Update on upcoming OpenMRS events [Uganda 2016 and the World Summit]

Community Events
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Hello everyone,

Firstly, I apologize for the high volume of messages / activities around upcoming events, and any ambiguity that it may have caused.

This email contains some important information on upcoming OpenMRS events!

Last year, OpenMRS decided to investigate a model where we have multiple implementer driven meetings, as well as one regularly scheduled world summit to be held in Singapore in December each year. However, this year we’ve had multiple logistics issues with the venue and timing of the summit.

However, the Ugandan community is already working on putting together an event for September this year.

Over the past several weeks, we offered multiple opportunities for the community to provide feedback on these events. The general consensus from the community was that there is merit in the previous model which introduced implementers meetings and the world summit.

However, respondents also pointed out that:

  • Most implementers/orgs lack funding to attend two events each year
  • Many people feel that meeting at an implementer country is more fruitful
  • Since there’s just four months between Sept and Dec, meeting twice during this time may not be fruitful

And so, we’re poised to cancel this year’s summit and, instead, expand Uganda 2016 to cover some of the expectations placed on the summit. So basically, there will be no event in Singapore this year. Uganda 2016 will happen, but will be even bigger.

Currently, Uganda 2016 consists of four days of conference sessions running between the 6th to 9th Sept., followed by two days for a hackathon. The conference will include site visits, lightning talks etc.

Since we don’t want to extend the event to make it unbearably long, would the community be in favor of extending the event by just one day (5th Mon) and allowing the opportunity for multiple unconference slots/sessions between Mon - Friday?

Also, what are your opinions on tutorials? do we want to spend the 5th doing tutorials? is there adequate appetite for tutorials or demonstrations/presentation to be organized?

Please let us know what you think!

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I believe canceling the summit is the right course of action.

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One option is to let the “Uganda 2016” meeting be exactly as previously planned, but put a 2-day “Summit” either right before or right after it. So people might attend one or both of those.

If, instead, we’re planning to treat it as a single merged meeting, then I agree that going any longer than 5 days is a lot to ask.

(Since I’m flying a long way, and already missing the US holiday on Sep 5, I am personally indifferent to whether the additional day is the Monday or the Saturday.)

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@darius, personally, I’m very much in favor of just putting everything together, and considering it as one single merged meeting. But yes; anything over five days, and we’d probably at each others throats by day 6 :wink:

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…sorry to derail :slight_smile: – sense of humor keeps us all sane :smiley:

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Have we verified with the Ugandan event planning team that they would allow us to add on to their conference (either before or after)? Do they have limits on the number of attendees for their conference?

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Hi @janflowers, yes, the Ugandan Team (@jmpango) is more than willing to meet our needs. And the event venue is quite large, and could host very large numbers (i’m told that the auditorium seats a 1000). They suggested we add our agenda ahead of the ‘official’ start on Tuesday 5th, which makes sense.

However, we need to be mindful that this is their event, and make sure that anything that we do only adds to the value :slight_smile:

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Hi, just a reminder for everyone to provide feedback - speak now, or for ever hold your peace :slight_smile:

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I’m responding waaaaaaay late but I’m posting to suggest that information on the Uganda Implementers Meeting should explicitly mention that it is taking the place (or however you want to put that) of the Singapore conference. I was confused and thought that both were still going to happen.

Also, any chance that http://events.openmrs.org could get updated to have something useful again? That was an easy way to see what events are upcoming without having to comb through Talk posts.