RoboCon 2022: epilogue
It has now been a month since we had our beloved conference RoboCon 2022. This was the fifth annual conference and the first one as a hybrid with Helsinki onsite and online participants. We had 200+ participants onsite and 450+ participants online. In this blog I’ll go through a retro perspective of the conference and some insight into how it has been organized.
First, I want to thank all the participants, the organizers, the sponsors, the speakers and the Workshop organizers. We would not have had such a good conference without you!
Are you new with RoboCon and the Robot Framework Foundation? To begin with, Robot Framework Foundation (or association) is the entity that fosters the growth and development of the Open Source automation tool Robot Framework and its ecosystem and community. I’ll have a follow-up text regarding the Foundation later on.
RoboCon is organized by the Foundation and it is a conference where our community gathers together to meet one another and learn new things about the tool and the ecosystem and its usage.
An openings talk of the conference by Robot Framework Foundation. Picture by Cosmin Poieană
Review and rating
The 2022 conference was a huge success and we have received really good feedback overall. On a scale from 1 to 5 people reviewed* the conference with a rating of 4.5! Moreover, when asked about recommending the conference to a friend or colleague*, the rating on a scale from 1 to 10 was 9.1! The NPS is a whopping 68! Not too shabby either!
What made the conference a success then? It can be said that people were generally happy with the quality of the talks and almost all of them had favorable reviews. Another notable thing was meeting the community members onsite and online. Lastly, people were generally satisfied with the overall quality of the production and the level of professionalism.
People discussing with the event sponsors. Picture by Cosmin Poieană
The experience and the road to the conference
The conference experience started from the Workshops on Tuesday. In the Workshops people were able to choose from multiple options, such as Extending Robot Framework by the creator and the lead developer of Robot Framework Pekka Klärk. The Workshops are hands-on to its fullest meaning. Regardless of the topic, the instructor will coach you through the topic.
The second day of the conference was the Sprints. Despite the name, this does not mean running! In the Sprints the idea is that you can either start a new or contribute to an existing project in the Robot Framework ecosystem. It is also possible to continue with the topic from the Workshop to apply in practice what you just learned the day before to your own projects with the coach from the Workshop! This is what I call value for life!
The Sprints is a relaxed event, so it is also optimal for getting to know new people and meeting old acquaintances. After the Sprints there is usually the Sauna and some refreshments! Overall, the community time, mingling and meeting people is definitely one of the key aspects of the conference. Onsite it comes naturally, but also online we encourage people to be active and e-meet one another!
Thursday and Friday we had the main conference days. In practice, this means a keynote, eight full talks with a Q&A and five short lightning talks a day! The Keynote on the first day is usually a state of the union -type of talk, where we go through the major things that happened during the past year with the Foundation and the tool. The second keynote is usually not related to Robot Framework, but is a food for thought -kind of talk. This year we had Katri Saarikivi, a neuroscientist from University of Helsinki to talk about The neuroscience of learning, creativity and collaboration. A superb ending to the talks, she really energized the audience!
There are plenty of breaks during the conference days to mingle, enjoy delicious food onsite and meet the sponsors. If you are looking for a job or a partner to work with, this is a good opportunity to meet the people from our field.
The first conference day culminated in the “speaker/active” -dinner. Traditionally, we invite the onsite speakers for a dinner along with the organizing team members. The fastest from the community can also sign-up! This year we went to restaurant Savotta, which translates to a logging site. The atmosphere in the cellar was superb and the company even better in this oldest stone building in Helsinki where we shared the meal.
After the second conference day we had the legendary after party in the Vala office! As usual, there were some hot dogs and GTs. This was an excellent way to end the evening, although the bravest continued to the night of Helsinki till the first light. I am not sure if the online attendees had a blast after the conference, but at least the after party is one good reason to join the onsite event!
That is the conference is short. What about organizing it then?
Atmosphere at the RoboCon 2022 conference. Picture by Jani Haapala
Organizing the conference and a call for action
We had a great workgroup of five key people whom we met first bi-weekly and closer to the conference weekly. There was also paid help from Tapaus, which was the main organizer of the onsite side of the event. However, there was still plenty to do for the workgroup. A lot of bigger and smaller decisions like when to have the conference. We actually postponed the conference from January to May due to the pandemic. It was the best decision we made. That really saved us.
There was also plenty of hands-on work to do such as setting-up the web page and ticket shop, marketing, communication with all the relevant parties, and project management. Lastly, no conference is complete without some last minute hassle! Regardless, I want to thank the workgroup for good work and invite a new workgroup to organize the RoboCon 2023! Do contact me if you want to join!
Part of the organizing team on stage. Picture by Cosmin Poieană
Speaking of RoboCon 2023, we are currently thinking of having a pure onsite conference followed by a pure online conference! There could be a few weeks in between and some new talks in the latter. This way we could have the onsite participants joining online for the discussion and fun as well! Let me know what you think!
Yours truly,
Miikka Solmela
Executive Director, Robot Framework Foundation
P.S. Did you miss the conference? The RoboCon 2022 video tickets are now available.
More information about Robot Framework on our website.
*Based on the RoboCon 2022 Attendee Survey