KDE Akademy 2014 in Brno, Czech Republic
A few weeks ago I was blessed with the opportunity to attend KDE’s Akademy Conference for the first time. (Thank you Ubuntu Donors for sponsoring me!).
Akademy is a week long conference that begins with a weekend of keynote speakers, informative lectures, and many hacking groups scattered about.
This Akademy also had a great pre-release party held by Red Hat.
I have not traveled such a distance since I was a child, so I was not prepared for the adventures to come. Hint: Pack lightly! I still have nightmares of the giant suitcase I thought I would need! I was lucky to have a travel buddy / roommate (Thank you Valorie Zimmerman!) to assist me in my travels, and most importantly, introducing me to my peers at KDE/Kubuntu that I had never met in person. It was wonderful to finally put a face to the names.
My first few days were rather difficult. I was fighting my urge to stand in a corner and be shy. Luckily, some friendly folks dragged me out of the corner and introduced me to more and more people. With each introduction and conversation it became easier. I also volunteered at the registration desk, which gave me an opportunity to meet new people. As the days went on and many great conversations later, I forgot I was shy! In the end I made many friends during Akademy, turning this event into one of the most memorable moments of my life.
The weekend brought Keynote speakers and many informative lectures. Unfortunately, I could not be in several places at once, so I missed a few that I wanted to see.
Thankfully, you can see them here: https://conf.kde.org/en/Akademy2014/public/schedule/2014-09-06
Due to circumstances out of their control, the audio is not great. The rest of the week was filled with BoF sessions / Workshops / Hacking / Collaboration / Anything we could think of that need to get done. In the BoF sessions we covered a lot of ground and hashed out ways to resolve problems we were facing. All that I attended were extremely productive. Yet another case where I wish I could split into multiple people so I could attend all that I wanted too!
Kubuntu Day @ Akademy 2014
On Thursday we got an entire Kubuntu Day! We accomplished many things including working with Debian’s Sune and Pino to move some of our packaging to Debian git to reduce duplicate packaging work. We discussed the details of going to continuous packaging which includes Jenkins CI. We also had the pleasure of München’s Limux project joining us to update us with the progress of Kubuntu in Munich, Germany!
While there was a lot of work accomplished during Akademy, there was also plenty of play as well! In the evenings many of us would go out on the town for dinner and drinks.
On Wednesday,on the day trip, we visited (what a hike!) an old castle via a nice ferry ride. Unfortunately I forgot my camera in the hostel.. 
The hackroom in the hostel was always bustling with activity. We even had the pleasure of very tasty home cooked meals by Jos Poortvliet in the tiny hostel kitchen a couple nights, that took some creative thinking! In the end, there was never a moment of boredom and always moments of learning, discussions, hacking and laughing.
If you ever have the opportunity to attend Akademy, do not pass it up!