[Planning] IndiaFOSS 2024

[ansh]

We are excited to announce IndiaFOSS 2024, the fourth edition of the Free and Open Source Software (and Hardware!) conference organised by the FOSS United community.

• Dates: 7th - 8th September, 2024
• Venue: NIMHANS Convention Centre - Bengaluru

Important Links:

Call for Proposals
Suggestions thread
Suggest a Speaker

All relevant links will be added here.

This forum post is to be used as a planning thread pertaining to all related discussions, meeting notes, and linking relevant threads.

[ansh]

Minutes of the meeting #1

Attendees - Vishal, Ansh

1. Talks:

• The date announcement reel is in process (now posted).
• CFP to open in first week of April and a committee will be sought after starting 15th April with an expected conclusion by 30th June.
• The committee will start reviewing proposals from 1st July for a period of 3-4 weeks. - The schedule release is set for August first week tentatively.

2. Sponsorships

• Sponsorship deck to be released on 15th April.
• The last date to onboard sponsors is 15th August.
• Received interest from Logitech for a sponsorship

3. Project and Community Tables

• Make IndiaFOSS into a fair. Allow as many as possible projects to be featured (maybe chage a nominal fee for the table, tv screens if required etc.)
• Calls for Software and Hardware Showcases will be made. There will also be dedicated community tables.

4. Diversity

• More focus on diversity scholarships this year. Perhaps include an option to donate while registering.
  Diversity Scholarships - IndiaFOSS

• Focus on inviting diverse speakers, communities.

5. Guides

• Participants & Speakers | FAQs

1. Accommodation
2. Travel
3. Places to visit in Bangalore
4. Food to try

• Speakers’ FAQs

1. OS Guideline
2. Mock session before the talk
3. Free/+1 tickets
4. Travel Support
5. Slide Submission
6. Collect contact details post talk confirmation

6. Children

• The conference should be made open to kids. Seperate activities to be planned.
• Parents can bring along their children aged 5-15, free tickets perhaps.
• Vishal will get in touch with a daycare service.

7. Tickets

• Early bird tickets will open on 1 May.
• Regular tickets will open on 15th June.
• The maximum ticket count is set to be 1500.
• Use razorpay invoice feature as per request

8.Tech

1. Registration Page: Ask for food preference, dietary restrictions
2. Tickets module
3. Conference Page
4. Donate Section
5. CP section changes: adjust 6 CPs logo in one row in large screen and 2 in mobile view
6. Speakers sneak peak on homepage
7. FOSS Projects
8. Move volunteers to a dedicated page
9. Schedule Redesign
10. Ticket Transfer
11. Invoice generation

9. Marketing

• Content

1. Newsletter
2. Social Media
3. Partnerships

• Design

1. Social Media Cards
2. Banners: Vertical and horizontal
3. ID Sticker
4. Sticker
5. Venue Space Management (Get printed copy)
6. Signage
7. Backdrop for auditoriums and livestream

• Community Partnership

1. Reach out to old partners
2. Find new partners through outreach. Less focus on marketing partnerships.

• Video Content

10.Venue

1. AV
2. Food
3. WiFi
4. Sockets
5. More Water Stations

11. Conf day

• Unconference
• Workshops
• Lightning Talks
• BoF sessions

[ansh]

Volunteering for FOSS United Conferences

Volunteering for FOSS United Conferences This thread serves as a reference for people looking to volunteer for IndiaFOSS and CityFOSS conferences. The workgroups mentioned are specific to IndiaFOSS but mostly apply to all our city conferences as well. Volunteer onboarding is done in two phases, for remote tasks (designs, marketing, etc.) and logistics/venue related tasks respectively. Expectations We expect the volunteers to have a basic understanding of our vision of promoting Free and Ope…

[wisharya]

Proposed Budget for IndiaFOSS 2024

Estimated Income
Source	Count	Rate	Amount
FU Annual Fund	1	2800000	2800000
T-shirt Sale	500	500	250000
Ticket sales - Student	500	400	200000
Ticket sales - General	500	800	400000
Ticket sales - Early Bird	200	600	120000
Potential Sponsors	2	300000	600000
Diversity Sponsorship	10	15000	150000
		Total	4520000

Estimated Expense
Item	Category	Amount
Stay - Volunteers	Travel	250000
Travel - Volunteers	Travel	400000
Travel - Speakers	Travel	200000
Venue Rent	Venue	660800
AV + Venue setup	Venue	453120
Food - Lunch and Snacks	Food	1500000
Breakfast	Food	75000
Recording, Photography and Livestreaming	Production	300000
Banner, Poster and Signage	Branding and Swag	30000
T-shirt	Branding and Swag	250000
Stickers	Branding and Swag	30000
Stationary	Venue	30000
Rama Tent - Mattress	Venue	10000
Diversity Scholars	Travel	150000
	Total	4338920

[ansh]

Minutes of the meeting #2

Attendees - Ansh,Vishal

• Sponsorship deck to be finalised this week - Will schedule a call with @rahulporuri
• Call for volunteers form to be circulated in city volunteer and club lead groups for first phase of volunteering.
• Draft budget is released.
• Finalise and Invite members for the CFP review committee
• Draft content for speaker outreach and start sending invitations to potential speakers.
• Prepare marketing content
• Design tracker to be created and shared with FOSS United design team
• Send emails to previous year attendees once CFPs open.

[ansh]

Minutes of the meeting #3

Attendees- Sai Rahul, Ansh, Vishal
Reg. Sponsorships at IndiaFOSS

• Vishal proposed to bring down the price of the highest sponsor tier (to something like 3 lakhs ).
• We didn’t come to a conclusion on this, will have another discussion on this decision before moving ahead.
• The communications with sponsor (and the deck) should make it clear that there are no talks for sponsors. Any sponsors interested in giving a talk should follow the standard CFP path.
• We should start reaching out to potential and past sponsors by next week. We can start the conversations, updating the sponsorship deck is not an immediate requirement as of now.

CTA

• Make a list of companies to reach out to and add them to the IndiaFOSS tracker.