KDE and GNOME to Co-locate Flagship Conferences on Gran Canaria in 2009 http://dot.kde.org/1215794861/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 and its Secretary of Tourism, Technological Innovation and Foreign Trade.
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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 and Akademy 2009 will be held on Gran Canaria, the main island of the Canary Islands archipelago. The tentative schedule plans the event from Friday, July, 3rd until Saturday, July 11th 2009 in the Alfredo Kraus auditorium and the adjacent Congress Palace in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.
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 about the planned conferences on the Canaries.