Fudcon Cusco Post morten

Many good things happen at Fudcon Cusco, I have the opportunity to share many things with our fellow ambassadors and learn many others too.

Wanted to share part of my thoughts and things we share with the rest of the latam community trough this post.

Communication is key, many misunderstandings happen on meetings and emails that do not happen when we talk face to face, therefore is important to meet at least once a year on Fudcons or other events. But is also important to express our self, on emails that facilitate others to read and have a healthy discussions, some times we just discuss things on IRC and let our thoughts on to a few people, email list exists to share our thoughts and  show our ideas and plans with all ambassadors.

Plans and proposals, while at first we discuss our plans or proposals with a few friends, it is important to have a thread on the email list to spread them to a bigger audience, it is also good to add it to the latam track so we can set time on the meetings and shared it on the meeting. Keep in mind that while we are normally the same group of ambassadors on the meetings our decisions may have impact to others.

It is always good to have a goal, this help us plan ahead and keep a our mind set into it.

Latam region is growing  while we all like to be ambassadors we also need to have more people from latam  into other matters or groups, designers, translators and packagers is only an entry point, while those task are important, I like to see more people from latam on Infra or helping coding on Fedora Apps, while normally like to lead by example my time is limited so I cannot join those groups to help now, but with luck we have others who you can be follow.

We have learn that we can send swags by regular mail to other countries from Panama or Nicaragua, this will help countries that have limitations to get money to make swags, but it take around to weeks once the swags are send to arrive, therefore if you need swags to be send from Panama and Nicaragua please plan ahead. This also means that swags created on FAMA or EMEA can be send to Panama or Nicaragua and from there we can distribute it to other countries.

Let us know who you are and what are you doing, many ambassadors work by their own, many of them are on the ambassadors list, but we don't know who you are and if are active or not, in some cases we don't know all you work, it is not bad to show your word, it  help us know your commitment with Fedora and get you more support if you need it. If you cannot show on the IRC meetings please drop a line on the email list from time to time.

Publish your reports after events if you are sponsor to an event please blog about it, we prefer it to be a blog post linked to Fedora planet, but if it is not shared on the ambassadors list, so we can read it.

About Fudcons

Fudcon Cusco, was intense, big and full of gratifications, we read many comments from people from Cusco on facebook about the greater of the event and how it impact their lives.

While I was never on a Fudcon out of Latam,when organizing Fudcon Panama, I was shown all we require to have a good Fudcon, there are some things that need to be adjusted.

Fudcon on Latam are a bit different from NA or EMEA we have more users than fedorians on the audience, this means we cannot do emphasis on the big fedora subjects we have to bring talks that appeal more to the audience, while we don't know the audience we can have some prepared talks and barcam as style for the fudcons on latam, prepare talks can be about Fedora, Barcamp will help define subjects for the audience and also help the audience participate on the conference which help get more related with  the event.

Fudcon infrastructure, we need to be sure internet is not a matter on the fudcons Neville make emphasis on this on his post, and I agreed, something new bids need to consider.

Good luck to all who will be part of the bids for Fudcon Latam 2014.

Latam Budget  2015

While preparing the latam budget this year we require more information about the local events, what are the events in your countries, how we can help to have Fedora on the event, have talks etc. But the more important thing on the budget is the person responsible for the event, who will take care of the logistics planning, quoting what we need to help Fedora be part of this events. This year FISL was a good example of that. Now we need to start preparing for the new budget so please check the calendar of the events next year and what your think you need quote things and we will see if we get support for all your events, next year.

Having this year events planned ahead, help us to get more support and help more events. On latam this year we have been able to help more people to travel and support more events than any year before, so Fedora has more presents on the region.

Later will have the Spanish version.

FudCon Cusco FudPub

FudCon Organizers had an extra surprise for us, we got together in the morning and meet with the local support team, to take a bus from the university, we drive for an hour to Urcos where the festival of Oocha Raymi (Water festival), we eat some traditional Inca meals and enjoy the festivity.

In the afternoom some of the play soccer and enjoy our ride home, where we stop to visit more Inca Ruins.

Thanks Alex and Cesar for all your work and all local team who care about the Fudcon and made us feel at home.

FudCon Cusco thrith day

Day started with lots of expectations, many work shops, and asterisk talk by Jared requested for some university teachers.
While Icaro workshops continue and some talks about Fedora Infrastructure and apps where done.

We were invited to lunch with the president of the university, on a restaurant with a nice view and delicious Peruvian meal, we meet him and talk while he gave us a copy of book Pacarectambo and the origin of the Incas by historian Victor Angles Vargas author of several books about Cusco and the Inca culture.

After some rain and running back to our talks, we meet everyone on the main room to an amazing crowd over 200 people where there to close the event, we all got togeter and thanks the amazing people of Cusco for their love and care on those days, our gratitude and friendship will always be on our heart.

To close the event a traditional folk song was play and old join the dance.

Thanks Cusco, we want to see all as fedora contributors.

FudCon Cusco Second Day

Group photo taken the fist day

 

We started next day at breakfast on the hotel and arrive to Centro de Convenciones Cusco, where everything was set on place, rooms were full of people and starting their talks.

Many people started to arrive to ask me to help install Fedora in their notebooks, so we created a team on a room to help installing Fedora.

Valentin roboticst workshop started and he basically spend all day working with showing and coding Icaro to local electronics students must of them had installed Fedora Electronics Spins that include Icaro Robotics.

Valentin workshop added a new module to Icaro that will be added to FEL soon with the help of packager team.

At the same times Eduardo Echevers started to work with some people interested on Fedora Packaging we hope have a couple of a new packagers, with the help of other latin packagers.

It was a fund and long day, running around talks and attending installs.

FudCon Cusco first day

We learn the day before that there was going to be transportation strike, but to our surprise it did not affect the assistance with time we have a full main room, we started the inauguration a bit late, the Mayor of Cusco give a welcome speech and  the Dean of the university. 

Barcamp process started with local talks, while we prepare the voting process Wolnie, Valentin and Matias did a fun talk about free software and the Fedora Community.

A total of 65 talks and workshops come out of the Barcamp, schedule was done and Fudcon started.

At nigh we all celebrate Jared birthday.

FudCon Cusco 2013 before the event

Before FudCon

On Sunday, Luis Bazan and I travel to Cusco for FudCon, Cusco team greet us on the airport, we meet this guys for the first time, Alex and Cesar, after a couple of months on IRC meetings and talks. Valentin from Argentina travel earlier. Alex and Cesar explain us the tv interviews schedule, starting  on the most popular local TV show on Sunday, Valentin did the interview while they explain us the calendar of interviews on different local channels.

Next morning was time to go and pick up Jared and Dennis at the airport while Neville  (from Nicaragua was doing another interview), so arriving earlier allow us to do all tv  interviews to promote Fudcon, Fedora and free software, Abdel and Eduardo did half an hour interview about Fedora and free software.

But not was only interviews, local team had a schedule to visit different local universities so we had pretty busy schedule, we meet teachers and students who show interest about Linux and Fedora.

While we were not on interviews we work on Latam region issues.

As day passes we learn that over 1000 people was pre signup for the Fudcon, having a Barcamp with that much people was something that worried us, so we make plan to address it. The skill level was another concern so we organize to have some introductory talks and advance talks.

Soon we have everything ready as organizers Alex and Cesar show us everything was ready.