Travel assistance applications to attend to GUADEC

Dear hackers,

The GNOME Foundation provides travel sponsorships to individuals that want to attend GUADEC and need financial assistance.

We are happy to announce the Travel Committee is ready to receive applications for sponsorships to attend to GUADEC 2010. This year, GUADEC is being held in the The Hague University, in The Hague, Netherlands, from Monday 26th July, until Friday 30th July.

The instructions are detailed at http://live.gnome.org/Travel. Please read them carefully.

Deadline: April 27, 2009, 19:00 UTC. You can start sending your applications now!

Surf, A Coruña

Some additional comments:

• Any information you send to the Travel Committee will be private. Asking for sponsorship does not guarantee you will get sponsored.
• A good application with good information will be processed faster.
• If you need help with accommodation, the Travel Committee will book the hotel or hostel for you. This enables us to get group rates and provide accommodation assistance to the most people possible.
  You should state that you need accommodation, and leave the cost blank.
• Always choose the most economical option whenever possible. People who need travel sponsorship, should look for the best price (i.e. through a service like kayak.com). If the Travel Committee finds a cheaper price, that will be the price considered during the evaluation.
• If you are applying to a Google Summer of Code program (as student or mentor) you should mention it in your application. Preference will be given to students and mentors participating in the Google Summer of Code or the Outreach Program for Women.
  GSoC students usually get a percentage of their GUADEC expenses covered.
• If you submitted an abstract to be presented at GUADEC, you should mention it in your application. Preference will be given to people giving presentations at GUADEC.
  The GUADEC paper committee will let the travel committee know which talks have been accepted, so as long as you let us know you submitted one, there is no need to follow up.
• The Travel committee should reply back about receiving your application within 2-3 days. After that we would accumulate all the sponsorship requests and process them together. So please do not panic (have any butterflies in your stomach) if we take some time to reply on the status. Affirmative/Negative you would surely get a response.
• No personal emails. Please keep travel-committee Cc’ed on all your replies.

You can find us in the #travel channel at irc.gnome.org.

Money hats (origami)

Syndicated 2010-04-13 01:49:54 from Germán Póo-Caamaño

Catalina, Moonlight Mask and GUADEC

Finally, the Travel Committee has replied to every request for sponsorship received (positives and negatives). So, if you have not received an email from us yet, do not hesitate in get in touch with us through the email or irc (#travel).

We have booked 16 apartments at Catalina Park, which looks nice, in a good location and still austere. We were told they will enable a special room for attendants to the conference. The process of booking took more time than expected, but thanks to Jorge Bustos and Chema Casanova (who gave us a hand from Spain) it was possible to accelerate it.

We tried to sponsor as much contributors as possible, however it was not possible to sponsor everybody.

At the end, we received 51 applications, 3 of them arrived a bit later and other 3 very later. We have assigned assistantship to 43 people (travel and/or accommodation).

Syndicated 2009-05-24 06:45:32 from Germán Póo-Caamaño

GUADEC’s sponsorships update

The Travel Committee is expected to reply every request for sponsorship in the next two weeks after the deadline. Because the original deadline was April 27, people who applied for sponsorship are worried because they do not have received any email coming from us yet (neither positive or negative).

Aserrín (Sawdust)

So, this is just an update of the GUADEC sponsorship process in order to let the people know in which part of the process we are. So, if you are waiting news from us, do not get nervous.

On Thursday 7, we replied to the sponsorship requests of the first group of people. This group was composed by people who have a work (talk) accepted to be presented at GUADEC. It was possible because it was a small group and we were sure we could cover their costs (mostly).

Besides, the Travel Committee is taking care of the accommodations. It let us to reduce and keep under control the costs, hence, we can support more people. And it will depend of the final place how many people we will be able to sponsor. We are delayed because the booking process has been slower than we expected. But we are working on it.

But I let you know we are prioritizing mainly as following: speakers (core, cross-desktop, normal, bof, lightning talk), foundation members, summer of code students, other people. There are other factors, such as, give the chance to people who were not sponsored the last year or people.

One thing is sure: if you were sponsored, you will not stay at Hotel Fataga. It is one of the most expensive hotels in the list and it is only our last resort.

Syndicated 2009-05-13 04:30:17 from Germán Póo-Caamaño

Status of GUADEC’s sponsorship requests

Panorama of Iguassu falls
The Travel Committee has received 48 sponsorship requests and we have started to processing them. It will be a bit hard, as you may guess and as you may deduce according the following tables:

General statitics

5	Females
43	Males
19	Speakers (not confirmed yet)
8	Google Summer of Code students
30	Members of GNOME Foundation
1	Applicant declined his request

Requests and funds (in US dollars)

Minimum requested:	$ 59,038.-
Maximum requested:	$ 61,101.-
Funds available for sponsoships:	$ 30,000.-

The amount requested should be a bit higher than it is shown in the second table, because we need to get some clarification from some people. However, I am confident we could save at least $ 9,000 if we look for a different lodging than the main one recommended by the organizers.

Sooner than later we should send emails asking for more information (when it were needed). We will do our best.

Syndicated 2009-05-04 03:15:25 from Germán Póo-Caamaño

Travel assistantships (after hours)

If you feel angry or disheartened because you missed the deadline to apply for sponsorship to attend to GUADEC 2009

the deadline has been extended in 72 hours. Applications will be received until April 30 19:00 UTC.

Read carefully the instructions and the proccess at the Travel’s page.

Syndicated 2009-04-27 20:32:27 from Germán Póo-Caamaño