boojum writes "On behalf of The Perl Foundation, Saint Louis.pm and Chicago.pm are officially announcing the call for virtual participation for Yet Another Perl Conference North America 2006. The virtual conference track will be one day only and targeted for those remote presenters unable to attend in person. The exact day is still TBD but will be one of June 26, 27, or 28.
Since this is Yet Another Perl Conference, we are looking for presentations that would be of interest to Perl programmers. Typically this would be something directly related to programming Perl, but it doesn't have to be.
In addition, this year we are branching out into the wider realm of dynamic languages. Though most all sessions will be about Perl, we are planning on slipping in a few talks on languages such as Ruby and Python. Think "Python for Perl Programmers" or "Ruby Has Rails, Why Doesn't Perl?"
We are looking for 20, 50, and 80 minute presentations. Due to the nature of remote presentations, group presentations are discouraged unless you can physically be presenting with your co-presenter (maybe next year). Also, feel free to submit multiple proposals to increase your chances of being chosen.
Please send your submissions to virtual-at-yapcchicago.org. Be sure to include a title for your presentation, an abstract, and the amount of time that you think you will need to present. In addition, list any virtual presentation tools you can utilize (skype, ichat, etc), and any potential challenges you see for a virtual presentation (bandwidth, etc). Please also include any constraints on when you could present between 9:00am CDT - 5:00pm CDT.
The deadline for abstract submissions is May 15, 2006, but we are more than happy to start receiving submissions today. When you submit your proposal, expect to get a confirmation within a week. If you don't hear from us, try to resubmit."
If that's so, what's happening? Have the JAPHly ranks dwindled to such a degree that we can't even stage a nearly free conference anymore, or is something else going on?
Re:Call for virtual speakers
boojum on 2006-04-18T03:10:58
The only inference that should be made from this is that not everyone is able to travel to Chicago. We live in a global world of smart geeks with worthy things to say.
A lot has changed since Adam Turoff and I presented Virtual Conferencing with Perl at YAPC::19100. Conferences are about bringing people with a common interest together and I don't see someone living halfway around the world as a limiting factor.
As far as the in-person Call for Participation, the responses were great! 9000 minutes of proposed presentation time which is roughly 150 hours or 6.25 solid non-stop days of presentations.
Will the virtual presentations be evaluated in the same pool as the regular presentations or by themselves for this track only?
I think this sounds like a very cool idea.
Re:Questions
boojum on 2006-04-18T19:36:13
You are correct. There will be a separate room reserved for the virtual track (one day only) and there is a separate call for virtual participation that is open until May 15th. Virtual presentations are in a selection pool of their own.
The event will be locally moderated and I suspect I will be the moderator. There will be a computer and projector present in the room.
