[dot] KDE and GNOME to Co-locate Flagship Conferences on Gran Canaria in 2009

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URL: http://dot.kde.org/1215794861/

From: Sebastian Kuegler <sebas at kde.org>
Dept: canary-not-canada
Date: Friday 11/Jul/2008, @09:47

KDE and GNOME to Co-locate Flagship Conferences on Gran Canaria in 2009
=======================================================================

   The KDE e.V. and GNOME Foundation today announced that they will hold
their yearly conferences, Akademy and GUADEC in 2009 in Gran Canaria.
The conferences will be separate events, but co-located and hosted by
the same organizers, the Cabildo of Gran Canaria
[http://www.grancanaria.com] and its Secretary of Tourism, Technological
Innovation and Foreign Trade. "The GNOME community is very excited about
the co-hosted GUADEC and Akademy" says Behdad Esfahbod, president at the
GNOME foundation, "GUADEC has traditionally been a very important chance
for our community to meet in person, build great working relationships
and make new friends. We're looking forward to having the opportunity to
extend those relationships to our KDE colleagues at Akademy/GUADEC." KDE
e.V.'s vice-president Adriaan de Groot adds "KDE e.V. is looking forward
to a co-located conference, where the GNOME and KDE communities can
mingle and cooperate as never before in one location. Gran Canaria is
uniquely located at the junction of Europe and Africa, close to the
Americas and is a fitting place for a historic 'meet-your-neighbours'
conference."

     GUADEC [http://www.guadec.org] and Akademy [http://akademy.kde.org]
2009 will be held on Gran Canaria
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gran_Canaria], the main island of the
Canary Islands [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canary_Islands]
archipelago. The tentative schedule
[http://grancanariadesktopmeeting.eslic.es/index.php/Official_planning]
plans the event from Friday, July, 3rd until Saturday, July 11th 2009 in
the Alfredo Kraus auditorium
[http://www.auditorio-alfredokraus.com/web/aud.htm] and the adjacent
Congress Palace [http://www.auditorio-alfredokraus.com/web/pcongs.htm]
in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.
 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Las_Palmas]
     This co-located event will turn Gran Canaria into the capital of
Freedesktop.org development for a whole week next summer.

     While there were other excellent bids, the KDE e.V. and GNOME
foundation have settled on Gran Canaria because of its position as Port
to Africa and the excellent circumstances for holding such an event
there. Unfortunately, having three proposals, two have to be rejected.
The proposals from Tampere in Finland and Coruna in Spain were close
contenders. Both foundations would like to thank those organisers for
the work they have put into their proposals and encourage them to
consider their cities for conferences in future years.

     The conference organiser's Wiki has  extensive information
[http://grancanariadesktopmeeting.eslic.es/] about the planned
conferences on the Canaries.