Hacker excursion to Chaos Communications Congress and beyond in December/January

[Adam Thomas]

Hi,

A few weeks back the Chaos Computer Club's event team posted the Call For Participation[0] for the 31st Chaos Communications Congress (31C3). Most of you will be familiar with the CCC and their Congresses as a driving factor behind the spread of Hackerspaces around the world. It was Nick Farr's Hackers On A Plane trip which took a crew of American hackers to the 2007 Chaos Communications Camp and on a tour of European hackerspaces which inspired the famous Hackerspace Design Patterns talk[1]. This trip also inspired seminal US hackerspaces like NoiseBridge & NYC Resistor and is a strong part of our shared history. 

By some very good fortune, I was able to attend 28c3 back in 2011 and visit some of the hackerspaces in Europe. The experience changed me so much and I really want to share the awe and excitement I felt on my first trip with the other Australian Hackers that are yet to make it to their first Chaos Communications Congress. 

While I'm not proposing anything on the scale of Hackers on a Plane (at least not this year), what I am doing is hoping to put together a trip to Congress and a selection of the notable hackerspaces in Europe with those already thinking about going and to encourage anyone who is on the fence to really seriously consider it.

I usually spend about 3 weeks away which is a good amount of time to go to the conference, spend NYE in Berlin (with beers at C-Base because you just kinda have to) and then drop in at a few more spaces like Metalab, Shackspace, brmlab and London Hackspace. I'm really interested to hear suggestions from those that have been on tours (I'm looking at you Harmsworth) as well as places that others would like to visit.

Seeing and participating in the European hacker culture has really enlightened me to the possibilities of hackerspaces beyond what I feel like we're achieving in Australia. I've found it really hard to communicate that with the other people who haven't seen it first hand, which is why I think a group trip is such a good idea. I think it has the possibility to really change the way we operate.

Given that Congress is only about 5 months away and few people are in a position to just decide to go to Europe for three weeks on 5 months notice (return flights are around the $3k mark for example), I'm not expecting everyone to jump at this. If you can't make it this year but would be interested in next year let me know. Depending on how the numbers fall, it might make more sense to have a 'quiet' trip this year and spend a bit more time planning and promoting a trip for 32C3.

Either way, I'm going to Congress, do you want to come?

Adam.

MakeHackVoid

Canberra

P.S. You're more than welcome to share this around, as I know not everyone is on the ozhs list.

[0]: http://events.ccc.de/2014/07/12/31c3-call-for-participation-en/

[1]: http://events.ccc.de/congress/2007/Fahrplan/events/2133.en.html

[David Lyon]

Hi Adam,

I'm quite likely to be able to make the trip. I have some customers in Berlin that I could visit at the same time.

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[pelrun]

Actually, I think I could do this! Right-o, pencil me in.

- James

[Angus Gratton]

Hi Adam & all,

This is also very relevant to my interests, thanks for putting it out
there Adam. I'm still confirming that I really can afford it, but I'm
very keen (it's been "I'll make it next year" for too many years now).

I was lucky enough to visit some European hackerspaces just this May,
including many of the ones on Adam's list, and I can confirm it really
is perspective-changing (this is despite having already followed some
of those spaces online, and listened to Adam talk about them, etc,
etc). Also it was a heap of fun. :D

3 weeks may stretch my budget though, and probably runs over LCA, so I
might only be there for CCC and a bit of time after. :(

I am also toying with the idea of stopping over in Hong Kong on the
way home and spending a couple of nights in Shenzhen. You have to stop
somewhere, why not next door to the electronics capital of the world?


- Angus

[Gav]

Dang, very tempting, I wish I could make this one. Sadly my last two trips abroad were to Germany and Hong Kong, so I've seen a lot of the German spaces already. This makes my shoulder-angels say it's less acceptable to impulse-buy a ticket ;-)

I hope you guys have a fantastic time, though. 

Let's see, in Germany I saw: 

• CCCFM in Frankfurt
• Entropia in Karlsruhe + another Karlsruhe one I can't recall.
• Fablab Munich

Can't remember if I saw any in Berlin, I think my timing was bad compared to their regular meetups. 

And I'd highly reccomend all of them. Fairly small compared to Australian spaces (rent in urban German cities is not cheap), but very awesome culture. Fablab Munich in particular was great, I'd been stuck on the road away from my regular tools, and they kindly let me use their printer to make a prototype design that'd been burning away in my head :-)

Cheers,

Gavin 

[David Lyon]

Hi Gav,

That's because it's a different culture in Germany.

Actually the best places in Germany to hack are actually in the basements during winter where all the tools and parts go. Lot's of people actually have their own basement/garage workshops set up with all the tools that they need.

Because of the short (commercial) life of tools, it's pretty easy to build up your own garage of tools from throwouts from work or other factories. And the stuff people can make in their own garages can be really amazing.

Actually France is even more amazing in this respect, as they add artistic elements to their projects where the Germans tend to focus on making simple things that work nicely and are useful and saleable.

Here on the tv, we seem to just show politicians behaving badly. Over there they have that too, but are over it. Money needs to be made, things need to go together and they are always showing people and the amazing things that they make in their garages, which often go on to being commercial successes employing thousands/ten-of-thousands of people.

It's just great to hook into that at a grassroots level.

Regards

David

[Tim Ansell]

I'd love to attend this but I just don't think I can made the timing work (I'm trying to reduce my overseas travel). I'm currently working with the CC video guys so it would have be awesome to get across and meet them in person.

Back in 2006 I attended the 22C3 and it was pretty awesome, I'd highly recommend people attend. They had more Internet into the conference venue then the entirety of Africa at the time!

Anyway, please do keep me informed incase my plans change and allow me to go.

Tim

[Daniel Harmsworth]

Sorry for the slow response, I currently have the 18th to 22nd of
December (Then I'm in Berlin for XMas) and the 1st to 12th January
(Then off to Norway) unallocated (Though I may be heading to Norway a
bit early for a dogsledding expedition, after that I'm delivering some
workshops in Iceland (any hackers that want to come along are
welcome!).

I generally spend NYE with friends in Wuppertal but I am open to
changes in plan. I will need to visit at least my friends at
Shackspace & RaumZeitLabor but a Hackerspaces tour would be awesome!

On 11 August 2014 21:24, 'Tim Ansell' via The Australian Hackerspace

Daniel Harmsworth
Deputy Chairmonkey, The Perth Artifactory Inc.
http://www.artifactory.org.au