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FOSDEM 2012

Date

The event will start on 2012/02/04 12:00:00 AM till 2012/02/05 12:00:00 AM.

Location

Brussels, Belgium, EMEA

Owner

This event is owned by BenoitL

Attendance

It is estimated that >1000 people will be at the event.

Description

FOSDEM is probably the most developer-oriented European Free and Open Source conference. It is taking place in Brussels, Belgium on Saturday 4 and Sunday 5 February 2012. Apart from having many invited speakers, the conference offers developer rooms, stands and lightning talks to projects from the Free and Open Source community. More info…

FOSDEM will take place at the ULB Campus Solbosch.

ULB Campus Solbosh
Avenue Franklin D. Roosevelt, 50
1050 Bruxelles
(see map)

Bugs Associated

Budget ticket : [1]
Swag ticket : [2]

Links

Event Website : http://fosdem.org/2012/

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Practical Information

Registration

Please add yourself to Fosdem:2012:Attendees.

All participants who are official speakers in the by Mozilla DevRoom and Mozilla volunteers helping with our participation at the event will be eligible for sponsorship.

Sponsorship for Travel and Accommodation

All travel and accommodation costs for speakers giving a talk in the Mozilla DevRoom and for volunteers helping to organize our participation at FOSDEM will be covered by Mozilla.

Mozilla staff who are interested in attending FOSDEM must book their own travel and hotel. A shared twin room can be reserved for them at the Novotel Grand Place if they confirm their attendance by January 8th and pending availability)

All sponsored Mozillians will be staying at the Novotel Grand Place in shared twin rooms. An email containing detailed information on their hotel will be sent to all sponsored participants.

Reimbursement policy

Mozilla sponsored speakers traveling by plane, train or bus will be asked to purchase their own tickets. NB: PLEASE MAKE SURE TO PURCHASE THE CHEAPEST POSSIBLE TICKET - if you your ticket costs more than 300 EUR, please contact William before making the booking.

If you are sponsored by Mozilla and have purchased your own travel, please fill in the Mozilla expense form and send it to William Quiviger (william at mozilla dot com). Also, please make sure to send William a scanned copy of ALL receipts relevant to your expense form.

Once their expense form has been received and reviewed, participants will get full reimbursement via PayPal (or wire transfer if there is no other option - be warned, this can take a looooong time).

Mozilla DevRoom

Every year Mozilla developers and contributors have a dedicated room (ie. Mozilla DevRoom) for the 2 days, in which to hold talks and sessions.

This year, Mozilla will have:

• room UD2.218A (next to Chavanne) with 363 seats;
• a video projector (VGA);
• wireless internet;

on Saturday and Sunday, for 8 hours each day.

Schedule

Check the schedule on official FOSDEM page here

Talk proposals are here Proposals page

Mozilla Booth

There will be a booth manned by Mozilla volunteers in the main conference building. The goal is three-fold:

1. to evangelize and answer questions;
2. to recruit new volunteers;
3. distribute merchandise.

If you would like to volunteer to help man the booth, make sure to sign-up in the chart below. In general, if you notice that someone has been at the stand for a while, please don't hesitate to switch places with him/her! Also, please help to keep the place clean and tidy!

I you'd like to help, please sign-up on the Etherpad and read all the information there!

Where is it located?

The Mozilla Booth is located on the ground floor of Building K (it is so new it shows as two tennis courts on Google Maps imagery). You can see the location of the K building on the site of the ULB : http://www.ulb.ac.be/campus/solbosch/plan.html

Food, Beverages, and Saturday evening party

Breakfast will be served for sponsored Mozillians staying in one of the hotels Mozilla has secured for the event.

Any other food or drink expenses (including room service and in-room minibar charges and lunch at FOSDEM) are at the expense of the Mozillian.

Saturday night Party

Historically, a dinner for Mozillians has often been organised on the Saturday night of FOSDEM. This year, Mozillians are encouraged to meet and dine with folks from other open projects.

That said, we will have a Party from 20:00 (8pm) on the upper floor of Café-Brasserie À la Mort subite, Rue Montagne-aux-Herbes Potagères 7, B-1000 Bruxelles (Google, OpenStreetMap). If you come from the Novotel, you can just walk through the beautiful Galeries Royales St Hubert to get there.

NB: the room can fit a maximum of 80 people and will be open on a first come first served basis.

As with the beer event, Mozilla Reps will be there to hand you "free beer" tickets (33cl). It should be possible to eat a few small dishes there as well (salads, tartines and omelettes).

Friday Beer Event

As every year, there will be a FOSDEM beer event on Friday night before FOSDEM. We'll be distributing free beer stubs so look out for them :)

Getting Around in Brussels (MAP)

A practical Google map is available with all the relevant spots for Mozillians during their stay in Brussels.

Traveling by air to Brussels

Strike Warning announcement (30 January)

Please be aware that all the big unions announced a country-wide general strike on 30 January 2012. The strike is expected to start on 29 January 2012 at 22.00 hrs local time, and to end 30 January 2012 at 22.00.

It is unclear yet if airports will be affected, but expect transportation disruption or no service at all, at least as far as trains, buses and metros are concerned. If you plan to arrive on that day, please check with your company for options if the airport is unavailable. You can follow @BrusselsAirport on Twitter to get the latest annoucements. More info coming in the next few days.

Brussels Airport

…the airport is less than 20 minutes from the city centre. From 6am till nearly midnight, the AIRPORT CITY EXPRESS train brings you to Midi, Central and North stations four times per hour. A one-way ticket costs 2,60 € second class and 3,90 € first class. The city express train is located in the basement (level -1) of the terminal building itself.

Brussels South Charleroi Airport

Some low-cost flights (Ryanair, Wizzair, …) are operated from there. It is approximately one hour away from the city centre. A shuttle bus (1 hour, €13) will bring you from there to Brussels South Railway station. For your return flight, it is recommended that you take this shuttle bus 3 hours prior departure.

Traveling by train to Brussels

If you are traveling by train to Brussels, it is best for you to get off at the Central Station stop.

Most High-speed trains (TGV, Thalys, Eurostar, ICE) stop at Brussels South (Gare du Midi) instead. From there, you can either find a local train to Central Station, or take the Tramway/Metro (line 3 or 4 to De Brouckère, then metro line 1 or 5 to Gare Centrale).

Hotel

Mozilla speakers and staff will be staying at the Novotel Brussels Grand Place.

Please be aware that all the rooms that have been booked in advance by Mozilla are now full. If your weren't registered as a speaker and haven't asked for a room yet, you will have to make the booking yourself.

• Information how to reach your hotel from Central station is available here

Here are the hotel details:

Novotel Brussels Grand Place
120, rue du Marché Aux Herbes
1000 BRUSSELS
BELGIUM
Tel:  (+32)2/5143333
Fax:  (+32)2/5117723
E-mail:  H1030@accor.com
Nearest metro stop: Gare Centrale/Centraal Station
See website here

Other hotels in the neighborhood

There are many hotels around the Central station, and in the city center in general.

You may try:

• http://www.hotel-la-madeleine.be/ (almost facing the Novotel)
• http://www.almahotel.be/ (a few dozen meters away in an adjacent street)

Other accommodation options

Other great accommodation options exist in Brussels. There are local residents renting couches and private rooms for as little as $30. Also some have reviews.

Coworking options

Arriving early or leaving late and need a nice place to work? The Betagroup Coworking offers to host Fosdem attendees for free on Friday and Monday (9am to 6pm).

Please see details and signup info here: http://coworking.betagroup.be/hosting-the-fosdem-participants/ Space is limited and signup will be disabled when the limit is reached.

Don't hesitate to ask Ramón for options if you'd like to stay longer.

WiFi

At Fosdem

At FOSDEM, a FREE WiFi network called "FOSDEM" will be very "strong" and there should not be any ambiguity about which network to use. Most 802.11 stacks will likely do the Right Thing[tm] automatically. :-)

Mobile Data

If you have a GSM-compatible phone and need data connectivity (EDGE/3G) without paying prohibitive roaming charges, you can request a prepaid Mobile Vikings sim card to be shipped in advance to your hotel.

See the instructions on: https://lists.fosdem.org/pipermail/fosdem/2012-January/001454.html

Getting from the Hotel to FOSDEM

It takes about 35 min from downtown Brussels to FOSDEM by public bus.

From station GARE CENTRALE, take Bus 71 traveling towards DELTA. Get out at the station ULB. From there it's a 9 minute footwalk. The total travel takes about 35 minutes.

Google transit will give you good Public transport directions. If you have a mobile data plan (beware of roaming charges) or are connected to a wifi network, you can also check for waiting times and vehicle positions on http://m.stib.be/?lang=en or with the Android STIB application.

Useful tip: If you are waiting in the cold at ULB for a bus to get back to the city center (towards De Brouckère) and it doesn't come or you fear it will be too crowded, you may want to take it in the other direction instead (to Delta, a few stops away). Delta is actually a metro station on line 5, which also goes to Gare centrale and De Brouckère.

A detailed map of the ULB campus and of the FOSDEM entrance, can be found here: http://fosdem.org/2012/maps/campus

Detailed instructions on how to get there by public transportation can be found here: http://fosdem.org/2012/transportation

Leaving FOSDEM to leave Brussels

From Sunday afternoon till Sunday evening, FOSDEM will provide free transportation by bus from the conference site (ULB Campus Solbosch) to the Brussels-South railway station which has the best connections to Brussels Airport and neighboring countries.

More info soon…

Sponsorship for Travel and Accommodation

More info soon…

Contact Persons

If ever you need anything during your stay in Brussels, or if you need more information, please don't hesitate to contact:

Benoit (Mozilla Belgium community)
benoit.leseul at gmail dot com
(+32) 498 31 67 45

William (Mozilla staff)
william at mozilla dot com
(+33) 626 051 784

IRC

We will set up the #FOSDEM Channel on irc.mozilla.org !

Streaming

http://air.mozilla.org/

The Aftermath

Photos, Blogposts etc. will be linked here.