LibreOffice Conference Asia
I have attended LibOCon Asia in late May, in Tokyo, Japan’s capital and largest city. I have been invited by conference organizers to keynote about the global community, and co-manage with Lothar Becker a business and certification track, and a certification session for several candidates from Japan and Indonesia.
After the conference, I have spent a few more days in Japan, to visit the historical cities of Kyoto and Nara, the two former capitals of the land of the rising sun. The two pictures on the left have been shot in Nara, and portray the bronze statue of Vairocana Buddha, measuring 14 metres, inside the Daibutsu-den, the largest wooden building in the world, of Tōdai-ji.
I have been a regular traveler for most of my life, since I visited nothern Italy with my family at age 6, in 1960. At that time, a simple trip from Rome to Bolzano was a true journey aboard a FIAT 500 Familiare (one of the first station wagons in history, with four seats and a small trunk for luggage).
When I have attended the Second OpenOffice Conference in Berlin, in 2004, I was 50. Although I had already attended, or organized, over 100 events and conferences over the previous 25 years, I discovered that FOSS conferences were different from “regular” business events, where you just speak and listen. On the contrary, at FOSS conferences you share your knowledge with others, and you usually get as much as you give.
LibOCOn Asia 2019 was a true learning experience, as much as OpenOffice Beijing Conference in 2008, COSCUP in Taiwan in 2017 and LibOCon Indonesia in 2018. Of course, all FOSS events I have attended in Europe and the Americas have also been learning experiences, but in some way limited – in term of amount of knowledge shared – by the fact that the cultural background is the same.
I am strill trying to “digest” the enormous amount of information I have gathered in 10 days, by being immersed in a different environment. You can expect another blog post on the same topic sometime in August, when I will have more time to write and express my thoughts and feelings.
For the time being, you can access several resources to get a feeling about LibOCOn Asia 2019 from people who attended the event traveling from other countries in Asia:
- Iwan Tahari (Indonesia), Trip to LibreOffice Asia Conference 2019 Tokyo
- Ahmad Haris (Indonesia), Journey to The Land of The Rising Sun
- DaeHyun Sung (Korea), My LibreOffice Asia Conference 2019
Videos of the talks are available on YouTube and SLAT PeerTube. You can also listen Ahmad Haris playing a guitar cover of A Whole New World, Aladdin’s Theme Song, with the guitar he bought in Tokyo.
