Requirements for Akademy Location

Akademy is the annual meeting of the KDE community. It consists of the general assembly of the KDE e.V., a KDE conference and a multi-day hacking session for coding, discussing, meeting people, having fun and more.

Alternative formats are possible, but this one has proven to be successful in the past.

The requirements for a location for Akademy are listed below. These requirements are based on experience with previous Akademy locations. They are not set in stone, but deviating from these requirements will need good reasons and some creativity to provide alternative solutions for making Akademy a successful and enjoyable event.

Format

• Two-day KDE conference (Saturday/Sunday), 200 people.
• One-day KDE e.V. meeting (Monday), 75 people.
• Five-day hacking session (Monday to Friday), 150 people at the start, 70 people at the end.
• Social program like a reception, party and/or a sight-seeing tour.

The number of participants can't be predicted exactly and depends on the location. The numbers above are based on the participation at the 2006 Akademy in Dublin, Ireland.

Local organization

Essential to successful organization of Akademy is a strong local team with enough hands and time do take care of all the bits and pieces of organization of a big vibrant international event. The KDE community is nice to get along with, but it's a very energetic community, and there are tons of little details, which have to be taken care of. So prepare for some sleep deprivation.

The Organizer acts as the main contact for the meeting preparations. He must be available to other parties that are helping in the preparations or provide services. He (or she, as in some previous events) must be prepared to be an almost full-time meeting coordinator especially in the last couple of days before the actual conference. From experience, the Organizer can expect to work 5-10 hours/week on preparations, and will need to be able to round up local supporters from e.g. Linux User Groups.

KDE e.V. will assist with procedures, advice and organization (e.g. managing the travel grants).

Local activists: It is absolutely mandatory that the conference be supported by local activists (like a LUG or similar) for registration, network administration, security, and other tasks. Good press contacts are also helpful. Experience has shown that at least 8-10 volunteer helpers are needed, and KDE e.V. is not in a position to pay salaries for that.

Date

Akademy should take place in the (northern hemisphere) summer.

Depending on the location it should be considered if the date has an impact on lodging and travel costs.

Travel

Reasonably easy to reach by public transportation, i.e., preferably near a major airport. Coach shuttles from an airport to the site are of course possible and welcome, but need to be sponsored.

Immigration procedures: the hosting country's immigration laws and procedures should not exclude any KDE contributor from attending. It is a plus if the hosting country does not have complicated and expensive visa procurement procedures for the majority of the participants (who will be from the EU and the US/Canada). For participants from other countries, getting a visa must be reasonably possible.

Travel must be affordable for the majority of people or there needs to be extra sponsoring.

Some rough statistics based on the KDE e.V. membership: 75% of the people come from Europe (50% from Germany) and 15% from North America.

Infrastructure

Accommodation

Accommodation must be available for up to 200 persons during the peak days. The majority of participants prefers a low cost option which should cost around 20 EUR. It would be nice if there also would be available a mid-range variant around 50 EUR. Additionally a listof hotels near the conference venue is needed for participants preferring a specific choice. It's advisable to not organize Akademy at the same time as any other major cultural event or conference takes places that might put a lot of pressure on available accommodation.

Transportation

It is a plus if the accommodation is within walking distance of the conference and hacking session site; if it is not, there must be safe public transportation (even in the evenings) or cheap taxis, or a sponsored shuttle service.

Food

Cheap (but not entirely deadly) food should be available, developers should be able to live on EUR 20/USD 25 per day for food.

It is preferable if food is available near the conference and hacking session site and it doesn't take too much time to get something to eat.

Availability of drinks at the Akademy site is a must. Free water would be nice.

A variety of dietary options should easily be available, especially vegetarian.

Safety

There must be no imminent safety threats in or around the conference site or between the conference site and the accomodation.

Public Infrastructure

It is a plus if the conference and hacking session location as well as the accommodation are not too remote from other public places i.e restaurants, cafee, pub, shops. On the other hand the environment shouldn't be too distractive.

Meeting and Conference Rooms

Conference

• One big room for at least 150 people for events for all participants (keynote etc.)
• Rooms for two parallel sessions.
• A room for a possible third session is a plus.
• Projectors in all rooms.
• Microphones, speakers in all rooms.
• It should be possible to connect the audio output of a computer to the speakers.
• Video recording of the talks would be nice, live streaming even better.
• Reliable network access for the speakers is required.
• Wireless network access in the conference rooms is a plus.

KDE e.V. General Assembly

• One room for at least 75 people for a full day.
• Microphones and speakers.
• Projector is a plus but not absolutely required.

Coding marathon

• Hacking area for at least 120 people.
• Reliable and fast internet access at least 8MBit/s; more is better and will be saturated.
• Cable-bound and wireless network should be available.
• The hacking rooms should available all day and night (or with a well-announced unavailability between something like 1am and 8am).
• Additional rooms for BoF sessions and other meetings. 3 or 4 rooms. At least one of the rooms should be big enough for something like 80 people. Whiteboards, flip charts should be available in these rooms. Projectors are a plus but not absolutely required.

Computers

• Most people will bring their own laptops, but for something like 20 people there should be computers available for internet access and hacking.
• It might be nice to have a couple of big machines serving as a compile cluster.

Network and Power

Easy and reliable access to the Internet during the full time of Akademy is a must. The KDE community is very demanding in terms of network, so prepare for more than you would expect. Keep in mind that almost everybody will come with a laptop, so wireless network and enough power outlets to recharge batteries are mandatory. Additional wired network at least in the hacking rooms is highly recommended.

Budget

The conference has mainly to be paid by sponsorship. There should be no conference fee. Meeting rooms, technical infrastructure and internet access have to be sponsored.

KDE e.V. is able to pay travel for some KDE e.V. members who need that, if traveling isn't too expensive. For locations outside Europe we probably would need significant extra sponsorship.

The participants usually pay the accommodation and food themselves.

Sponsors

Sponsors are an absolute must. Sponsoring must include the conference site (if it costs money), the equipment, and parts of the travel grants. Travel grants were about EUR 8000 (USD 10000), for aKademy 2004 at Ludwigsburg and EUR 10000 for aKademy 2005 and 2006. If the conference location is going to be outside Europe, we can expect a much higher need for travel grants (at least 4-5 times as much). Sponsoring of other costs (like food or accommodation) is of course also much appreciated.