Why mini-DevConf and what you will find there!

Hey everyone, we are again organizing DevConf.cz! Now it's been already 15 years since we've started with this conference and it has grown, shrunk, expanded, got crazier, moved from summer time to winter time, split to different locations and different event types. It's fantastic to see how we created something where we offered the community to use it but asked to contribute back and it still works! DevConf.cz is now a conference organized in three different locations - US, India and Czech Republic. This year in the winter after a bit of a break (I should rather say, being virtual only - you know why!) we were back to a live conference and we had to fight with different post-covid limitations, fear of travelling and many unknonws. Becuase of that we shrunk the conference which left us with many great talks and sessions we couldn't fit into the large event. Decision was made to come back to the roots of DevConf, bring interesting topics closer to universities and students and as a result, we've decided to organize series mini-DevConf's - one day events at universities (we've chosen the Masaryk University in Brno where the first couple DevConf conferences were organized back in the days) . The first event which happened before summer was a great success. As the audience and whole event was smaller, it turned out to be a very friendly event with lot of hallway discussions, meeting good old friends as well as new folks who got involved in open source projects yet we didn't have a chance to meet them in person. Based on this experience, we've agreed on continuing with mini-DevConf and this week a second itteration of mini-DevConf.cz happens at Faculty of Informatis of Masaryk University.

Come and join us on November 3rd! Check https://devconf.cz for more details and registration. This time we've picked talks that are focused on Cloud & Hyperscalers - the experience with provisioning kubernetes clusters, efficient operations, monitoring as well as running applications on the cloud, using new technologies like serverless. Some of these topics will touch on edge computing and how to deal with edge specifics. What I really enjoy about DevConf is the combination of technical talks that focus on what's already at works with talks that are showing potentials of technologies, reasearch topis and ideas where we should be heading next. You'll find some interesting sessions about using advanced machine learning models in cluster observability and fine tuning cluster and application performace with a bit of AI.

Is there a topic you're missing at DevConf? Do you want to bring up more attention to your idea, project or research topic? There are still lightning talks where you can bring and present your thing or keep watching #devconf_cz on twitter for a new call for papers for event in summer 2023.

I mentioned at the beginning, it's the "hallway track" I enjoy the most and each conference ends with a great social event where discussion continues. Once the official schedule ends we still won't go home and discussions will continue at a social event that is prepared for all registered attendies. Can you tell that I'm really excited about this event?! :-) See you there!