FUDCon:LATAM 2011 Bid Porto Alegre

= FUDCon LATAM 2011 - Porto Alegre =

Local Team
Daniel Bruno

Igor Pires Soares

Taylon Silva

Wolnei Cândido Tomazelli Junior

General Information
FUDCon LATAM 2011 is being held in conjunction with FISL 2011.


 * DATE: Wednesday 29 - June to Saturday 2 - July / 2011
 * CITY/STATE: Porto Alegre / Rio Grande do SUL - RS
 * COUNTRY:BRAZIL

Brief description of the city.
Porto Alegre is located in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, the southernmost state in Brazil. The state borders Argentina and Uruguay. Porto Alegre is one of the wealthiest cities in Latin America and is one of the most import capitals in Brazil.

Porto Alegre has interesting places for tourism such as the Matrix Square, Farroupilha Park and the Central Public Market. The city has a diverse nightlife with a lot of bars concentrated in the downtown near the hotels.

There are important universities in Porto Alegre such as UFRGS, UFCSPA and PUCRS (where FISL is held). Porto Alegre hosts the International Free Software Forum every year and hosted the World Social Forum several times.

Major local airports and their distance from lodging and venue.
Porto Alegre has an international airport called Salgado Filho (CODE: POA) that serves flights operated by major Brazilian airlines to many areas in Brazil and other South American countries. The daily movement is about 174 aircraft. International flights came through hub airports such as Guarulhos (São Paulo) and Galeão (Rio de Janeiro)

There are taxis that can take passengers to downtown easily. The costs are about 25 reais, 15 dolars.

Outline of local mass transit.
There are only two highways in the city, both running close to the northern and northwestern border of the city. This is so because there are no major destinations southeast or south of Porto Alegre (considering the landmass east of Lagoa dos Patos). One of them is BR-290, which runs east-west across the state, linking the northeast coast of the state to the Uruguay-Argentina-Brazil border. It runs close to the northern border of the municipality. The other one is BR-116, which runs northeast-south across the state, linking Porto Alegre to several satellite cities and other Brazilian capitals to the north, and Uruguay to the south.

Since 1999, the largest road work ever, the Terceira Perimetral (Third Perimetral) has been under construction throughout the city. The Terceira Perimetral is 12 km (7.4 mi) long, connecting both north and south regions of the city.

More information here

Detailed description of proposed venue and estimated costs including room capacity and configuration.
This proposal is for hosting the FUDCon LATAM 2011 along with the 12th International Free Software Forum (FISL - Fórum Internacional de Software Livre in Portuguese). The venue includes rooms for 100-150 people and also an auditorium. Fedora will have talks in FISL's schedule in the same mold of FUDCon 2009. The costs of the booth depend on the location at the venue. Talks and FUDCon activities would be advertised in the booth. FISL requires a paid registration but we can get a discount for the attendees registered one month earlier.

Estimated costs of flights major airports that attendees will travel from.
This cost can variate


 * Atlanta = US$ 1,100
 * Belo Horizonte = US$ 235
 * Curitiba = US$ 117
 * Manaus = US$ 500
 * Navegantes = US$ 287
 * Rio de Janeiro = US$ 158
 * Salvador = US$ 376
 * Santiago de Chile = US$ 410
 * Buenos Aires = US$ 260
 * Miami = US$ 1.100
 * Caracas = US$ 520
 * Mexico City = US$ 1,190
 * Panama City = US$ 1,100
 * Madri = US$ $1,300

Description of on the ground resources and their experience with FUDCon/other large events.
Porto Alegre hosted all the editions of FISL and a FUDCon in 2009. Organizers are used to manage large events and Fedora has been successfully represented at FISL since 2005. The city also hosted the World Social Forum, an initiative of several non-government organizations.

Notation of internet connectivity options for both hotel and conference venue.
The hotels offer wireless internet connectivity but some of them use to charge for the service. The conference venue also offers wireless connectivity but since FISL has a huge crowd the connection is often congested. It is a good idea to bring a wireless router to the booth, so we will be able to take advantage of the existing cabled connection.

Outline of proximate restaurant locations.
There is a restaurant at the venue and a lot of bars and restaurants at the hotel area. It is possible to go by foot from the hotel to the restaurants. There are a lot of restaurants specialized in barbecue in Porto Alegre as well as in typical foods from other countries and other regions of Brazil.

Deadlines for event reservation, etc.
We need start the event and hotel reservations at least seven months before the event, so we will be able to organize everything correctly and will be prepared for contingencies.

Pros

 * FISL is a well known event and will draw a lot of attention to FUDCon
 * We could merge the efforts into one event, rather than separate FUDCon from FISL
 * FISL has a high quality technical level and that would help us on organizing hackfests

Cons

 * Since FISL receives a lot of people and has parallel talks, FUDCon should be well promoted in order to not be "shadowed".

Potential attendees and event approach
In order to organize the hackfests we intent to focus on groups of interest. For instance, group key people from Localization and Internationalization to hack together during the event, as well as infrastructure and packagers contributors. The idea is to bring in new contributors but also to create value for Fedora during FUDCon LATAM. Local community has at least 3 people from each area such L10N/I18N, infrastructure, and packaging who can help develop interesting hackfests.