<div dir="ltr"><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr"><div>Press Release For Immediate Release</div><div><br></div><div>Announcing <a href="http://linux.conf.au" target="_blank">linux.conf.au</a> 2014</div><div><br></div>
<div>Overview</div><div>In January 2014, Perth, Western Australia will be playing host to the continents premier Linux and open source conference – <a href="http://linux.conf.au" target="_blank">linux.conf.au</a>.</div>
<div><br></div><div><a href="http://linux.conf.au" target="_blank">linux.conf.au</a> draws attendees and speakers worldwide from all spheres of open source, geeks, hackers, students, professionals, hobbyists, companies, education, government and business partners, ree lancers etc.</div>
<div>Conference Format</div><div>The <a href="http://linux.conf.au" target="_blank">linux.conf.au</a> conference runs over 5 days from Monday 6th January to Friday 10th January.</div><div><br></div><div>Conference tickets are available at Professional, Hobbyist and Student levels with associated pricing and perks.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Over the first two days we host a series of mini confs, small single day conferences covering particular topics. Intended as an incubator for related technologies and interests that could eventually hold their own conferences. The mini confs are managed and run as independent conferences with their own call for papers and management committees.</div>
<div><br></div><div>The remaining three days feature a packed conference schedule, in 2014 we will be running presentations over 5 simultaneous tracks. Each track will feature four 45 minute presentations per day. The full programme is available on our website at <a href="http://lca2014.linux.org.au/programme/schedule" target="_blank">http://lca2014.linux.org.au/programme/schedule</a>.</div>
<div><br></div><div>On most days before the main sessions, the conference will open with a keynote presentation. The keynotes tend to follow a less technical approach and provide commentary and insight on broad global trends and open source challenges.</div>
<div>Birds of a Feather Sessions</div><div>Run outside the scope of the formal presentation agenda, <a href="http://linux.conf.au" target="_blank">linux.conf.au</a> encourages delegates to arrange “Birds of a Feather” - BOF - sessions on the Monday and or Tuesday. These draw together people with a specific area of interest and are run after hours. Typical BOF sessions range from Astronomy, Video capture, Running, Cycling, Hacking, Open Hardware, Haeksen and many others. The BOF sessions are a great opportunity to meet and socialise with like minded people during the conference.</div>
<div>Video and Streaming</div><div>All presentations made at <a href="http://linux.conf.au" target="_blank">linux.conf.au</a> will be recorded and the completed videos made available for download and online viewing. This year we will be attempting to provide a live stream of the proceedings too.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Social Events</div><div>We have three official social events during the conference</div><div>Speakers Dinner(for accepted speakers only)</div><div>Penguin Dinner on the Wednesday(everyone is invited)</div>
<div>Professional Delegates Networking session(for professional tickets only)</div><div>Almost the forth social event in itself, is the Birds of Feather sessions BoFs which will be running Monday and or Tuesday evenings.</div>
<div>Various groups and delegates run plenty pre and post unofficial social events throughout the week. Join in there is always something going on</div><div>Be sure to check the wiki website for more information <a href="https://lca2014.linux.org.au/wiki/Social_Events" target="_blank">https://lca2014.linux.org.au/wiki/Social_Events</a></div>
<div><br></div><div>Partners Programme</div><div>lca2014 tries to be as accessible to participants, we are running a partners programme to provide some entertainment to partners of attendees who are not interested in participating. Any one is welcome to register and join in here <a href="https://lca2014.linux.org.au/wiki/Partners_programme" target="_blank">https://lca2014.linux.org.au/wiki/Partners_programme</a></div>
<div>Child Care</div><div>We also arrange a creche facility to care for children while delegates are attending the conference during the day.</div><div>We have organised and paid for two professionally certified child care workers <a href="https://lca2014.linux.org.au/wiki/Child_care" target="_blank">https://lca2014.linux.org.au/wiki/Child_care</a></div>
<div>First Aid</div><div>We have organised and paid for professional St John's Ambulance and First Aid officers to be at the conference and official social events</div><div><br></div><div>Keynotes</div><div>Our four confirmed keynote presenters are:</div>
<div>Jonathon Oxer</div><div>Jon will be presenting an overview of the latest developments to the ArduSat project as part of his keynote presentation during <a href="http://linux.conf.au" target="_blank">linux.conf.au</a> 2014 in Perth, Western Australia.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Jon has been hacking on both hardware and software since he was a little tacker. Most recently he's been focusing more on the Open Hardware side, co-founding Freetronics as a direct result of organising the first Arduino Miniconf at LCA2010. His books include "Ubuntu Hacks" and "Practical Arduino".</div>
<div><br></div><div>Jon has been variously referred to as Australia's geekiest man and as a cyborg-in-progress. As part of his “SuperHouse” home automation series, Jon has taken keyless entry to an all new level by embedding an RFID tag into his arm using a vet's chipping tool.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Recently he has been working on ArduSat, a satellite that aims to give hobbyists, students and space enthusiasts an opportunity to design and run their own experiments in space. By choosing a standardised platform based on the hugely popular Arduino hardware design, ArduSat allows anyone to develop and prototype experiments at home using readily accessible parts and all based on a simple open source software environment.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Kate Chapman</div><div>Kate Chapman is the Executive Director of the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team.</div><div><br></div><div>The Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT) is an initiative of OpenStreetMap to apply the principles of open source and open data sharing towards humanitarian response and economic development.</div>
<div><br></div><div>The Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team believes that freely available, up-to-date geographic data can be vital in responding to a disaster. They help communities and responders to utilize the OpenStreetMap data, and encourage them to contribute and update the data.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Over the past two years Kate has been primarily based in Indonesia where she has lead the AusAID funded HOT program. The program Scenario Development for Contingency Planning (SD4CP) is a joint initiative of the Indonesian and Australian governments through BNPB (Indonesian Disaster Management Agency) and AusAID that aims to teach disaster mangers how to develop realistic impact scenario for contingency planning. HOT teaches disaster mangers to spatially analysis the combination of scientific hazard model outputs with community knowledge through the open-source software InaSAFE (Indonesia Scenario Assessment For Emergencies). OpenStreetMap is one of the keys elements of this procedure, as it allows the disaster mangers to draw on community knowledge to identify important buildings such as schools and hospitals that potentially be impacted during a disaster.</div>
<div><br></div><div>We're really pleased to have Kate coming to talk with us as her personal efforts and her teams work represents an organization that we can really hold up as a shining example of how the open source model truly does work.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Matthew Garret</div><div>Matthew is a cloud security developer working at Nebula, a prominent cloud hardware and services vendor.</div><div><br></div><div>Matthew has been hacking on Secure Boot for quite a while, and was deeply involved with it during his time with RedHat and more recently, with a broader view of its security implications within the cloud initiative, at Nebula.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Matthew will be speaking to us about the current state of the debate concerning Secure Boot, concerns over the security of material held in the cloud, the influence of the activities of security agencies, and issues relating to people maintaining traditional freedoms within cloud environments. These factors are key to the success of the cloud initiative that has captured the interest of computing communities throughout the world.</div>
<div><br></div><div>We are really pleased to have Matthew speaking to us about these key topics that have such an important impact on the success of the cloud computing initiative.</div><div><br></div><div><a href="http://linux.conf.au" target="_blank">linux.conf.au</a> is an annual open source conference organised by Linux Australia. In 2014 the conference will be held in Perth, Western Australia from the 6th January to the 10th.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Suelette Dreyfus</div><div>Dr Suelette Dreyfus wrote the book “Underground”, about early hacker culture in Australia and overseas. The book, written with Julian Assange, has now been translated into seven other languages and made into two films. In the true spirit of open source, she gave away the first edition of “Underground” to Project Gutenberg.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Her writing has appeared in The Guardian, The Independent (London), The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, and The Australian as well as in academic journals in medicine, health and information systems. She has also authored or co-authored chapters in a number of books, including forthcoming works on transparency and on whistle blowing She's also done more unusual projects, such as writing “The Idiot Savants' Guide to Rubberhose”.</div>
<div><br></div><div>A Research Fellow at the Department of Computing and Information Systems at the University of Melbourne, she has been the Principal Researcher on The World Online Whistle blowing Survey, the first on-line survey that gauges public attitudes to whistle blowing and has been translated into several other languages (currently ten). </div>
<div><br></div><div>She currently runs research projects in three areas: e-health, e-education and the impact of technology on the balance of power between the citizen and the state with research into whistle-blowing and integrity systems forming part of the latter area. Before going into academia, Suelette trained as a cadet and then worked as a staff reporter on the largest selling newspaper in Australia. She remains active as a journalist.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Mini confs</div><div>Each year we try to select a range of topics for our focused mini conferences. This year's mini conf sessions are listed below.</div><div><br></div><div>Monday:</div><div>Systems Administration </div>
<div>Developer, Testing, Release and Continuous integration Automation </div><div>Open Government</div><div>Linux Kernel</div><div>Open Radio</div><div><br></div><div>Tuesday:</div><div>OpenStack </div><div>Open Programming </div>
<div>Haecksen </div><div>Astronomy </div><div>Multimedia and Music </div><div>Arduino</div><div><br></div><div>Conference</div><div>The main conference runs over the remaining three days, and is a full programme of five streams of deep technical presentations and tutorials covering a wide range of topics. To view the full schedule please visit our website at <a href="http://lca2014.linux.org.au/programme/schedule" target="_blank">http://lca2014.linux.org.au/programme/schedule</a>.</div>
<div>Conference Location</div><div>lca2014 will be held in Perth, Western Australia this year. Perth is Australia's most remote capital city, but is also where most of the action is happening. Perth is experiencing an huge amount of growth, driven by the mining boom, but encompassing all aspects of city life. Perth now has a vibrant cultural scene, and our outdoor lifestyle and coastal location is the envy of the world.</div>
<div>The last <a href="http://linux.conf.au" target="_blank">linux.conf.au</a> held in Perth was ten years ago in 2003, so we are really looking forward to hosting the conference again.</div><div>The <a href="http://linux.conf.au" target="_blank">linux.conf.au</a> conference is traditionally held on a university campus, utilising the lecture rooms and accommodation facilities they have to offer – 2014 is no exception, and we will be hosting the conference at the University of Western Australia (UWA). The UWA Crawley Campus is situated a short distance from the Perth CBD and adjacent to the magnificent Swan river and Kings Park public space.</div>
<div>Accommodation</div><div>Accommodation will be at the university colleges of St George's <a href="http://www.stgeorgescollege.com.au/" target="_blank">http://www.stgeorgescollege.com.au/</a> and Trinity <a href="http://www.trinity.uwa.edu.au/" target="_blank">http://www.trinity.uwa.edu.au/</a> for full details of the accommodation please refer to our wiki article <a href="https://lca2014.linux.org.au/wiki/Campus_accommodation" target="_blank">https://lca2014.linux.org.au/wiki/Campus_accommodation</a>. The accommodation is ideally situated just across the road from the conference and registration areas.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Volunteering</div><div>The conference is run as a voluntary effort. We rely on people to volunteer their time to organise and run the conference. During the conference we are always keen to welcome volunteers to come on board and help with the running of the conference. Interested people can sign up here <a href="https://lca2014.linux.org.au/wiki/Conference_Volunteers" target="_blank">https://lca2014.linux.org.au/wiki/Conference_Volunteers</a></div>
<div>We offer free registration for people who are willing to volunteer a significant portion of their time to the conference.</div><div><br></div><div>Proposed Focus</div><div>To provide a degree of consistency <a href="http://linux.conf.au" target="_blank">linux.conf.au</a> normally selects a general focus to help guide the presenters in topic selection. For 2014 our focus is on “ Linux on the frontier and deep technical content”. With the scope of Linux broadening at such a rapid pace this provides a broad scope for speakers topics and allows topics to be drawn from just about any sphere of computing, be it cybernetics, mobile operating systems, astronomy, big data, gaming etc.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Contacts</div><div>Please send all correspondence to the lca2014 Team <a href="mailto:contact@lists.lca2014.linux.org.au" target="_blank">contact@lists.lca2014.linux.org.au</a></div><div>Mailing lists <a href="http://lists.lca2014.linux.org.au/mailman/listinfo/" target="_blank">http://lists.lca2014.linux.org.au/mailman/listinfo/</a></div>
<div>Our website is accessible from <a href="http://lca2014.linux.org.au" target="_blank">http://lca2014.linux.org.au</a> #lca2014</div>
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