Thursday, May 11, 2017

Why I run a conference

As some of you know, I'm one of the organizers for 360|AnDev. It's a lot of work to run a conference, so why do I do it?

I started the conference because I want an inclusive place for people to learn about Android:

  1. We want it to be welcoming to beginners so that they can plug into the community right away. That's why we have a "Getting Started" track (see our CFP).
  2. We want to encourage first-time speakers, so we run Q&A Hangouts to answer as many questions as we can.
  3. We want people to speak regardless of their financial situation, which is why we cover the travel costs for speakers if their companies do not.
  4. We have inclusivity scholarships to help people who cannot otherwise attend.

We did not collect attendee statistics last year, but you can see from our speaker lineup that we were off to a good start in terms of inclusivity.

We need your help

Last year we managed to break even, which was really good for a first-year conference that covers travel costs for speakers. We hope to keep it up, to have a financially viable event that we can run again and again. But we need your help:

  1. Please spread the word. Tell everyone about the event:
    July 13 - 14, 2017. Denver Colorado. 360andev.com.
  2. If you plan to attend, please buy a ticket right away so us organizers are not sitting at the edge our seats wondering if anyone would come.
  3. If you are at a company, please ask your employer if they would like to sponsor the conference: 360andev.com/sponsorship.
  4. Support us via Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/360andev

Every bit helps. Thank you for your support!