillermo and Faytha Lombardo, who took care of food which was… AMAZING! and there was so many food that we had enough for dinners too (so people save some money there too). Infocentros, who provide us with an awesome transportation so we could all travel safe and together

========== International Visitors ==========

Venezuela is your home now… thank you for giving us a chance to show you our hospitality (a bit crazy) and thank you for bringing to our country your knowledge. Even if the ride from Maiquetía to Valencia was a bit long, I really hope you had a good time at our country. I think that logistics for people coming (taxi, hotel, food, sessions and party) was well developed. I really hope everyone felt like at home.

========== Attendees ==========

THANK YOU! you’re the people who made everything possible at the end and those that made me held this event! I know it was really different of what people in my country are used to, but I really wanted to show them how great the Fedora project is, not only by what we do, but also because of the people who does it. In my country, when someone told you at other events that X-person from X-country was coming, they treat the thing like if god himself was coming down to earth, and with FUDcon what I wanted to show (and I think we made it) was that, even if that person wrote an awesome book or did a fantastic job for X-government or whatever, they are awesome humans that are willing to talk to you about X-random-fact about life or tech and… are just people, amazing and cool people.

========== Sessions ==========

I must say that I just provide the space for people to create, talk, discuss and learn. I really hope that people took advantage of the location and take the lead doing/discussing things. I know some people were waiting for me to tell them where they were supposed to be, but as Fedora itself, you have to take the resources you were given and DO! – I’m really happy that we had an ambassadors meeting where each one of us left with a list of task to do in the next month, I also saw Larry (geek_cl) having a strong session with some guys from the university, also the Chilean crew had a good session, Valentin did some great robots and as always had his slaves (I give him one of my gaming remotes) and I recruit a couple of amazing artist at the venue who will help me with artwork translations and some more. As organizer, I had to be taking care of hotels, transportation, food, venue, people and more, so even if I couldn’t attend to any session, I really hope you guys had a good time there.

========== Venue ==========

The UJAP, besides being a gorgeous venue, we received a fantastic attention. Even if we had some problems with the projectors on first day (the guys bringing them got stuck on the road because of the storm damages), we received a lot of help solving this issue on 2nd day when the University rented for us the 2 extra projectors we needed and opening a 3rd room for meetings. Even if the event was held during vacations break, I will say on a really personal note that I rather to have a 300 people event (as we did) where each one of our speakers were able to talk to everyone, than a 2000 event where people show up only as a demonstration or a booth.

========== Transportation ==========

I was really worried about this since people from Infocentros didn’t answer me until very last minute, however, their attention with us was fantastic, providing us a 15 people bus and a big pick-u, so we provide transportation hotel-venue-hotel every day.

========== Food ==========

I must say that I was super glad with the work that the guys did. They did so much food that we even had some extra at nights and help people to save some money, and knowing that richzendy had a surgery just 1 day before FUDcon and he couldn’t eat, they did special dishes for him… thank you :$ Our menu was completely Venezuelan first 2 days, having on first day rice/chicken with Soursop juice, on second day our typical arepas with 3 filling (cheese, meet and chicken) and some passion fruit juice… but for the last day, honoring our amazing Beefy Miracle, we had some hot dogs with papelón con limón Mornings we take people to different places so they could eat some local dishes too, and at nights we had some great BBQ and at the last day we had a HUGE 15kg BBQ where everyone had real fun. I guess most of the people enjoy food in our country and didn’t exactly loose weight.

========== FUDpub ==========

Thanks to bluehost who provide probably the most crazy FUDpub ever! a trip to Isla Larga! and even if I still had to work that day and couldn’t be with the group, i really hope they had a good time.

========== My Bday! ==========

I want to thank all of you who remember my bday (even those woh didn’t came send me a present). Usually I don’t plan anything for my bdays and I’m more focus on other people bday instead mine. You guys really made me smile a lot and spend one of my best bdays ever. thank you… really thank you all :D You can check all pics that I took in here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tatadbb/sets/72157631226628188/ You can check the Flickr FUDcon LATAM 2012 group in here: http://www.flickr.com/groups/fudcon-latam-2012/ (and don’t forget to add your owns) Please check the Facebook group here: http://www.facebook.com/groups/254570567958857/ And don’t forget to check our messages at Twitter: @fudconlatam
Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.