Organising UbuCon Asia this year was quite different from previous years. While It’s been organised as a standalone conference in past, this time we organised a joint event with COSCUP - the largest FOSS gathering in Taiwan. Which means the approach with organising the event was different and also same goes for the event experience during the event days.
What made us organise joint event with COSCUP
Our initial plan for this year was organising a standalone event just like last year. To organise one, we published call for bids then received a bid from Malaysia. Unfortunately, we were not able to choose the bid since it’s been withdrawn. So we started to look for some alternative options.
- Contact other LoCo or FOSS community in different countries (such as Japan, Thailand, China and few more)
- Consider co-locating in other large FOSS events (such as FOSSASIA Summit, COSCUP and more)
- Skip organizing UbuCon Asia for 2026.
We first tried to reach out people from other countries to discuss if they would be interested to host. But were not able to find new potential local team. Then we started to consider co-locating with COSCUP. Fortunately, we had @rjhsiao on the team who is part of Ubuntu Taiwan. And they helped us to reach out COSCUP team to start discussing about the joint event. Then after discussing with the COSCUP team, we were able to make the announcement about the joint event with COSCUP.
Aligning two different conferences over more than half of the year
While global team members have been mentoring and guiding local team to organise the event in past, this year’s main focus was aligning two different conferences.
How we will handle to overall event format? How we will handle sponsorship and finances? What about CFP, contents and keynote speakers? What about the registration? How we should communicate on text chat and which platform to use? - There were a lot of things that we need to align.
While we were having internal bi-weekly call within the team, We also had monthly sync call with COSCUP team to align those questions and also make sure to keep things synced. With that, we were able to put puzzles together about the joint event.
The day before the event
On Friday afternoon, Me and several folks from the team been to the venue for the site visit and setting up the booth. The venue has been already being setup with many banners already installed on its own place. After looking around the venue, I helped folks to setup Ubuntu booth and also picked up my staff t-shirts.
After picking up my t-shits, I also been to the main hall to prepare for the opening session on next day. I have met Yan who is one of the COSCUP organiser, and discussed how we will address the opening for the Day 1. I have also done some quick rehearsal to make sure everything works good.
Then, I moved to the welcome party to enjoys some beer, snacks and catch up with some old friends I’ve met at Ubuntu and other open source communities. This time there were a lot of people from Korea attending the event but not just limited to people involved with Ubuntu. I also catched up with some of our previous speakers (such as @rs2009 - who looked entirely different from past years!)
Day 1
On first day, I have arrived at the main hall about an hour earlier to do some final rehearsal, technical tests and get other things prepared. I also met and said hello to Yan (who gave opening speech with me) and also @chihchun who was the prime session speaker of the day.
Then the event began. First, Yan kicked off the opening session sharing the journey to the this year’s COSCUP along with introducing sponsors and sharing some practical information. Followed by Yan, I delivered some quick introductions to UbuCon Asia, its past editions and this year’s program - as welll as our featured speakers. Then invited Rex to give his prime session speech.
Rex delivered his prime session on “The Invisible Architecture: From Kernel Patches to Global AI” and discussed how Canonical is building the invisible architecture to make sure Ubuntu works on wide range of complex hardware. - such as Canonical’s continued efforts on building partnerships with various hardware vendors, Inference Snaps, Canonical Workshop, Juju and much more.
Day 1 talks
After the prime session, I have joined some of UbuCon Asia sessions at AU hall. “Creating containers like Michelangelo” by @tushar5526, “Ubuntu Touch Progress Update 2026” by @fredldotme, and also “From Autotest to Avocado: Modernizing System Testing on Ubuntu” by Nirjal Bhurtel. I also moderated track at AU hall during the morning program.
Day 1 community booth
After having lunch, I helped running Ubuntu booth a bit, then hanged around the community booth area. I have distributed bunch of stickers i brought on Ubuntu booth. @zeroday0619 @choo121600 was running the Ubuntu Community booth with Ubu4cut photo booth and also Euiseo’s own live translation project demo (which wasn’t working unfortunately)
Day 1 review and closing
After the Day 1 program, We had a daily sync meeting in-person at the AU hall, just like the last year. We reviewed what went well, and what were not went well. We found that while most things went well, there were some issues with WiFi on the room for workshop sessions. Since I brought a portable router, We discussed to setup that router on workshop room on next day. So that workshop speakers and participants can have network connection easily.
Followed by the sync meeting, RJ delivered the closing speech for Day 1. Sharing some highligts of Day 1 and also some practical information for the Day 2 program.
Day 2
On the second day, Although there were typhoon hitting Taipei, the event program continued as usual. After setting up my portable router on workshop room, I spent most of time nearby the community booth. Ubu4cut photo machine by @choo121600 got up and running on the second day. Just like the last year, it attracted many people visiting our booth.
We also started to interviewed some speakers, community booth staff, as well as some of participants. I brought my action camera along with wireless microphone, then @younggunner14 and @aryan hanged around the booth area then interviewed number of people. Including me (@sukso96100), @ilvipero, Seongsoo Cho(FOSS for All), Ananthu (one of our speakers), people from Hacking Thursday and GDG Taiwan and much more.
On late afternoon, I helped moderating UbuCon Asia track for a while. And enjoyed OpenClaw with Juju workshop by @fourdollars, Live subtitle project built with Ubuntu, and more.
And that concluded the Day 2 program! After the Day 2 schedule, our team also participated the celebration party that invites COSCUP staffs, some overseas community booth organisers and more. We had some time to say hello to other people and celebrate the success of this year’s event. then enjoyed some food!
City tour
Next day, I also participated the city tour prepared by the COSCUP team. And enjoyed the program at Nangang Tea Manufacturing Demonstration. I watched some video of explanation, saw some facility and process of how tea is made…
Then hiked hill a bit to get to the tea farm and take some tea leaves…
And enjoyed tasty lunch with some tea
Conclusion
And that concluded my trip to UbuCon Asia X COSCUP 2026. While organising UbuCon Asia is challenging every year, It has been another different kind of challenge this year. There were some unexpected things happened at the beginning, and we also need to align two different conferences, I also got quite busy at work and got much less time to spend on preparing the event. But thanks to efforts from many of our team, It’s been another successful year.
I’d like to thank again our team - @sukso96100 @younggunner14 @saileshsingh @aryan @jipangmenjerit @fenris @bajinra and also @rjhsiao and Ubuntu Taiwan people @fourdollars @Buo-Ren_Lin as well as COSCUP team (Singing Li, Mac Taylor, Li-Han Chen, Yan and more) for putting many efforts over more then 6 month to make things happen.
While the next year’s plan isn’t outlined yet. Hopefully we can meet each other next year.
