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I am a strong advocate of Conference 2.0 concept. The way conferences are
organized now is way too old fashioned. We have moved from the stone age to the
Cloud era but the way the conferences are held are still frozen in the stone age
ways. We still travel distances and gather around and talk about different
topics. Instead of Chisels, sickles and other stone age tools, we are attending
conferences with iPhone, Blackberrys, Netbooks, etc.. It is sad that even the
conferences on latest technologies are conducted in the old fashioned way. We
don’t even utilize the technologies we promote for our living.
Cloud Slam ‘09 is a
conference that is set out to change this trend. They are planning to hold a
totally virtual conference on Cloud Computing from 20th April 2009 to 24th April
2009. Leading experts in the field of cloud computing will be participating in
this conference. The conference tracks includes
- Technology
- Implementation experiences from various industries
- Legal Aspects: Privacy and Compliance
- Business Models
- Research
It is more in the style of academic conferences and attendees can either
present a talk or a poster. The submissions will be evaluated by a group of
experts and the final list will be put up in the coming months. The cost of
registration is very minimal (USD 40 for early bird and a general rate of $52).
These rates are on par with local mindcamp events we attend. You can register
using this
link.
If we can use clouds and access all our data and applications, if we can use
facebook and twitter to network with people, why can’t we tap the same
technologies to run conferences and protect the environment? If we do the math
and calculate the energy spent by the organizers and attendees of conferences,
we will definitely take the idea of Conference 2.0 or Conference on the Clouds
or Virtual Conference seriously. In fact, the conference organizers are using a
new technology called iLinc Green Meter that calculates, based on each web
conferencing participant’s location and the standard emission rates for cars or
planes, a metric that will measure the environmental impact.
I simply love this idea and I strongly encourage everyone interested in Cloud
Computing to attend this event. Kudos to the organizing team for bringing the
concept of Conference 2.0 to reality.
Unfortunately the “organizing team” is one Khazret Sapenov (whois) who has been very busy making enemies with much of the cloud computing community, including the likes of Reuven Cohen (his former employer despite his fabricated resume), James Urquhart, Sam Johnston, Geva Perry and others for conflicts of interest, censorship, inexplicable bans, etc. As such don’t expect to see much more than relentless spamming and advertalks (virtually all of the submissions are suppliers!). Any word of what happens to the profits (given Eventbrite only keep a buck a ticket)? Guess the consulting didn’t work out…
I don’t know about the politics involved behind the organizer. For me, the concept is interesting and I would like to see more and more conferences going virtual. My support is for the idea than the person behind the conference.
AC,
I don’t know your real name(is that you, Sam?).
Thanks for update. I’m only one of organizers.
We are not enemies with Reuven, James and Geva (at least what I know). Sam Johnston definitely has opposition against me, Reuven, Enomaly, James Williams and many others, and I think this is good to have diversity and balance, since this makes life much more interesting. I’ve updated LI profile (by default it puts closest match, so that’s my fault, and my apologies to those who’ve been hurt by this fact).
Virtual Conferences are the future. Sounds like it’s going to be a great event!