Hello folks!
Sorry, I supposed to open this thread for UbuCon Asia 2023 call for hosts on monday, But I’ve been forgot about that. So, It’s a few days late, But here’s details for call for hosts.
How to submit your team’s proposal for UbuCon Asia 2023 Call for hosts
- First, Make sure that your team is registered on “Call for interests”. Only teams registered for Call for interests can apply for Call for hosts.
- See this thread for instructions: UbuCon Asia 2023 - Looking for interested local team
- Please prepare complete proposal document based on the guideline provided in this thread.
- Once your team is ready to apply, Simply compose a reply to this discourse thread with following information.
- URL to your team’s call for interests registration (which is a URL to your team’s response post on this thread
- URL to your team’s proposal document as PDF file.
Note: By submitting your team’s proposal, Reviewers will take that as all members of your team acknowledged with Ubuntu Code of Conduct and UbuCon Asia Code of Conduct. Make sure that all of your team members have read both carefully before submitting proposal.
The schedule
- Call for interests: Deadline 2023-01-13T14:59:00Z
- Call for hosts: Deadline 2023-01-27T14:59:00Z
- Only teams registered for call for interests can apply for call for hosts
- Make sure to provide a complete proposal in a PDF document.
- Submission review: After call for hosts closed - 2023-02-07T14:59:00Z
- UCA23 Host city announcement: Feb 8
- Schedules can be changed. In that case, an updated schedule will be posted on this Discourse thread.
What proposal should include
Below is an guideline to prepare your team’s proposal. Please read details carefully, and make sure to include all details on the proposal required from below.
Local team members and bio of each members
At least 6 people are required and 8 to 10 people are recommended. Please provide names, bios and roles of each person. It is recommended to have at least one member with Ubuntu Membership or Ubuntu LoCo (loco.ubuntu.com) organizer, So that your team would be able to request funds for organizing the event.
Tell us about your local community
Tell us details about the Ubuntu local community in your region. If it does not exist or is no longer active, You may provide information to other local FLOSS communities enthusiastic in Ubuntu.
- Brief introduction about the local community.
- What kind of activities are usually organized?
- How many people are involved?
- How active is the local community?
- Does the local community also have online activities such as forum, social media and chat on IRC or Matrix?
- Does the local community do some collaboration with other local FLOSS communities?
Supporting local FLOSS communities, organizations and governments.
Please provide details if your team has any of followings:
- Other local FLOSS communities which potentially can become community partner of UbuCon Asia
- Any Nonprofit organizations, College or University and Government organizations (usually tourism department) that supports your team and UbuCon Asia.
Does your team have a fiscal host or legal partner?
Unfortunately, We don’t have a dedicated organization for managing funds, contracts, payments and finances of UbuCon Asia. Thus, It is required for local teams to bring their own fiscal host or legal partner who would manage event funds, contacts, payments and finances. Just like the Korean team brought an event agency as their fiscal host for the 2022 event.
A fiscal host is usually a legal entity who holds the team’s funds in their bank account and can issue quotations, invoices, receipts for sponsors and supporters. They also sign on contracts for sponsorship, venue acquiring and other contracts related to the event. And of course, they also pay for taxes incurred while organizing the event.
Usually, Local open source organizations or nonprofit organizations such as OSPN in Japan, Open Culture Foundation in Taiwan and FOSSASIA in Singapore can be your fiscal host. Event agencies such as Plan9 (fiscal host of 2022 event) or PCOs (Professional convention organizer) can also be your fiscal host. A normal company can also become your fiscal host if they are willing to. But as they might be busy with their own business, It isn’t much recommended.
Most fiscal hosts take a few percentage of fees from the income. For example, If you got sponsorship, they usually take 10~15% of fees from the sponsorship amount. Some fiscal hosts can make payments upfront before you receive sponsorship. This can be useful for acquiring venue and accommodation earlier but can be also dangerous since it can be a debt in case you couldn’t bring enough sponsorship.
Venue details
Provide detailed information on the venue you acquire or plan to acquire
- Target event participants scale including speakers and organizers (Around 200~300)
- Details on Main hall (for opening, keynote and lightning talks) and breakout rooms (breakout talks, workshops, BoFs): 1 Main hall and 2~3 breakout rooms are recommended. Main hall that can be converted into breakout rooms with integrated moving partitions would be also nice.
- How many people each room can handle
- Does each room comes with basic facilities such as beam projectors, audio(speakers and microphone), tables and chairs and wired/wireless internet connections
- Does the venue come with space that can be used as a lobby where reception(registration desk) and sponsor exhibition booth can be installed?
- Are there any areas that can be used as a lounge where participants can take rest?
- Does the venue allow food indoors so that the organizing team can provide some snacks?
- Does the venue provide stable wired or wireless internet connection?
- Does the venue provide reasonable security?
Infrastructures nearby the venue
- Is the venue easily accessible from other cities, different areas of the same city and nearby airport?
- Is it possible to easily reach the venue with public transportation?
- Are there any good and affordable hotels or other accommodations nearby the venue?
- Hotels, AirBnB, Dormitories or any other options
- Are there any large restaurants or banquets for conference dinner in case the venue has no facility for that?
- Are there any police stations, local clinics, hospitals nearby?
Host city details
Provide some information on the host city
- Brief introduction about the city - Can be replaced with a URL to a web page that provides relevant information.
- Can most overseas participants visit the city without a visa?
- If visas are required:
- Will a tourist visa be enough for attending a conference?
- Can it be issued easily within 1~2 weeks or can it be issued on arrival(Visa on arrival)?
- Can your team provide visa support for participants? (At least speakers): Either Visa invitation under name of your team, supporting organization or support from local travel agency.
- If visas are required:
- Are there any other requirements for overseas participants other than visa?
- Such as electronic travel authorization(e.g. ESTA (U.S.), K-ETA (South Korea)), Quarantine information submission.
- Does the city have convenient and affordable public transportation?
- Is the city safe enough for most participants?
Event program and schedule details
Please provide a brief event format and schedule with dates including social events.
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Conference day dates (2 days) - between September and November.
-
Make sure to avoid dates with other huge events such as WorldCup, Olympics and tech events like Ubuntu Summit, AWS Re:Invent and other huge tech events unless you collocate UbuCon with them like UbuCon at SCALE or plan to hold in the same city. It is also advised to have at least 3~4 weeks gap with Ubuntu Summit So that Ubuntu folks can consider participating in both Ubuntu Summit and UbuCon and Canonical can also provide more support on time.
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National holidays, School/University exam periods
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Draft conference timetables without actual session content.
- Should include schedules for Check-in, Opening/Closing session, Keynote, Session slots, Break time, Lunch break, etc.
- The event comes with following types of sessions
- Talk (20min, 45min including Q&A time)
- Workshop (90min - this can be adjusted if needed)
- Lightning talks - 5min
- BoF - 45min
-
Social event date and times
- Social events are optional and do not need to bring all participants from conference schedules.
- You may either accept separate registration or include it on a conference ticket.
- Conference dinner at Day 1 and Group tour before or after conference days is recommended. You may also organize different social events instead such as potluck parties and one-day classes.
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Ticket information
- You may either choose to be a free event or a paid event. Please provide ticket pricing if you plan to organize a paid event.
- If you want to sell paid tickets, Ticket pricing should be affordable and income from tickets should be used for covering event expenses.
- If it will be a paid event, Are there any discount or free options?
- Such as Student discount, Free for speakers and organizers. Few free or discounts for sponsors and partners.
Catering details
Catering for providing snacks and meals at the venue is optional at this moment, But if it’s possible, It will be very helpful to make participants spend most of their time at the venue.
- Is catering allowed at the venue?
- What kind of catering can you provide? Snacks and beverages, Meals or other catering
- Are there options for people with food allergies and sensitivities? (e.g. vegan, gluten free, vegetarian, allergies, halal)
Video recording or live streaming options
What kind of video recording or live streaming options are available? We would like to record and publish videos of every session so that other people can also see recordings later and we can use it for marketing purposes later. If you want to organize the event as a hybrid, a live streaming option would be also required.
Budget estimation
Please provide brief budget estimation in USD
- Conference venue - Free venue would be best (such as university, or tech company)
- Equipments
- Network installation - If the venue does not provide stable internet connections.
- Power strips - For workshop, exhibition and other places need some power source. If the venue does not provide one.
- Video recording or streaming setup and service fee
- Audio setup (speakers, microphone, etc) - If the venue does not provide a decent one.
- Live translation (optional) - If English is a huge language barrier for most people in your country
- Marketing materials
- T-shirts or hoodies (or other swags)
- Stickets
- Banners (Standing banners, Wall banners)
- Name Tags (badge)
- Posters
- Social Media ADs (optional)
- etc.
- Catering budget
- Snacks and beverages (optional)
- Lunch (optional)
- You may provide lunch to all participants or just staffs and speakers
- Conference dinner catering (If you plan to organize one)
- Travel budget
- Accommodation budget for at least speakers and organizers.
- International transportation (such as flights) budget for at least speakers.
- You don’t need to provide full sponsorship for all speakers. (or everyone who applied) Recommended to set a maximum travel grant amount for beneficiaries.
- How many people can your team sponsor? Make sure to set a limit.
- Participants with Ubuntu Membership can apply for Ubuntu Community Fund for travel grants. But keep in mind that, There could be many attendees, staff or speakers without Ubuntu Membership.
- Social event budget
- Budget for Conference dinner, Group tour, etc.
- Buffer
- To cover unexpected expenses.
- 15~20% of total budget amount recommended
Potential sponsors and partners
UbuCon Asia does not have a wide sponsor network yet. Which means, Global team would help with gathering sponsors of course, but it might be difficult to bring enough global sponsors. We can have Canonical as our sponsor at least, But that would not be enough to cover expenses.
- Are there any local companies that can become a sponsor?
- Are there any conference sponsorship programs from the government?
- Are there any media that can become a media partner and help with spreading the event?
Important dates
Provide brief overview of event preparation timeline which should include followings:
- Call for proposals/Contents
- Open date
- Soft deadline
- Final deadline - In case we couldn’t get enough proposals by the soft deadline.
- Review deadline and acceptance notification date
- Deadline for publishing event schedule
- Sponsorships
- Deadline for publishing sponsorship program - Usually before opening Call for proposals.
- Deadline for gathering sponsors.
- Registration
- Open date
- Early bird selling period - If it’s a paid event.
- Registration deadline
- Travel sponsorship
- Usually same schedule as Call for proposals
