Bitcoin Weekend at the London Hackspace, 24/25 Sept 2011
Martin Dittus
as indicated a few days ago we're planning a Bitcoin event at the London Hackspace on 24/25 Sept 2011. We already have an amazing roaster of contributions lined up. Everyone's quite excited about this event; there have been very few Bitcoin contributor meetings so far, even outside the UK. We'll try to record the talks and will make the videos public.
We're now ready to announce details.
It's a weekend of talks, discussions and workshops for Bitcoin contributors, domain experts from a wide range of fields, enthusiasts, and everyone curious about Bitcoin. This is a great chance for everyone to meet new people and learn new things.
We will discuss the code, the infrastructure, the community, the legal and political implications; we will look into the mechanisms of currency systems, security concerns of running Bitcoin infrastructure, and run workshops that show you how to participate.
As the Bitcoin community grew it has become harder to separate hype from fact, charlatans from helpful guides. We will attempt to bring clarity, and to critique the Bitcoin system and community with a sober attitude. Though it's also worth pointing out that any social experiment worth having requires a fair amount of anarchy, playfulness, and suspension of disbelief...
The event will happen over a weekend:
* Saturday, 24 Sept 2011 from 14:00-18:00 we will have talks and discussions.
* Sunday, 25 Sept 2011 from 14:00-18:00 we will have workshops.
Thanks to the support of the London Hackspace the event itself is free to attend, however you need to register so we know how many people to expect. Make sure to register early; we will make an attempt at managing a waiting list should that become necessary. Attendance will be in the low dozens rather than hundreds, but (as you may will know) the London Hackspace draws a passionate crowd of specialists and hackers of all kinds of interesting backgrounds.
Details and schedule:
http://wiki.london.hackspace.org.uk/view/Project:Bitcoin/Bitcoin_Weekend_2011
Registration:
https://bitcoinweekend.eventbrite.com/
A preview of the current schedule:
Saturday:
* Keynote and a technical talk by Amir Taaki
* "How bitcoin works" video by John Baker
* Information bazaar by Jamileh Taaki
* Mining talk by Vladimir Marchenko
* Legal talk by Jason Chia
* Economics talk by Gary Mulder, with a few economists in attendance
* Roundtable and discussions throughout the day
Sunday:
* Security talk by Vladimir Marchenko
* Practical Bitcoin workshop by TBC
* Developer workshop - use Bitcoin on a simple PHP website by Amir Taaki
m.
Martin Dittus
Reminder: you *need* to register for this one. It's free, but we want to avoid 100 people showing up for a talk in the (tiny) Quiet Room.
http://bitcoinweekend.eventbrite.com/
We're almost full. It'll be worth it to sign up to the waiting list if we run out of tickets, I'll make an attempt to purge unused tickets.
It's this coming Saturday/Sunday!
m.
Martin Dittus
You can still get on the *waiting list* for Saturday, but *please* don't come here assuming you'll be able to join us without actually having a ticket. You won't be able to attend. (The workshop for Sunday is full as well; because it has more space requirements for laptops etc there's no waiting list, if you don't have a ticket now you won't be able to attend period.)
As you know we're interested in being as inviting and inclusive as possible in our events. Let me stress that this is purely about crowd control; we want to avoid a situation where we're flooding the Hackspace with an event that is supposed to fit in the Quiet Room.
I'm sorry if this means some people are now being excluded from this event. I'm currently talking to a few people to find someone who can record the talks; get in touch with me if you have a camera and can help with this.
(We've had offers for alternative locations by the C4CC and the Trampery, but they're only worth it for an event of twice the current size.)
Join #bitcoinweekend to start the pre-event discussion, or alternatively to troll me with your complaints. :D
martind.