[Announce] Call for Expressions of Interest for Conferences in 2024 and beyond

[President, Linux Australia]

Dear community,

It was wonderful to be able to bring the open technologies communities together in person at Everything Open 2023 in Naarm (Melbourne) after a few years of online events. We had a wide range of excellent presentations from our speakers, with the videos of these now available on the Linux Australia Mirror and YouTube for everyone to catch up on the sessions they missed. We would like to thank everyone who participated in Everything Open 2023. The conference would not have been possible without the generous support of our sponsors, including our Emperor Penguin sponsors Google and IBM, as well as the dedicated team who came together to put on the event in a relatively short amount of time. We would also like to thank the countless hours dedicated to the conference by our Speakers, Volunteers, and Organising Team.

It is time to start planning the open technologies conference for 2024 and beyond. Linux Australia would like to hear from people who are interested in bringing the conference to their city, or being a part of the organising team for the conference. This is a little bit different to previous years where we have only asked for bids for the entire conference. These are still welcome and encouraged, however we recognise that forming a team and organising a bid is a large task, especially for those who have not been a part of a conference team before. 

We are seeking expressions of interest in submitting a bid or being a part of an organising team for the 2024 and/or 2025 conferences. As mentioned earlier, you do not have to have a complete bid prepared - it is more important to us that you register your interest now, then we can work with each of the interested parties in more detail. Please send through your interest to the Linux Australia Council at council at linux.org.au.

We will be running a Conference Bid Information Session at 7:30pm AEST (UTC+10) on 8 May 2023. At this session Joel and Sae Ra will go through what is involved with running a conference, including what needs to be presented as part of a bid for a location. It is also an opportunity to see a bit more behind the scenes of what goes into planning and running a conference, drawing upon the experience Linux Australia has had over the past two decades.
We invite anyone who is interested to register to attend the session at https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZwrd-yprzwrH9Qnj-Ftc5s2pamZ2xibLKDM. 

Key Dates:
* Conference Bid Information Session - 8 May 2023
* Expressions of Interest for 2024 Conference - Due 28 May 2023
* Expressions of Interest for 2025 Conference - Due 25 June 2023

If you have any further questions, please contact Council via email or our website form and we will help where we can.

Kind regards,

Linux Australia Council