I stumbled upon (you catch that one?) a gem the other day. There’s going to be an event targeted towards the SQL/developer community in Charlottesville, VA on November 14^th-16^th. It’s dubbed OpenSQLCamp and you can learn more about it here. What’s the big deal you might ask? It’s free! Yes, that’s right, this baby is entirely 100 percent free of charge. You might be wondering how such a conference could be conducted free of charge in a day in age when conferences run for $1000 and up. My response? It’s an unconference.

If you have never heard of such a thing before, don’t feel ashamed. I myself am new to the conference scene and had never heard of the term myself. An unconference is a “facilitated, participant-driven conference centered around a theme or purpose.” ^[1] Long story short this conference is run by the same group of individuals attending it. It’s bound to be a great experience. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t excited to listen to and learn from some of these guys.

Now, back to the reason this event is free. The gears that keep such events as this unconference ticking are sponsorships. You need a number of individuals who are willing to step up to the plate to cover the costs for the benefit of the community as a whole. We here at MODE were so intrigued by this particular event that we have decided to sponsor OpenSQLCamp ourselves. We are, as you may or may not know, big proponents of open source software and solutions.

References

1. Wikipedia : Unconference