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Open Source Bridge starts in less than one week!

June 15, 2011 – 8:34 am

The 2011 Open Source Bridge conference is just one week away! Now is the time to register if you haven’t already. Read on to find out about the fantastic content we have lined up for next week’s conference.

Keynotes

We’ll kick off the conference with Pete Fein’s keynote about Hacking for Freedom. On Thursday, Portland Mayor Sam Adams will deliver our closing keynote.

Many Awesome Sessions

We have all sorts of great sessions in this year’s schedule, including…

That’s just a small sampling of the many great sessions at this year’s Open Source Bridge. Check out the full schedule for the full line up.

22-Hour Hacker Lounge

This year we have an on-site hacker lounge, sponsored by Intel, and it will be open nearly 24 hours a day starting Tuesday at 9am. There’ll be plenty of wifi, power strips, beverages, and snacks in a comfortable and friendly space.

We’re making a special effort to bring active open source projects into the Hacker Lounge. If you are a project developer or contributor, consider scheduling a time when people can collaborate, discuss, and brainstorm. To participate, email hackerlounge@opensourcebridge.org. The schedule will be posted on Hacker Lounge page on our wiki.

Birds-of-a-Feather Sessions (BoFs)

A BoF is an informal evening session to share your interest in a particular technology or area of open source. There have already been BoFs scheduled on a number of exciting topics. Check them out and add your own.

Unconference!

The last day of Open Source Bridge will be an unconference, so bring your ideas and consider giving an impromptu session! If you’ve never been to an unconference, never fear; we’ll give instructions during the Friday morning kick-off before scheduling begins.

Want to brainstorm sessions before then? Add them to our wiki.

Parties!

On Tuesday night, Yammer and Sauce Labs are hosting a party and on Thursday night, Mozilla and Emma will be hosting a party. Details to be announced during the conference.

Short on Cash? Volunteer!

We love our volunteers and will give a free conference pass to anyone who commits to eight or more hours of volunteering. Spots are filling up, so get yours soon! Details: http://opensourcebridge.org/2011/wiki/How_to_Sign-Up

Short on Cash AND Time? We Have Free Events!

We want to make Open Source Bridge as accessible as we can for all. If you can’t afford a regular ticket or a day pass to the conference, and don’t have time to volunteer, we still have a bunch of stuff you can check out for free. The evening BoFs are free, as well as evening Hacker Lounge access. The unconference day will be sliding scale (pay what you can). We still ask that everyone register (choose Community Pass).

Thanks to our wonderful sponsors!

Open Source Bridge is made possible by our sponsors:

Register Now

What are you waiting for? Go register!

By christie | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (0)

Volunteer Schedule Open for Sign-Ups: Get Your Shift Now!

June 3, 2011 – 10:30 am

Open Source Bridge is a 100% volunteer-run event and we need your help to make it awesome! One of the most direct ways you can help is to volunteer on-site during the conference. We have many volunteer positions available — from simple errand-running, to the more complicated registration, speaker lounge, and assistant volunteer coordinator positions. We have something for everyone, and you don’t have to be an über coder to be a stellar volunteer.

Because we <3 our volunteers, we will provide a complimentary ticket to those who commit at least 8 hours of their time. (Note: we can’t provide refunds to those who have already purchaed their ticket.)

And, for the first time, all volunteers will recieve a special Open Source Bridge volunteer t-shirt. Volunteers will also get their own lounge complete with yummy snacks.

Now is your chance! The volunteer schedule is now open for sign-ups. Visit the How to Sign-Up page on our wiki for full instructions on how to sign-up as a volunteer.

UPCOMING MEET-AND-GREETS

To learn more about volunteering on-site, please come to one of the following meet-and-greets:

ORIENTATION SESSIONS

We will also have an on-site volunteer orientation the day before the conference. While not mandatory, it’d be great if you could attend:

If you can’t come to any of the meet-and-greets or orientations, or just have questions, please contact our volunteer coordinator, Shepherd Griffin, at volunteer@opensourcebridge.org.

Volunteering is the essence of Open Source Bridge and we are excited to work with you!

By christie | Posted in Volunteering | Comments (0)

Announcing the 2011 Schedule!

May 24, 2011 – 9:18 am

We know you’ve all been waiting for this news, so we wanted to let you know that the Open Source Bridge 2011 schedule is now online at http://opensourcebridge.org/events/2011/schedule

Thank you all for your patience as we worked to come up with a schedule that will hopefully suit everybody. We’re still sorting out a few remaining details and expecting some additions to the schedule over the next few days, but as the bulk of the schedule is in place, we wanted to let you all know when each session will be so that you can start to plan your time at Open Source Bridge.

It’s only four short weeks until Open Source Bridge is here, and we hope you’re as excited as we are. We look forward to seeing all of you in June!

By jimmythehorn | Posted in announcement, conference, content | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)

Where To Stay? A Guide for Out-Of-Towners

May 17, 2011 – 1:06 pm

So you’ve decided to come to Open Source Bridge in Portland, Oregon this June 21 – 24, but you’re coming from out of town, don’t know the area all that well, and need a place to stay? Don’t worry, we have some options for you near our Eliot Center conference venue.

We put together a comprehensive listing of lodging options near our conference venue on our wiki’s Lodging section to help you research. There’s also a map so you can see where these are.


View Open Source Bridge 2011: Lodging in a larger map

We have secured discounts for our attendees through local hotel sponsors during the week of the conference. You will find details about these hotels and their discounts in our wiki’s Hotels article. When booking or while staying at these hotels, please thank them for providing discount sponsorships for Open Source Bridge.

For those on a budget we can recommend a couple of really good options:

First, there is Couchsurfing.org, a travel web site that matches travelers with hosts in cities around the world that are willing to put a verified person up for a few nights’ stay. If this is the option you’d like to try, you should first sign up for Couchsurfing.org, read their getting started tips, make a profile, get verified, and read the tips on how to be a good couch surfer. Portland has its own Ambassador of Couchsurfing, Ms. Lolly Rae, check out her profile and contact her with any questions you have about the Couchsurfing.org community. Although she can’t put up all of you, she can give great tips on using Couchsurfing.org in the Portland area.

Next, we have some local hostels. The Northwest Portland International Hostel & Guesthouse is closest to the conference venue. The Portland Hawthorne Hostel is across the river, but easily-accessible by Tri-Met bus. You can also check the Hostel World web site for any other deals they may have.

Still looking for something else? You can try the usual travel sites, like Kayak.com, Lonely Planet, Orbitz, Priceline, or Lastminute.com. Or keep checking back to this blog post or our Open Source Bridge Wiki for any updates on travel and accommodations. We look forward to seeing you here in June in the beautiful Rose City to join us for Open Source Bridge 2011.

By yuetsu | Posted in announcement | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

Announcing the Open Source Bridge 2011 talks!

May 12, 2011 – 6:31 am

We are very pleased to announce this year’s Open Source Bridge conference sessions as part of our 4-day event June 21st through the 24th in Portland, Oregon. We received hundreds of excellent presentation proposals, community comments, and other feedback, and our diverse selection committee was very busy carefully reviewing and choosing talks.

This year’s lineup features knowledgeable speakers covering a broad range of open source topics. So, if you’ve been holding off on registering, now is a great time to do so!

We’re still waiting to hear back from a few speakers, so stay tuned in the next few days as we fill in a few gaps – but the bulk of our speakers have responded to acceptances, and we’re happy to share what we have with you today!

We’re still finalizing the session schedule for Open Source Bridge, and plan to announce that in the very near future as well.

Without further ado:

Business

Chemistry

Cooking

Culture

Hacks

By jimmythehorn | Posted in announcement, conference, content, open source | Tagged , , | Comments (0)